We think that Molini Italy could be the BEST and HARDEST place to downhill mountain biking in all of Europe! What do you think? Is there a better place for MTB riding in Europe that combines super steep and gnarly trails with incredible long and fun days on the bike? Not to mention great small town vibe and classic delicious Italian food?
Hit us up if you found a place that’s better than Molini Italy, or that we need to test for ourselves.
Links from show:
Molini MTB Shuttle & Guiding https://www.molinimtb.com/
Where we stayed – Ristorante Albergo Santo Spirito https://maps.app.goo.gl/h8LyHRvZzCzq5DAW9
Eduardo Soto https://www.instagram.com/gua74/
Samuel Díaz Zorrilla https://www.instagram.com/sdz_82/
Pablo Lorente https://www.instagram.com/blologo/
Alden Pate https://www.instagram.com/alden_pate/
Elliot Jamieson https://www.instagram.com/elliotjamieson_/
Sven Martin https://www.instagram.com/svenmartinphoto/
Anna https://www.instagram.com/anna.vogt.50/
Jan https://www.instagram.com/jan.birkholzzz/
Franzi https://www.instagram.com/locherflocker/
Max https://www.instagram.com/maaaxrider/
Mel https://www.instagram.com/mel_laupr/
Nicole https://www.instagram.com/turboshopik/
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Timestamps
00:00 Start
01:02 Relaxing in Nice France
02:57 Getting to Molini Italy
04:15 Day 1 of MTB in Molini
35:29 Day 2 of MTB in Molini
55:39 Day 3 of MTB in Molini
01:26:42 Day 4 of MTB in Molini
01:40:21 Day 5 of MTB in Molini
This week, we’re pushing ourselves and our biking limits. Holy moly. And headed to one of the so-called hardest mountain biking destinations in the world, Molini, Italy. That was scary. Molini is a very small town nestled in the Alps. And very few people know this, but it’s considered to be one of the best places on planet Earth to ride your bike. So cool. So pretty. In this video, you’re going to see us take a chill week in Nice, eating, and relaxing as much as we can. I’m so happy. Then head to Molini, Italy for 5 days of super fun, super challenging mountain biking. In this video, we’re going to continue raiding the trails, ride some of the gnarliest trails we have literally ever ridden, bucking along, and try to survive a number of hard crashes. You’ll know exactly what it’s like to be in Molini. Join us on this adventure to see if Molini really is Europe’s hardest mountain bike destination. After an amazing week of biking in Madera, we washed our bikes and packed them up and were off to Nice. But it was not without complications. All right, we made it to Nice, the next stop on our European adventure. We got to the airport nice and early this morning. We got to the Tap Portugal Airlines desk, and the lady checking us in was like, “Do you have a reservation for your bicycles to fly?” And we were like, “Uh, oh no, no, we do not have a reservation for our bicycles to fly. What’s it going to be? Is it going to be our bikes?” So, apparently they wanted us to call and tell them that we were bringing bicycles with us. Maybe. So, we had to go over to a different ticketing counter. And yeah. Oh, they were so helpful. Here it comes. And then we got checked back in. Always the best feeling when the bicycles make it. Could have been a bad situation. Cool little Airbnb. So, we’ll do a little mini walk through. It’s super cute. It has everything we need. And we’re going to hang out here for a week so I can lay by the pool. And that’s all I want to do this week. And then we have more biking adventures to come, which is Molini. This is a rad. So, holy. Stay tuned and see what we’re up to and all the pastries that I eat. [Music] It’s so good. I’m so happy. Our time in Nice consisted of walking around town, visiting castles, parks, working out, and eating as much as we possibly could. Almond croissant, chocolate, a baguette, pan or chocolate. Our very French dinner, lemon dessert crepe that even I approved of. Finally found Joe some pizza after getting me all the pastries. After stuffing ourselves with all the food we could possibly eat in Nice, we hired Molini MTB to drive us and our bikes an hour and a half to our hotel in downtown Molini. The drive was spectacular to say the least and we were ready to get back on our bikes. All right, we have arrived at the next location. It is time to build some bikes. We are in Molini. Just got to the bike garage. Going to build up the bikes real fast. Woo. All right, we got settled into our hotel room here in Molini and we are just out for a little adventure. Trying to walk and film as we go up this little cobblestone street. Super cool. We’re just going to go explore. Kind of see what the little town is like. This just had like 10 mountain bikers just ripping down and jumping the stairs. stuff. It looks like we’re going to have a super awesome, really fun couple of days in store. Yeah. Yeah. This is awesome. So good. This town is super small. Very, very small. But it has that like really old European feel. Small. I think it’s going to be a really interesting, fun experience. Also, the hills around here are very steep, so I feel like Stay tuned. Here we go. First day of riding here in Molini. Walking down to the shop. We had a nice little Italian breakfast. Good coffee. Yeah. Thought the coffee was the highlight. Winter winner. It’s kind of cold this morning though. It’s a little chillier than we’ve been used to. Bikes are getting loaded up. They seem to have a very good attention to detail on the bike spacing. So, I love that. A little about me. I’m completely anal about bashing my bike up on the shuttle. I’ll bash it up on the trail and that’s fine, but not on the shuttle. We’ve got a huge group today cuz apparently there’s a guide out. So, we’re tagging together or staying together with an extra group. For our guiding and shuttling, we hired the same company that brought us to Molini, Molini MTV. On day one in Molini, we were riding five of the hardest trails we’ve ever ridden. Whoa. Yep. That’s a really tricky part. I couldn’t break. It was terrifying. Getting into some gurly stuff here, man. Ride one is a blue trail called Fantasy, which we’ve learned is one of the more flowy trails in Molini. Got lots of riders. Feels like chaos. Here we go. We got it. Flow in Molini is really determined by how good you are at moving over rocks and roots. All right, and we’re off. Little bit of chaos. The rain is just met some guys from the south of France. Looks like we got some roots. Maybe a little bit slippery. Well, nice thing is the bike feels pretty good right off the bat. Oh, for this trip I brought my Rebel Rail 29, which is 170 mm up front and 155 out the back. Slippery roots. Seems like the roots are a little bit more slippery here than what we’re used to. And the rocks, those are for sure. Woo! Riding over a trail like this is literally like dancing on your bike. And the better you dance, the more flow you have. That’s the roots. Fun, fun, fun. So, I love the uh fast starts. Everybody feels like they get excited and want to go fast. I love it. Oh, so good to be back on the bike, though. We took a whole week off. Did a pretty good job of keeping up with our workout. So, hopefully the grip doesn’t feel too bad this first couple days. That’s wishful thinking. Our hands and forearms are about to be toast. Seems like almost everyone around here wears body armor, which in the US I feel like you don’t see that unless you’re at a bike park. And I think it’s cool. As I mentioned in the last video series, we went out and bought body armor right after we got done with this trip. I mean, look how gnarly this stuff is. I love just having the bike running quiet like this. put a dab of grease on my seat post dropper so that it would stop knocking around and it seems to be working pretty good. I am a stickler for a quiet bike. All I want to hear is the tires rolling on the ground and if anything is rattling or clattering, I need to figure out what it is and or get rid of the bike. You get the feeling that these rocks, which are awesome looking, could be a little wet or slippery and wet. Hang around till the end to see just how right I was. Man, that check this out. This is so cool. The reason that we’re here in Molini is because Kevin, the CEO of Evil, told us that this was his all-time favorite ride. Yeah. In case you can’t tell, I am slipping and sliding all over the place right here. Just barely made it out. Yeah, that was great. We thought we were done, but it turns out we’d only finished the first section of Fantasy Trail. Compared to most shuttle rides that we’re used to, these trails are massive and take a toll. Wa! Roots, man. Roots. Trying to have confidence in what I’m hitting, but trying to push through that corner and the route that I didn’t see got me. The difficulty of these trails along with the shadows is just something else. Got to remember just it’s okay to not be the fastest. Just let your body warm up. This is a lesson that we learned over and over again on this trip. The European riders are just fast. Faster than what we’re used to. Look ahead, Joe. Come on. We also learned very quickly that the European riders come to Molini to train and get better at riding really, really hard stuff. And the trail’s not over. Just a quick break at the road crossing. These trails are so physical that the guides do a great job of giving us lots of little breaks to make sure that we have enough energy to keep going. Took a little break there and then we’re back at it. Apparently there’s a a jump or a big jump or some some feature up here. See what it looks like. There she is. Not too bad. There’s a jump that I’ll hit in a future video. And there’s Albi, owner of Molini MTV. Probably could hit that one next time. Quite a bit of exposure there on the right. And on the right again, woo, it’s just a drop off. This area is very wooded, but if you take a look off the side, there are some huge drop offs. Major exposure in here. Not really kind of steep stuff here. If you guys can’t tell, it is decently steep and nice switchbacks. At least that’s what I thought. Wait till you see the next trail. I didn’t know it at this point, but it turns out that this trail was a great warm-up for what we have coming up. And I’ve got to mention these stairs are super tricky. Just another quick false bottom and we are off to the last part of the fantasy trail. For anyone that doesn’t think that downhill riding is hard, listen to my breathing right now. Oh yeah. Most times our heart rates are higher on the downhill than the uphill. Okay, up ahead of me seems to like that technique gets faster when you hit the techy stuff. Good rider. A lot of fast riders, but we found in Europe so far being around really fast riders is great to a point. That point is when you run out of energy and you make mistakes because you’re trying so hard and working so hard to keep up with the fast riders. Ride one on the Fantasy Trail today was 2.8 miles, descent of 1900 ft, difficulty of only a 6 out of 10, and a fun of seven out of 10. Next up, lap two. We’re riding Tiara Rosa, which is a double black trail and is one of the hardest and most fun trails we’ve ever ridden. Here we go. You probably can’t tell, but this entrance right here is actually steeper than anything we rode on the last trail. Apparently, this one is a little harder than the last one. Have to see how she goes. Knowing what I know now, that statement is hilarious. It’s so much harder. Riding conditions are very nice. Another crazy steep section. Keep breathing. I have to remind myself to breathe because I sure do want to just hold my breath right here. Picking good lines is going to be important as always, but maybe not the same line as the person in front. Sometimes following a person’s line is a great idea, and other times it gets you into a lot of trouble. Yeah, these rocks are awesome. This trail is just relentless. Turns, steeps, and the turns are about to even get more sharp and more steep up ahead. Woo. It’s times like these that I’m so thankful to be running TRP brakes. They are phenomenal. Oh, nice. Yeah. By nice, I think I mean crazy steep. That was crazy steep. Hope Emily is having fun. Yeah, babe. Sure, she can handle any of that. No problem. Just kind of getting warmed up to this style of riding, I think. Trying not to go harder than you think you should. Oh, hand almost got thrown forward on the bars right there. What I mean is I almost shot my hand forward off of the bars completely. Yeah, this is awesome. So good. Turns out we let Emily’s brake rotors wear out. Not good for a trail like this. More about that later. Got to keep thinking ahead. Find a good line. This is rad. Holy crap. It’s hard to tell, but this is very, very steep. And you’re having to control your body while going down these turns. Hey, I can smell some burning brakes up here. Up in here. Those are absolutely burning brakes. If you haven’t heard me mention it before, we go through a set of front and rear brake pads on most of these weekl long trips. Some hard downhill riding for sure. This riding is physical. Woo! Back legs getting a little tired. Oh, nice. Really fast riders here. A lot of times we can leverage our high fitness level to work really hard and keep up with faster riders, but in a case like this, you just have to be so good on your bike, and it’s going to beat you up if your technique isn’t spot on. It’s one of those I really hope that your advanced fitness level will keep you going. This is so incredibly technical through here. It absolutely does not come through on the camera. Think we brought lots of brake pads. Oh yeah, this is so good. You hear me saying that a lot, I think. I know I keep mentioning how hard this is, but it’s actually my favorite type of riding. Well, with the exception of hitting jumps, but this is just fantastic. You’re just never off. You’re constantly having to move around and stay on your toes so that you can stay on the bike. Very good. Very good. So fun. As we get lower, the tech just gets gnarier, tighter, and steeper. Yep. That’s a really tricky part. I really wish there was like a grade meter or something so I could show you how steep this actually is. I take the turn, we can just go straight, I guess. Now, I’m starting to get tired. You can see it in the wobbliness of my tires. And it doesn’t help that the rocks are also bouncing my tires all over the place and forcing me to work even harder. Oh yeah. Through this section, it’s just full on. There’s so many obstacles, tight turns, steep stuff, loose stuff. You have to have so much brake control and awareness of where the trail is going just so that you can stay on the bike and keep moving forward. I would 100% be talking you through this section, but I am full on at my limit hinged right here. This is super steep. The rocks are gnarly. Woo! And it’s a little bit looser than you would think as well. Almost made it. I had to put his foot down. Tight one. This is a freaking long ass downhill. Tiarara Rosa is actually only two miles long, but it’s 2500 ft of descending. So, that is steep. Very technical. Just when I thought it couldn’t get even more hard, these turns got even more abrupt, even more steep, and the rocks and roots just haven’t let up. So, I’m having to work exceptionally hard through here after already being tired. This trail, man, it just keeps beating you up over and over again. But I gotta say, it’s so much fun. Yeah, boy. Yeah. That’s just I’ll be the guide making sure we’re still alive. Gonna need some more GoPro batteries if we keep having rides that are this long. Yeah, flattest part of this whole time. But the flat part was only a short reprieve. Now we’re getting right back into a little bit drier and still super duper steep stuff right through here. My brakes are hating me right now. So hot. Hey, look. There’s a few riders ahead of me. That’s not good. Now I’m going to try and catch them. So here we go. Trying to work even harder. Trail is not easy and I’m trying to catch some super fast riders. This could end badly. Really interesting to see my whoop data today. Like my heart rate must be just pinned. We ride our bikes a lot and we work out with weights a lot, but we were not prepared for the grip, hand, and forearm fatigue that these trails brought down upon us. It is quite impressive. Well, turns out Emily’s just getting some arm pump is causing her to have trouble using her front brake. And this is not a place you want to have trouble using the front brake, let me tell you. And we found out later on that it wasn’t only just her arm pump, but also that her rotor was well past needing to be replaced. Now, we are very clear that once that little dot on the rotor wears out, you need to replace the rotor. immediately. This actually seems like a cool down section on the Tiara Rosa Trail, and I usually wouldn’t like this, but for this trail, I think it’s actually pretty essential. I needed it. That’ll do it for the Tiara Rosa Trail. 2 m, 2500 ft of descending, a difficulty of 9 out of 10. It was gnarly, and a fun of 10 out of 10. This is one of the coolest, most fun trails I’ve ever ridden. I couldn’t break. It was terrifying. My my poor little finger couldn’t pull my front brake cuz I was just breaking with my back brake and I couldn’t stop. I just like ran myself off the trail to stop like five times. It got in my head a little bit. But we’re going to go eat lunch, rest my forearms. Hopefully they’ll feel better after lunch and I can have a little redemption. Super fun track though. I just wish I could have ridden it better. Drove way up the mountain. Now we’re at the top for the restaurant bar. Only in Europe can you drive to the top of a mountain where it feels like you’re in the middle of nowhere and get an amazing meal that’s better than anything you can find in the US. After a delicious but very cheesy lunch, we are off to ride a gnarly blue trail followed by a black with our stomachs full of pasta. All right, Joe back on the mic here. I’m guessing this is our final trail of the day. As you’ve seen, there’s been a lot of fun riding. A lot of hard stuff on that last one. That was pretty darn. Feel like I need a brake bleed. A very cool feature of TRP brakes is we can bring a lever bleed kit with us and do it in about 5 minutes. I also had a little bit of a issue with too much cheese. Oh no. It’s probably too much information for you, but that’s what happened. Something that I’ve grown to love about European trails is the turns. Most of these trails used to be hiking trails or still are hiking trails, and the turns are not set up for mountain bikes. So, you have to be much more precise and able to even do some front wheel pivots in order to get around them effectively. This is outstanding riding. Unbelievable. So good. Lots of great dirt rocks. They’re just super fun. Not too slippery. Also, I feel like my bike’s riding better than it’s been riding, you know, quite a while. I sure like this style riding. It’s probably some of my favorite throwing a few good jumps. And uh yeah, just to clarify what I was saying is that I love this style of riding and if you just could throw in a few big jumps, then it would be about the perfect riding that I could even imagine. But there’s not many jumps around here. Like this nice steep trunk here. Yep. This is steep. Another GoPro won’t show it, so I’ll let you know. These French riders, they’re good. Very good. They’re part of a trail building and riding club. And we don’t really have that too much in the United States that I know of at least. Maybe we just travel too much to realize that’s what’s going on. Time to shake it out before tackling the second half of this blue. Like I’ve been saying all day, this is very steep riding here. And I know the GoPro does not pick it up, but it’s steep. And these corners. Wow. That was catchy, guys. Took a foot off. Tire hit my butt. Every once in a while in Molen, you will find these little creek crossings with a hike a bike or a punchy climb. The rocks are slippery and the roots. Side hilling with a drop on the side and slippery rocks is actually the scariest part of this whole ride for me. Oh, kicked a rock. Oh, I felt like that last section was super flowy and great dirt. And this is slippery. That route just hooked my tire. Trail conditions change and I’m having trouble. But these French riders don’t seem phased at all. Kind of sliding around these guys. Thanks to all the uh Columbia and Ecuador riding. Sliding is riding. Woo. I am out of control and just dancing around sliding right here and a bit slippery. This is one of those crazy corners that we’re definitely going to get used to riding in Molini. They’re all over the place and you are just forced to get through them. Take the outside line. Yes, I take the rocky line. Try and run myself off the trail. Looks like we might have fun rocky descent here into a turn. So cool. Look at this. That’ll do it for ride three. 7.2 mi, 3600 ft of descent. We had a bit of a road ride at the end, difficulty of 6 out of 10, and fun of 7 out of 10. For ride four, we have a bit of a flowier blue trail, but it will be the start of me making my mistakes. Riding some punchy ups and kind of this lowgrade downs right now. I think this lack of steepness is actually lulling my brain into not riding very good. It’s trying to relax, but it’s going to cause me to make some mistakes if I don’t get it together. Got lucky there. Wasn’t looking ahead. Man, when you see those root bundles like that, they’re up kind of like on the sidehill. It’s just sketchy. And my eyes tend to go right towards them and then my tire goes towards them. So, you need to look where you want to go and not at the roots. Don’t look at the roots and then you look at the roots. Oh yes, just what you want at the end of the day. Nice and muddy. Stayed relatively clean the whole day. And then you get the mud at the end. On a high note, my drive seems to be running really well right now. Got a new chain on there. If you missed the last video in Madera, I got to experience riding some of the trail chainless cuz my chain broke for the first time. Break your chain, Joe. Oh, didn’t it didn’t last very long. Ride four was a little bit mellower with 3.5 m, 1,800 ft of descending, 5 out of 10 for difficulty, 6 out of 10 for fun, but we are going to amp it up right now. For ride five, we have a black trail, which is one of the gnarlier trails of the day, which when we’re feeling this tired, could end up in disaster. So, I was wrong. This is now what I perceive as the last trail of the day. It’s about 4:30 p.m. here. A lot of riding if you come ride these guys. Get your riding’s worth. And if you get to ride with some of these French riders, then get rid of good. spiders. This part of the trail isn’t easy, but it turns out that is by far the easiest part of the whole trail. Now, we just dropped into a section that looks a little bit lomier, but there’s a lot of sniper roots inside of this very nice looking dirt. And these roots will have you slipping and sliding when you didn’t even expect them to be there. and mix that up with some steeps like we have now. And you got to really be careful. Lots of roots. Getting steep and you got a lot of roots to deal with. Find your traction. Use it. Yeah, it’s fun. Great. Great trail. Feel the mud flying up hitting me in the back. Oh [ __ ] Oops. Right here, we’re mixing slipperiness with tiredness with wet rootiness with slippery muddiness. Slippery rocks. Yep. I love them. Oh jeez. [Laughter] So the guy ahead of me who just crashed when you looked down at his bike, his axle, rear axle was completely dislodged above the cassette. Never seen that happen before. And the bike seems to be working now because he’s took off. He’s out of here. And we haven’t even gotten to the hardest and gnarliest stuff yet. But here we go. Getting into some gly stuff here. Good thing I got that GoPro turned on. I almost didn’t get it turned on. Oh yeah. Jeez. Man, yeah. Did you lose the front? Yeah. Yeah. Oh man, that was bummer sauce. Definitely whacked my shin on something. Have a nice mark that maybe I’ll be able to edit into this video as I’m talking right now. Everything else feels fine though. I didn’t even twist the bars. You know, I really think it’s that flatter terrain that kind of lulls you into a non-attack mode. You let your guard down and before you know it, you’re on the ground. Just to get through these rags without crashes. That would be the best. This is fun though. Doing some. Yeah, we’re getting a little steeper. Kind of a warm up for what’s to come. That would have been fun to launch off. You knew what you’re getting yourself into. And now we’re rolling into the last super gnarly part of the ride. Nothing like some rocks in the roots. Yeah, these corners would be hard to walk around, let alone trying to ride your bike. You really got to get familiar with those nose pivots. Entering one of the gnarliest sections of the whole time here, actually. Super steep, super hard switchbacks to make. Fortunately, it’s not too slippery through here. You have some grip on the rocks, but the angles that you have to get your bike into are just crazy. And then you’re dropping in these little shoots. Wild stuff here. Yeah, that was some gnarly stuff right there. Holy moly. Sure. it will come up gnarly on the camera or not, but it was some technical gnarliness for sure. These guys are some good riders. That is absolutely for sure. Oh yeah. And now we be romping. Nice job. Thank you. You too. said that we’re starting to flow, but that did not look like a flow. I know flow down the rocks. I know. Where is the flow? And people have a weird definition of the flow. I mean, the truth is, if you’re a good enough rider, you can find flow in any condition. And this is getting way more flowy than it was at those rock sections, just a little bit higher up. Feel like this section is a retrieve for my brain from the super scary rock tech stuff that we’ve been riding all day. But it’s not so easy that my brain is lulling into that I’m going to crash mode. I don’t think. Phew. That was kind of cool. Hop over onto the rocks. Something that we’ve had to learn quickly on this trip is that Molini trails never let up. So, if you find yourself getting to relax, getting to enjoy some of the flow, you need to really be careful because it’s not going to last very long. Woo! Needed more speed for that. Wrapping up ride five, the last ride of the day. 4.1 m, 2,800 ft of descending, a difficulty of 9 out of 10. Those rock turns were terribly hard and a fun of eight out of 10. Many good day. Thank you for the show. That was fun. That was real. That might have been my favorite one of the day. None of these rides would be complete without a little cruise through town. After the ride, we showered up and headed downstairs to eat some dinner at the amazing hotel restaurant. Tableside parmesaning happening. The meals here were absolutely outstanding. Post meal. We’re eating beef cheeks tonight. Recovery beef cheeks. Anyone? It’s a thing. We’ll see you in our next video when we ride our biggest downhill day ever. Get to ride through a 14th century village. This is cool. And even try and break my bike. Ooh. Have a fantastic rest of your day and we’ll see you on the next video. Day two riding with Molini MTB. Yesterday’s video was intense. Oh jeez. I got a man. Make sure you go back and check that out if you didn’t check it out already. Bikes are ready to be loaded and we’re ready to get going here. Day two in Molini, Italy is going to be seven rides of the most downhill we’ve ever ridden. Getting steep. Oh, and here we go. On ride one, we’re starting out with a blue trail that rides more like a black. And a black trail, well, it rides like a black, too. But first, we’re going to check out this amazing view. Wow. It’s always nice to get started off with a nice, easy blue trail like Drago. But in Molini, even the blue trails aren’t nice and easy. This blue trail definitely rides like a black pretty much everywhere else. Keeping going on day two riding with guys from Michael. Thought we were going to ride with these guys yesterday. They were over in today and over the next few days. We’re riding with Eduardo, Sam, and Pablo from Mexico. These guys are great riders and going to be super fun to try and keep up with. Getting the warmed up. Arms are a little bit tired. Hands are pretty tired from yesterday. Only slept okay last night. Did a nice lever bleed after a ride yesterday. So hopefully the train got a little gnarly and caused me to lose my train of thought there. But we try and do lever bleeds after really long days or when our brakes start to feel a little bit mushy and they only take about 5 minutes and it makes the brakes feel awesome. So when we’re riding crazy terrain like this, I am super happy to have my brakes working well cuz this blue is definitely riding way more like a black. This is Sam of Bike Logistics. Super kind guy and really fast rider. Woo! Hands are feeling it today. Body getting in rhythm. After yesterday’s craziness, the hand fatigue is a 9 out of 10 right now and getting worse. I’m not sure if they’re going to make it all day. Got to keep breathing. Looking for the one. Confident. Legs. One of the biggest challenges on trips like this is getting warmed up fast because the trails are hard and only getting harder. Woo. So, as if Drago part one wasn’t hard enough, now we’re getting into part two, which is actually rated a black. That just means it’s about to get gnarlier, steeper, and even rockier than it was up above. And at this point, anything that’s steeper or rockier/bumpier is just making my hands hurt even more because I am gripping these bars way tighter than I should. And that’s what’s causing all this hand fatigue. I need to loosen up and relax a little bit. Something that is helping me out is I’m on my 170 fork and 155 shock rebel rail 29. Oh yeah, cool. Which is helping to smooth out these bumps much more than a smaller bike would. One thing about having this bike at 170 over 160 torque is that it’s definitely better at just rolling over things. That is for sure. And every time I think about getting a smaller bike as my one bike quiver killer, I come back to this kind of terrain. A smaller bike than this would just get absolutely demolished. Either that or I’d have to become a much better rider. At this point in the ride, I’m starting to feel a little bit more warmed up. You can see my body moving up and down with the train a little bit more than it was up above. And that causes my hands and grip to be able to relax a little bit and just have a more fun ride. Here we found one of the many ruins that spread throughout this Italian countryside. It’s just amazing the history and the age of things here. Structure down there. So different than the United States. Castle thing up here. Back to riding behind Eduardo and Sam. Something that I learned in my short time getting a ride with these guys is if I was able to keep them within my sights, that’s when I knew I was riding really, really good. At first, these guys would just be gone. They’re just that experienced and that good. Maybe this is why. And things just got steep and gnarly. You always can tell when you’re following a power line down a hill that things are going to get interesting. And this is definitely interesting. Steep and loose rocks here. Yeah. Tight tight tight corners. Trying to keep the feet from going down. Yeah. You good? Yeah. He did the like longer curve. went inside and he just stuck here from me. These turns are super tight and super rough. Either you plan them and hit them just perfectly. You have a nose pivot, or you just get so lucky that you make a turn. Ride one, 3.8 mi, 1,800 ft of descent, difficulty of 7, which is pretty darn hard for a first run, and a fun of seven out of 10. Just trying to get the arms into motion and feeling good. Yeah, I probably should put the pads on at lunch, maybe. Yeah, me too. Woo! Fun. Due to a GoPro malfunction, which unfortunately happened a few times on this trip, we’re skipping ride two and on to ride three. But it’s a fun one. We’re riding through Trioria and Molini. This is so cool. If you’ve never done an urban ride, you have to put it on your list. It is so fun to ride through the streets of a town when the occupants of the town are used to it and totally okay with it. It’s just like unlocking a puzzle and getting to ride in a way that you are not used to and it’s just so much fun. Urban riding after lunch. This is cool. I’m sure I’m going to post way more of this urban riding than I probably should because of the lack of fastpaced tempo that we have going on here. But I just love this stuff. This is amazing. the small streets. And you know what? The ground, the little mossy areas here are very slippery. So, it’s not super easy either. Woo! That was so neat. Now, we have some super tight switchbacks. Think hiking trails, not biking trails, before we shoot into the town of Molini and get to do our first ride right down the middle and just started to got Molini off to the left there. Very cool. So, my left hand to get with it doesn’t work that well right now. Going to need it though all the rest of the day. We’re going to take tomorrow off though. So, be a nice little hanging out. I’m underplaying this, but I can hardly grip the bars with my left hand. And now we’re cruising into Molini just before we’re going to hit another shuttle up the mountain and hope that my hands can make it through several more rides before we get to rest them up during our day off. Ride three, 3.5 mi, 2200 ft of descending. A difficulty of only 3 out of 10, but a fun of 8 out of 10. It is always so much fun to do some urban riding, especially in old towns like this. For ride four, we only had about a third of the way up the mountain for a flow trail that has some unexpected steeps. Just put on some new front brake pads. Trying to get them bedded in on the trail. Always fun. Can tell that they are not quite biting yet. All right, I feel like they’re starting to bite a little bit better. Have to adjust my lever pull just a little bit. get that bite where I would like it. After changing my brake pads, the levers are biting a little bit further away than what I’m used to. So, I’m adjusting that and trying to get it just perfect for a gnarly trail like this. Getting steep. Getting steep. Oh, yeah. Nice and steep. Oh yeah, brakes are feeling primo. That was pretty quick bed in process. It feels like a little jump. Usually when you’re beding in your brakes, you’re finding a parking lot and you’re riding downhill trying to bed them in nice and slowly per the manufacturer’s recommendations. But on a trip like this, you are betting them in on the trail and getting them working as fast as you possibly can because you never know what’s around the next corner. Ride four was only 1.5 mi, 900 ft of descending, a difficulty of 7 out of 10. There was a little bit of steep stuff and it was nice to have some flows. We’re giving it an eight out of 10 for fun. On ride five, we’re hitting one of the longer trails of the day with a mix of blue and black trails that have jumps, steeps, and everything in between. The fantasy trails replay from yesterday. But don’t worry, this time we’re riding it extra fast because we’re chasing these riders from Mexico. And you can tell the speed that I’m holding through here is much faster than I’ve ridden this whole trip. And it has me a little bit worried. This is the kind of pace that I want to keep when I’m pushing myself really hard to get better. But with how bad my hands have been feeling, I don’t know if it’s a good idea. But the truth is, I just can’t help myself. Riding like this, I’m going in between relaxing and tensing up. So, at any time, I’m worried that my hands could completely cramp up and shut me down. Take a look ahead at Sam there. He looks so smooth on his bike. Just popping, hopping around, and I’m like holding on for dear life here. That’ll do it for the fantasy trail. Now we’re on to Love Tunnel. And it is called Love Tunnel for a reason. You’ll see. We’ll start off by riding fast down some narrow, steep trail before we get into the real good stuff. All right, getting some steep. corners. They are loose and flat. Play the uh old skidding game. I know. I know. It’s not fair for the trail, but some of them are so steep and tight that you got to figure out how to get yourself in the right position. And it takes a little skiing sometimes and a lot of brake modulation. Yeah. Sticks are kind of placed precariously. Yeah. GoPro battery just died before that last trail got really steep. But it was cool. Super fun. I was just telling you how it was getting gnarly and steep and then it died on us. That was steep. Going between this feeling of letting the bike kind of do its own thing and playing around to like really steep and tightening up a little bit too much. That was cool. Welcome to the love [Music] tunnel. Wow. Really sweepy turns. A little bit slippery, but pretty good. Oh, didn’t have much of a choice on that one. That was cool. That section was so cool. Now we have some flowiness to get us to the end of the trail. Here we’re finishing up the love tunnel trail before we get back on fantasy and get another chance to hit that big old jump. Thug’s in my mouth. Oo, cased it. Didn’t want to get too much speed because rider in front was going around, but it was still good. Good to hit it. I’m actually not sure how my wheel is still rolling. Did you hear that? Oo. Oo. Now, back to our regular programming. That was a big hit. Oh well, things seem to still be working just fine. Tight steep turns. We rode this one on the first day, but I don’t really remember it. First trail we rode, I believe. It is really nice to reride trails because you kind of have some familiarity even if you don’t remember it that well, and you can push just a little bit harder, have a little bit more fun. Woo! This is Eduardo. Super nice guy. One of the faster riders I’ve ever ridden with and also very fun to talk bikes with. You were going around the jump and I was like, “Uhoh, I need to pump the brakes.” Case it hard. Ooh. I saw you and I said, “Let’s give it a go. I was too slow.” I did the same thing. I saw you and I was like, “Yeah, let’s try it.” And then I was too slow, but I stayed on my bike, so it’s okay. I was like, “Everybody’s doing it. I’ll try. Why not?” Famous last words. Now we do white panda. White panda. Turns out this ride isn’t over yet. We’ve got white panda coming up, which isn’t on trail forks. Steep, fast, and fun. Here we go. Says that this one is crazy good. So, I don’t know if that means super hard or just really good trail. Hard to say. Language barrier. Some pretty good root bundles, that’s for sure. Flat turns. Getting steep, steep, steep, steep. Tight turn. Steep. Oh, really steep. Yeah. Oh, that’s a flat turn. Steep. Holy moly. Yep. Very steep. Yeah, that’ll do it for ride five. Three miles, 2,000 ft of descending, difficulty of 8 out of 10. Those steeps were super steep and a fun of 9 out of 10. I always love to push myself on the really hard stuff. Unfortunately, amateur hour here. We messed up the GoPro and lost the footage for the last two rides. But it was an amazing day. So much downhill. And we’re going to be back for more after a quick rest day tomorrow. Ciao. Just finished up day two with Millennium TV. And it was perhaps one of the hardest descending days on a bike we’ve ever had. And by hard, I mean also one of the best days on a bike. Totally. It was. Woo. Super physical. Also, both of our forearms and hands are just this finger. They’re just trash. I’ve never felt this much fatigue and soreness from my elbows to my fingertips ever. But it was such an awesome day. The trails here are incredibly fun and challenging and varied and just a really like great time. I mean, I think we both talked about how we feel like there’s no way we could leave here and not be better riders. We’re going to have ridden so many downhill miles after we’ll be putting in 5 days of riding here. He booked us for 6 days and we’re like after 2 days we need a day off cuz we ride a lot and we’re very fit and we do a lot of pulling but our hands are destroyed. So that tells you how crazy it is. Like the only thing that’s close I think is if you’re like used to riding um lift access bike park laps all the time. Yeah. It’s so much descending. I mean, it is just crazy like the amount that you’re losing and the miles that we’re doing this trip. Uh I mean, in Madera, we did really big days and here we’re doing really big days and it’s awesome, but man, it takes a toll on the body. Yeah. And we’re I’m sure we’re undereating calories. It’s kind of hard to get the kind of calories that we want. You know, you get thrown into these little town environments. And we had so much cheese yesterday that it was like our diet was like bread and cheese and protein powder cuz we brought that. So we probably hit our protein goals, but still I would guess 1,000 calories under or something. Anyway, we’re going to be riding way more here. So if you like this video, hit the like button. And if you like our videos in general, hit subscribe because I know that YouTube keeps showing you videos from us, even if you hit subscribe, but it helps out our channel a ton. So, just head over, hit that subscribe button, and it will help us out. So, we appreciate you watching. If you want to know any more about this trip for yourself, I have all the links down in the description or you could leave us a comment if you had any specific questions about the trip. I’m not sure that I’d recommend it to beginners, uh, and maybe even not intermediates, although you could probably get by being intermediate and you’re going to get a lot better. Uh, most of the mountain bikers we’ve ridden with so far are advanced. No, expert. Expert level. There you have it. Thanks for watching. We’ll see you on the next video. We’re going to go eat two desserts. Have a fantastic [Music] day. [Music] cappuccinos to start. Day three of riding here in Molini after a day off. Found the perfect swimming hole. So, it’s an icy dip. On our day off, we hiked up from Molini to Trioria. Just stupid pretty. It is just outstanding here. Like, wow. Unreal. We came back from our pizza dinner around the corner. There’s a bird in our room cuz we left our balcony doors there open. Little bird. I still feel pretty wrecked. Hands are still hurting and uh shoulder is rocked from I think from maybe sleeping bad. So, we got three more days here. Got a rally. I think we can do it. Riding is just so good. We should be in for a fun ride today. Potentially to the coast. So stay tuned. On day three in Molini, Italy, we are doing three rides covering over 24 miles on the scariest trails we’ve ridden yet. These trails are no joke. After a short drive up the mountain, we were ready to go. But first, pre-ride coffee stop. So many clouds today. Ride one has us starting off on a nice slippery blue and then dropping into a nearly unridable black. Yes. Okay, day three. Getting going. Just trying to get things warmed up here. These trail conditions look prime, but don’t let that fool you. Check out the micro slides happening at my front tire. A little bit slippery from the rain we got yesterday, oh yeah, that was slippery. Something that we learned quickly on this trip was that it’s important to have a super grippy knobbyby tire for these types of conditions. I’m not sure that we chose right. Trying to find the grippy spots. This tire is a little bit faster rolling, but getting a full T9 would have been the better choice for grip. Very muddy. Feel the uh mud hitting my butt. Possibly the hardest thing about these conditions are that the dirt looks really good, but you hit one of these patches that has a little bit more moisture in it and you’re just sliding around way more than you anticipated. It’s causing me to tighten up. I should be warming up, getting loose, getting ready for the super gnarly stuff that is to come. If you look up ahead, you’ll see an example of just how slippery it is. These conditions have some potential for carnage today. This section is very much ridable and I believe a couple of the riders actually did ride it. But we are not interested in bashing up our bikes just to ride a little 10 m section of trail. Mostly because we’re going to bash up our bikes on things like this anyway. It’s inevitable. Today I’m riding behind Sam again just like I did yesterday. Check out this section that he rides. This is so slippery and there’s no way that I’m going to attempt this. It’s always a challenge to try and manage your expectations versus reality on trips like this. Could I have ridden that? Maybe. Probably. But should I ride it? I’m not a professional mountain biker, so the answer is usually no. Better walking. Yes. Whoa. I fell when I walked. Got the slippery rocks today. Having good balance on your bike is so important during conditions like this. Something that I found to help me is doing a lot of track stand practice. It’s not perfect, but it definitely helps. [Music] Not sure y’all watched the first video, but pretty sure I rode all that last time and it was slippery, but not like this slippery. Just that little bit of rain makes such a difference here in Molini. If we were back in the PNW, then this would be super prime. We have to ride in the rain and the rain actually makes the trails become more tacky. So, it’s just so much different. Like my body isn’t warmed up yet. It uh wiggles out a little bit. Yeah. Here’s the thing. Just like anything else, if you ride a lot in these conditions, you get way more comfortable at it. You get way better at it. And the example is just the riders in front of me. These guys are absolutely ripping. They’re not feeling as uncomfortable as I am. And they’re just having a great time. So, what’s that mean? I need to ride more in conditions like this that are super slippery. No breaking on the rocks. Oh man. Where are the roots? My hands are feeling good so far. They were pretty sore yesterday. Actually, very sore is more accurate. The last couple of days, our hands and forearms were totally fried. My my poor little finger couldn’t pull my front brake. After a day off, it’s really nice to have those feeling a little bit better. Hoping that as we get lower, we get to drier sections and then that will play into more grip. Fantastic. These rocks are actually more slippery than the roots in the wet. It is just so scary. You have zero grip. Yeah. All right. What I’m feeling right now is a combination of survival mode and fun. And I keep going back and forth between the two. It’s like I build up a little bit of confidence and then I get out of control and survival mode kicks in again. We loaded up on calories last night. Have some salads at one spot and then pizza at another spot. All really good. Basically a double dinner. Trying to get ready for the day. Some recovery. Taking a bunch of extra protein and perfect. Holy. That was slippery. That was scary. That was the rock you said to go up on that don’t break and I don’t feel like it broke. But just slid right down. Probably cuz I wasn’t high enough. Oh man, I got no shame in my take the foot off the pedal game right now. You couldn’t see it, but taking my foot off the pedal was what saved me on that slippery rock. Got a long day of riding and just getting started. Pick smart lines. Sometimes picking smart lines is easier said than done. And the lines that are smart are sometimes different in the wet. Oh man, I slipped so hard on that rock. Holy. Sounds like everybody’s having their hands get worked and having rocks feel incredibly slippery. So, it’s not just unique. Emily had two falls, she said. Oh, we saw molten people go down in the section. That was slippery, but made it through. Oh jeez. Stay in the rut and then mob through the water so you don’t slip. Hopefully don’t get too wet. These forests are so pretty. Rubber seems to be the anti-grich for these rocks. I don’t think my shoes got too wet cuz I splashed and dashed. That’ll do it for ride one. 7.1 mi, 3,000 ft of descending, a difficulty of 10 out of 10. Some of those sections were ridable, but so gnarly, and a funnest 7 out of 10. Gnarliness is fun when you have the right mindset. For ride two, we are starting out on a black trail that is arguably harder than what we’ve ridden so far, and then get a mellow blue to cruise out the rest of the way. So, we rode this one before and it was cool, but it was very tight. Switchback tracks. Definitely walked a few of them. We’ll see how how it does. If it’s a little slippery here or if the dirt ends up playing nice, drying out a little bit, that would be fantastic. This is so steep. Yeah, not right now. Not to mention that drop off on the right is severe. You would have to catch a tree on your way down if you fell off that ledge. Had to balance on that tree real quick. I just feel like so much more slippery than last time. I’m going to take it easy. be smart. That’s another spot where balance practice helped out big time. Oh yeah, dry it out, son. There you go. My max heart rate was relatively low on this trail, but it stayed above 120 for almost the whole trail. Hands are feeling pretty good. That’s a positive. Seeing this dirt dry out does so much for my confidence. Unfortunately, it’s pretty shortlived. We finally made it to the blue trail, but unfortunately once you get into these shadows, the trail just gets slippery all over again. Maybe not talking so much cuz I’m trying to stay on my game. Couldn’t see that, but that little rock was like the edge there. Didn’t look like it, but it was. Hey, beautiful. Now we’re starting the tight turn. Wish I had a nose pivot part of the trail. If you can pivot on your front tire, you can make these turns pretty much easy. But conversely, if you don’t, they are extremely hard. Jeez. These have got to be some of the steepest switchbacks I have ever ridden. and today they are a little bit wet. So what that means is that brake modulation is incredibly important. Trying to keep your speed down but still in control so you’re not slipping and then also using your feet like this so that you can get around these turns safely. This is one of the reasons why we recommend that so many people come to Molini if they want to improve their riding and why you probably see so many pro riders coming here to train. just not quite feeling getting warmed up. So, although our last day of riding took me half the day to start feeling like I was riding well. So, I’m going to expect to just get more warmed up throughout the day. like to try and do some of those pivots on these corners, but haven’t been able to wrap my head around it yet. I think what happens is I get really tired. And then when I get tired, I relax. And when I relax, I ride way better. Yeah. Oh, nice riding. How was it? It was okay. Just when you think the blue trail is about to or has to be letting up on you a little bit, Moly just slaps you in the face and reminds you that a blue trail here is more like a black or a double black in most other places. Oh, come on, buddy. Not looking where I need to be looking or where I want to be going. You might be amazed at how much your riding will improve if you just look at where you’re going and not where you are. It is absolutely amazing and a super hack. Guess what? We have some more super tight, slippery turns. Check out that drop on the right side. That’s constantly in the back of your head when you’re riding on these trails, and it could actually be pretty distracting. You want to ride well, but there’s a cliff there that you might fall off if you lose control of your bike. Thanks. Had a little hop off the bike moment right there. Everything intact. Talk about downplaying it. Look at this. My front tire stops moving and I actually have to hop over the bars in order to regain my balance. I wish I had my 360 camera on for this one. Talk about an adrenaline dump. I am shaking right now and it just keeps coming at us. There’s a really tight one. Okay, nice. Yeah, no thank you. I’ve seen people make this corner. You literally have to hop turn around the whole thing to make the turn. These are those situations where you question if having a bike of this size is beneficial or not. If you had a smaller bike, meaning less suspension, more nimble, you would have an easier time getting around these corners because these bigger bikes are also longer. But longer is usually more slack, which feels safer. Jeez. Not riding too good right now. I’ve finally come to my senses and decided that it’s not worth it to try and ride these corners. Oh man, this is nasty. Yeah, people can actually ride these and it is a thing of beauty, but it’s definitely not for me today. Oh, it’s so pretty. Ride two was 4.2 mi, 3,300 ft of descending, difficulty of 10 out of 10, and a fun of 6 out of 10. It would be way more fun if you could ride those crazy turns. Lunch time. Only the Italians can make some random meat and pasta taste delicious. Ride three has us going on and off Trail Forks trails with some blues and definitely some blacks on some pretty darn sketchy stuff to get down to the sea. Nothing like a post pasta lunch pedal up a hill. Pasta power. Look at this cool old church up here. Big like a mansion that’s not finished. And we should be starting our mountain down to the sea ride now. which should be pretty cool. That pasta, it’s really sitting with me right now. Nice little stairs to start. Post lunch stairs. Nothing like shaking the pasta loose. Going mountains into San Ramo to the sea. Definitely feeling like the rest day yesterday was the right choice. I feel a lot better today in my arms and hands. Still a little bit tired, but not nearly as fatigued as day two. So, hear that it’s going to get quite rocky and technical at some point on this trail. Speaking of, here come the technical rocks with a little bit of slippery dirt and it’s only going to get better from here. You obviously slipped. That’s technical. We got Walter, one of our drivers/ rippers up here. 65 years young, crushing it on his ebike. Crushing it is no joke. Walter is a sender. This guy could ride a bike. Sharp but manageable. Held my breath for sure. These corners are definitely easier than the ones we had earlier, which can get you into a little bit of trouble cuz you want to try them. Hopefully you guys can see the cool view. I am not looking. Sorry. Definitely better at turning one direction versus the other, especially when it’s sharp. See, left hand turns are better. It’s the right hand turns for me. Can’t get those ones. Definitely not ripping through here. Pretty slow speeds on those corners, but at least I’m making some of them. It’s more enjoyable. It’s always nicer when you are on a trail where you feel like you can try. And Molini trails definitely have it all. They’re going to give you opportunities to try, try, and try again until you figure it out. The nice thing about these turns is you can see the dirt has dried out quite a bit. So, they’re not that slippery. It’s just about taking the right angle or having to hop or pivot your way around. Super slow through there. Get on my bike. This tree is in a very bad place for the corner. Let’s go. Rocky tech into ripping up pasta. Dirt is changing. Trees are changing. Trying to take me out. I thought I was going to get closlin lined off my bike by that tree. It was a uh bigger branch than I was ready for. Mud. mud puddles. Ooh. Oh, steep on the other side. This roller at the top is super sketchy. So sketchy that I was not willing to do it. Eduardo rocked it and made it look smooth. And Pablo and I were willing to tackle this lower part. Now we’re getting into a much more flowy bike parkesque area with jumps, drops, still some roots, and some slippery dirt, but it is a much more quote unquote fun section of trail. This is the kind of trail where Emily really thrives. She loves jumping and dropping and hitting the steep stuff. If there’s one thing that Molini doesn’t have a lot of, it’s jumps and drops. So, this is kind of like a fun break from the normal straight down tight turns. Let’s look. Oh, it’s like a rock roll into a corner. It’s always a smart move to take a look at features before you’re going to hit them. We do this all the time, but it doesn’t always show up on camera. A lot of times you only see us hitting the thing and you think, “Oh, we just went right into it.” But that’s not the case. Woo! That’s more like it. That’s fun. Now the trail opens up just a little bit and stays a little bit more flat. But we are about to get right back into the Molini steeps, slipperies, rocks, and roots. Here we go. These forests are really interesting because some of them will dry out the dirt really quickly and others will hold dirt for a long time. Now, we’re getting into a little bit of rut riding, which fortunately we’re fairly familiar with, having ridden a lot in South America, but this can be treacherous because your tire wants to go only where the rut is. Beautiful. Slippery, but fun. We’re lucky. It’s interesting. Rut riding is actually a lot like snowboarding on a non-powder day where the bike is moving under you in a way that you have to balance and let it kind of move and adjust to that movement. And once you can do that, then you can start riding pretty fast and it gets fun. Just going sideways around some of the corners. Got a lot of rain here. outside line less slippery. Oh, not that it matters. Then we just get so slippery. Riding these wet conditions takes so much concentration. You’re just fighting to stay loose. We’re in the jumps. I like the jumpy section. Fortunately, this section isn’t too steep, but it’s not going to stay that way for long. Despite being a little bit slippery, this is a great area of trail to really work on your line choice and try and carry speed through these rocks, a little bit of chunk and not so tight corners. The truth is, if you can just keep yourself really relaxed, like I mentioned earlier, and move your body around the bike, this can be a really fun section of trail to ride. Much better than the super stuff for me. pretty getting closer to the sea. And fortunately or unfortunately, that means things are going to have to get pretty steep to get us down towards the water. Here we go. This is getting steep right here. Rock rolls and everything. This takes full concentration in order to stay on your bike and make it down safely. can be really fun, but full concentration for sure. [Music] Woo! That was fun. A little bit steeper, more technical. Oh! Oh, I stopped too soon. Some of these things, if we would just roll without stopping into them, would be a little more helpful for me. Stop and starting is pretty hard to keep a flow and rhythm, especially in technical stuff. It’s so true. If the guide has confidence, you can just roll in behind him. And it keeps your flowing rhythm so much better. Much easier to just keep going, figure it out. Super cool in here, though. Now we’re getting into this really cool bob [ __ ] section of trail. And the other thing is that even though the dirt looks slippery, there’s way more grip than what we are used to up above. The rocks, they’re still pretty slippery, but you can have more confidence hitting these corners with the dirt and knowing that your tires are not just going to slide out from underneath you. This is actually our favorite section of the whole day. It’s a great mix of steeps, not too tight turns, grippy enough dirt, and rock rolls that are just super fun to try and choose good lines on. And then we end at the sea. So cool. But first, we’ve got some serious gnarliness to finish off. That’s [Music] fun. Got kicked on that one a little bit. Foot came off the pedal. Looks like I wasn’t the first person to do it, though. There’s big soft spot on the left side of the trail. Open up the corners a little bit more. That was fun. Know how I feel about the wire sticking up. They put some wire fencing down on the trail, which actually is a great idea to give you a little bit extra traction on the sketchier areas. Oh gosh, grip’s starting to go. Starting to lose grip in the gnarliest section of trail of the whole day. Not a good thing. Who needs grip just to break or ride erratically? This looks like super sketchy wood, but there’s actually chicken wire on top of it, so it’s not too bad. Bouncy. Woo. That’s fun. It’s super fun when you can make it down this tough in one piece. Not falling off your bike and breaking yourself or your bike. Not slip. By not slip, she means not fall off her bike. She’s definitely going to slip. We all slip. That was fun. I like that. I like that a lot. That was really fun. All right, we finished up the single track. And we are headed down into the town of Sanmo to the sea. We get a ride through the town. A little urban downhill again. There’s the sea. It’s so pretty. You can see the old phonicular towers down there with the like the yellow. Super cool. Urban downhill. Woo. Mountain to the sea. And some nice smelling jasmine along the way. or not. Fun stairs. Clear it. Clear it. Angry dog. That was a Ford Puma. Cool houses. Look at that. So cool. So beautiful. All the way down the coast. Olive trees on the right. Bombing through the neighborhood. Going to the beach. Woo. Riding stairs is super fun, but you have to be able to let your arms relax. Otherwise, it will just shake you to death. And the Sam Pilgrim would say set of doomsayers or [Music] whatever. This is This is cool. True urban downhill. Ciaoy. And we’re in the city. Where did all these people come from? And Remoy. Ah, bike path. Thank goodness. And there’s the scene. Pretty cool place. They’re way up high. Let’s see how much descending we did. Go, go, go, go. Not quite. You can do it to the beach. And that’ll do it for ride three and the day. A whopping 13.2 mi, 2,700 ft of descending, a difficulty of 8 out of 10. There were some gnarly spots up there, and a fun of 9 out of 10. We really enjoyed the last ride. Finishing the ride with a dip in the sea. After a ride back to Molini, it was to our hotel restaurant for some amazing food to fuel up for the next day. Stay tuned for our next video where we get to ride with some professional mountain bike racers and ride one of the most beautiful trails we’ve ever seen. If you like these videos, please hit that thumbs up button and consider subscribing. We’ll see you on the next video and have yourself a fantastic rest of your day. We are kitted up and ready to go with a special group of riders today. But before I tell you who we’re riding with, we got to get the bikes in the van. It’s going to fit. Come on. Oh, so close. Day four in Molini, Italy. We’ve got one ride, but it might be the most epic ride we’ve ever done. We’ve got a bit of a crazy traverse and then dropping into amazing black trail with even better views. Let me elaborate. We drove way up the mountain to this non-existent trail that is actually a trail to get to the black. Oh yeah. Right on the edge there. The vulture sitting on the top of the rock. Must be huge. There’s something else on the left. Another one. Yeah, there’s two. He’s coming for us. He smells something. These are most likely Griffin vultures. Well, there’s a bunch of them. They can have a wingspan of over 3 m and are said to help recycle the carcasses of wild and domesticated herbivores. Wow, that’s cool. Not a bad traverse view here. So cool. Getting day four started on the bike here in Molini. Got some adventure biking today. Get a lot of water to get that tree down. When we’re on backcountry rides, it’s actually not that uncommon to run into hiker bikes just like this. All right, for today’s crew, we’ve got Eduardo, Sam, and Pablo from Mexico, who we’ve been with the last couple of days, and our absolute rippers. They were riding with Elliot and Allan, pro riders from the Common Solo team. Legendary photographers Sven Martin and Albi from Molini MTV. A crazy crew. Incredible. That’s so cool. So, we’ve got this worldass crew and worldass views. These are some of the best we’ve ever seen on a bike. Elliot and Alvin take the gnarly dropin line. And then Sven shows off the goods and that he’s not only a photographer, but can ride a bike. To say the least, I am a little bit intimidated today. Here we go. Something that is actually nice about today is we got to pedal quite a bit in warm up before we dropped in. professionals with the free ride drop lines. Of course, we’re just out here trying to survive. Push up there. It was clear right off the bat how fast these riders were. They were gone. There was no keeping up with them. Not even close. It was just riding our own ride back here. I think this is the third river crossing. Hoping to warm up a little faster today. Just pedaling up this amazing mountain here. Well, not really up, more like traversing. It is outstanding. Yeah, our fearless sweater and guide Albby. We’re going to grab one last great view before we drop in and can’t look at anything but our front tire. Yeah, I think they’re off. Here we go. All that climbing and traversing led to this and we are dropping in right now. Maybe the first downhill push. Here we go. Doesn’t look like it, but this is an incredibly rocky and chunky start to our downhill ride. And these guys in front of me are taking off. Yeah, this is a perfect example of where having a big old enduro bike like this Rebel Rail I am riding is absolutely essential. Having all that travel really smooths out or helps to smooth out the trail when it gets crazy and chunky like this. Also, can we talk about the views real quick here? Holy smokes. I’m not seeing them at all on the bike, but they are outstanding. We really didn’t have much expectation of what this trail was going to be like. And that top part was a little more chunky than we expected. And this next part is a lot more chunky. Oh man. Don’t look up, but do look up if you’re watching the video. So cool. So pretty. This is where you just need to really check yourself and not try and keep up with these riders. But check out this trail. I’ve already mentioned how chunky it is. But look at how small that little line is that you’re trying to ride or put your front and rear tire. It is super narrow and makes you feel like you’re riding a skinny at speed. So amazing. It’s right through here where I start to build a little bit of confidence, which actually ends up backfiring on me. Because of the confidence, I’m trying to speed up. And when I’m speeding up through here, I actually lose my line a couple of times. And it scares me quite a bit. And it’s never good when you’re riding fast down gnarly terrain and you get a little bit scared. Fast riding over gnarly rocks like this is a recipe for disaster. And Spven had that happen. He actually broke his wheel. Oh, that was awesome. I knew I had two of those today. You jumped those rocks. Yeah. So cool. A rare time when I’m getting to ride behind Emily on this trip. We just had so many malfunctions with our cameras and the speed of the riders had us not riding together all that much. So, this is actually really cool. Just a quick break before we hop into the next more technical switchbacky section. Thank you. This trail just offers so much. We had the traverse, some pedaling, the rocks, and fast chunk up top. Now we’re dropping into some more switchbacks and this tall grass, which is a problem for me because of how narrow it is. The GoPro really sucks in these situations. I’m feeling super uncomfortable because of how narrow this is. And the drop on the right side is actually legit. You see the bushes, but you do not want to know what is beyond those bushes. It just keeps on going down. Keep catching the pedal on the left side and it throws me off. When you catch a pedal, it’s actually really scary because it jolts your bike out of control. And in a situation like this, you do not want to be out of control. God dang. Oh man, my confidence is suffering right now. We’ve got these really fast riders. They’re not slowing down at all. As the trail gets more and more gnarly like this, and I would really like to keep up, but I just keep making mistakes and it’s piling up. It’s not a recipe for success. At this point, I’m just thinking, man, can I make it down this whole trail in one piece? I don’t know. This trail is just tossing me around. I’m getting out of control. Can be really hard to figure out where your limits are when you’re mountain biking like this. Especially when you’re with super fast riders. We’ve been riding for 4 days now here on some of these trails that are harder than anything we’ve ridden before. And we’re still trying to go at 100%. FYI, this just got super steep. That is so sick. Rocks are amazing. Burns are a little bit tough. Positive selft talk is a tactic that I’ll use to keep myself from getting into a dark place. It actually really helps. That’s another bike down. We’ve had one broken wheel and one busted up derailer. When you’re riding trails like this, you never know what’s going to happen. All kinds of things on your bike are in harm’s way. This section is super steep and gnarly and rocky, but I’ve got to say, it’s really nice when you don’t have a cliff that you would fall off if you make a mistake. Woo! [Music] Yeah. Oh, man. So cool. Sometimes you look at it and it’s just not worth it. And that’s totally [Applause] fine. It’s amazing that this is only rated a black. This would be double black in most other trail systems, but a nose pivot is required. Yep, double black for sure. This section keeps tricking us with a little bit of flow and then throws us right back into gnarly rocks. Here you can see the trail exit, but you just got to make it to the end. Nice one. Yeah, it’s fun. Yeah, the rain has found us here. We thought we were done, but we still have to make it down the last part of the black in the rain. And check this out. The trail is now more overgrown. We’ve got rocks, roots, and grass. All right, riding behind Emily for maybe the first time on this trip or second time. See if I can catch her. But she was riding fast. Was super techy stuff. Super impressive. Oh man, those branches. I don’t have my goggles on cuz it’s raining. They got all wet and fogged up. But now the branches are hanging down, hitting me in the face. This is sketchy. Just as the sky is starting to open up and rain falling down, we have to finish this last part through the town and overgrown trail to get back into Molini. Woo! Oh, slippery. The rocks are super slippery. I am riding so slow through here because it feels like my front tire is going to break loose on these rocks at any moment. But dang, this is so cool. Even with the rain, it is amazing to ride through these old towns. This trail just keeps having false endings. And this part gets us into some super tight switchbacks with rocks underneath grass and it’s all wet. So you got wet grass on top of wet rocks. It is so slippery through here. Oh jeez. Traffic jam. That’s one of those special Italian things. Even on the GoPro, you can see how steep and tight these corners are. What that tells you is that they are even more steep and tight than how they look. It’s just another one of those times that I wish I had mastered a nose piping. It would make these so much more fun and faster. You good? Sticker bush tried to foil my plans. Well, I had one or two nice turns. And I’ve never been on a trip where I got left behind so much as this trip. I mean, it’s pretty cool to be with riders that are this good. I just want to be able to ride better, better, and better. That’ll do it for this epic ride. 9.4 miles, 3,000 ft of descending. difficulty of 8 out of 10, a fun of 10 out of 10. Even though I didn’t ride my best today, that trail was fantastic and I’d highly recommend it to anyone and hopefully get to do it again. Back to Mini. We did get out on one more short ride today, but the rain rained us out. So, that’ll do it for today. End of day bike washing. Super sticky cow on the bike today. Sorry folks. In the next video, we have our last day in Molini and it is a awesome day. Quite steep. We meet some new cool people that we end up riding with in the future. Woo! Hit some new super fun and super sketchy trails. And we can’t wait to show it to you. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day. Phew. Woo! Yeah. Bucking along. Load them on up. Day five, Molini, Italy. Six rides on the most fun and diverse trails we’ve ridden yet. We’ve got 20.02 mi coming at you on all kinds of amazing terrain. Quite steep, muddy, and slippery. Not quite as fast as Red Bull, but ride one has us warming up on a blue trail that rides like a black and then getting onto a gnarly black trail called Fast at 40. And we’re off. Last day here. Need to try to not keep up with Yan up ahead. He’s fast from Germany. on these corners. My rear end is just sliding around. Thank goodness for the traction on the front. Nice tight corners to get warmed up on. Still bedding in the rear brakes. At least it looks a little bit drier out here today. So far, it’s pretty nice. It was wet yesterday. Oh, I have to wake up. as has been the case for every single day here in Molini. We’re riding behind some of the fastest riders we’ve ever ridden behind. So, today I’m trying to keep up with Yan and he is just an absolute ripper. I can keep up with him for a little while and then his skill just sends him flying way into the horizon. In fact, if you look really closely at how Yan moves on his bike, it’s almost like a dance more than anything else. He is dancing on his bike with the terrain in order to move as fast as he possibly can. It’s really quite amazing to watch. And here I go just sliding around trying to hang on for one more day. How could it be grippy riding the Ara said it’s a bit rocky. tend to like the rocks. We’ll see how she goes on the rocks. Beyond taking a line that I considered and thought better of. This trail is rowdy and fun. And you can see that I’m just on my absolute limit of speed. Look at where you want to go. As long as you don’t blow yourself up, riding with these faster riders is really the way to unlock more speed and better, safer riding. But can you do that without blowing yourself up and crashing your way all the way down the mountain? Oh, I need to relax. Have fun. Have fun. Keep it loose. I know what I need to do, but can I actually do it? I have a mechanical, not not a crash. Oh, wow. It’s really slippery. Cut grass. Oh, broken brake. You can bend it once back, but only once. Guy just bent his brake lever. A little crash in this. I completely lost my train of thought there because this just got so gnarly. But the guy broke his brake lever by crashing on some cut wet grass. Well, this would have been interesting in the wet. Feel like maybe I’ve got a little PTSD from the wet in the last couple of days. Very walky. Yes. That was scary. has some super slippery stuff on the roots and rocks. Got to keep looking where I want to go. It’s really key. Now I’m riding behind Max. Talk about a sleeper rider. This guy was riding behind me saying, “No, I’m riding slow. I don’t need to go in front.” And then he gets out in front and takes off. A total ripper. Here’s an example of how you don’t want to ride an inside line. If I had taken the outside, it would have been much easier and smoother, not to mention more safe. I decided to take the non-foot getting wet way. I hate riding my bike when my shoes are wet. And here we get some of the elusive foli flow. Well, if you’re super good rider, you can find flow almost anywhere. But for me, I’m going to have to take it where I can get it. Now we’re on to the Fast at 40 trail. We’ve heard about this trail all week. Haven’t ridden it yet. So, let’s see what it’s all about. So far, I’m going to say this is what I like to call chunky flow. There’s some chunk in here, but with a big old bike like this, I can romp through it and create some flow even for myself. I’m really enjoying the trail at this point, and I actually feel like I’m riding pretty fast, pretty well. But if you look ahead of me, you can’t see any of the riders out front. That just tells you how fast those guys are actually riding. Now, the trail is getting super gnarly with big rocks, sharp turns, and it’s really amazing when these riders out in front hit these areas, and they just continue to flow right through them. Goals. Put the bike where you want to go. that will usually obey you. Quick your body where it will be the fastest grippy position. First ride of the day down 4.5 mi, 800 ft of ascending. Difficulty of only 6 out of 10. A fun of 8 out of 10. This one was a great start to the day. Ride two underway. We’re going to get started on a black trail which actually going to result in both of us crashing. Oh, stopping. Stopping. We’re tapped out. Hard place to stop. I’m just like balancing. Before we could even really start the trail, I went down over that bush right there on the right. I was fine, but it was kind of embarrassing. And then I think Emily must have felt back. Woo! I jumped off. I’m good. Oh. Oh no. It’s contagious. Okay, let’s see. One moment. After a crash, we always like to use a scientific method for getting our brake levers and shifters back in line. Okay. Yeah, this entrance really is a tough start to the trail. I had a fun little acrobatic jump off the the trail. I uh couldn’t make the corner and then I just went into a tree. All right, back on board with Emily. Second lap of our last day here. And I started it with a nice uh decent size crash. My first big crash since we’ve been here. So, it was nice. It was very non-consequential. There was a little reprieve and now this trail is getting super steep, rocky, and just very gnarly again. Oh, stopping. I actually feel a lot better today considering it’s our third day of riding in a row. After that first day, I was like, I don’t know if I can do multi-day in a row here, but I couldn’t stop. I just like ran myself off the trail to stop like five times. I think we had a couple days with less physical trails. Still very physical, but it’s really hard to say if the trails were less physical or if we just got so tired that we had to relax pretty much to survive. Pretty sure I have a slow leak in my rear tire after that last trail. I felt like it was pretty low and I checked my air pressure and it was 10. So thank goodness got cush back there and pumped it up a little extra. So, just have to check it each time with the van. This is another great example where having a big bike seriously helps. Here, Emily is riding her evil reckoning with 170 in the front and 166 in the back. This bike is known for being planted with a short poppy rear end. There’s a hole there. A planted, slacked out bike is exactly what you want here. It is about to get very steep. And when a bike is slacker in the head tube angle, it makes steep terrain feel much safer. My hands are tired. This corner is super gnarly. Very slow. And that’ll do it for ride two. Only 1.4 miles, but 1,200 ft of descending. A difficulty of 7 out of 10. We both went down on things we probably shouldn’t have. And that was pretty fun out of eight out of 10. Hello. Woo. Yeah, that made your forearms tired. On to ride three. We’ve got an unknown trail to get us to the Blue Agna Trail, which has some very steep terrain. All right, Joe back here on the camera. Unfortunately, I screwed up and hopped over my bars when I didn’t have the camera on last ride, but I hear that Emily did a good job doing that as well. The Egg Dagna Trail. A blue for Molini standards, but a black or maybe even a double black for most of the rest of the world. This gets really steep right off the bat, but compared to other Molini trails, it’s not that bad. Just a little break burning and sliding around the corners on day five. I think we got this. quite steep. He was right, but not too bad. Not the steepest we’ve ridden so far. You have to watch out for the trees. Not too bad. Yeah, that’s fun. Yeah, fun. You know, French. Now, this looks like flow, and it really is flow, but there is a big drop on the left, so you do not want to make any mistakes. Just thinking getting a little bit looser, which feels nice. What that means is I’ve actually gotten tired enough that my body and brain are actually loosening enough and I’m able to ride a little bit smoother. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. Let’s see if I can hold it together. [Music] Need to keep the hips moving. That’s the [Music] key. And look at that, buddy. It’s slippery. Woo. Losing my rear quite a lot right now. Even though it’s not ideal to lose traction on your rear tire, it is always better than losing it on the front. You can slide that rear around and as long as you have front traction, you’re pretty much good to go. Shooting for putting your front tire where it’s going to get grip and then everything else super loose. Basically, what I’m saying is there was one line where you can put your front tire to get grip and everything else was going to have you sliding around like crazy. tight. Oh, there’s a rock right trying to bash into your pedal or your frame right there. I was starting to loosen up just a little bit earlier, but this trail is really fatiguing my brain and overloading me with all these days of riding. Finishing up ride three 2.4 miles, 1100 ft of descending. A difficulty of 8 out of 10. And there was some slippery, slidy stuff in there. And the parts that we were able to move through well were very fun. After a quick lunch, we’re off to ride a flowy chunky blue trail. And then we’re going to drop into this unknown trail here. Uh for a little bit, sure. See if I can keep up. Okay, first ride after lunch. Don’t know where we are. It’s kind of chilly though. I’m not even going to try and pronounce this trail, but it is a flowy chunky blue that has some features that would make it a black in most other parts of the world. Get warmed up again. Coming up, we’ve got some chunky, tight, steep turns that could be really tough if you’re out of the game. Yeah. Now you see that learning a thing or [Music] two. These corners are really no joke. And when you see how fast some of these other rides are taking them, it would blow your mind. They’re so fast we can’t even get them on camera. Some tight corners there. Getting a little better at them than was earlier this week. Oo, it’s been a fun day of riding. We have more girls than guys today, which is super cool. First time all week. Got to remember to look ahead. Not a lot of talking because I need to focus. Hands are getting tired. This is one of those sections where the GoPro makes it hard to tell, but the drop offs are severe. That’s fun. We’re about halfway down the trail and about to drop into the unknown section. This is one of those areas where I wish we had a grade indicator that we could show you so you could tell how steep it actually is. Oh yeah, that’s a nice steep one, huh? Okay. Oh, that’s slick, huh? Looks like we’re doing a little traversy. A little windy bit through the forest. Some of the roots are really slippery back here. Back in this dense forest, it seems like the roots are the last thing to get dried out. They’ll even look dry, but they’ll give you a 2 to 3 in slide on your tire or worse, send you off your bike if you’re not careful. [Music] This is slippery, but it’s also such an amazing, fun, cool section to ride. That’ll do it for ride 4. 2.5 mi, 2,000 ft of ascending, a difficulty of only 6 out of 10, and a fun of eight out of 10. You can really push that one and get yourself into some flow. It’s very pretty in here. Ride five has us hitting an abbreviated love tunnel, then trying to get redemption on the fantasy jump line. [Music] All right, back on the video here. We’re rewriting trail called Love Tunnel. Love Tunnel is definitely one of the flowiest trails that we’ve ridden in Molini. I think that the guides have you ride it more than once because it is a reprieve for your brain from all the super steep, gnarly, and dangerous stuff you ride on the other trails. Phew. Oh, a little slippery there. Even though it’s flowy, you can’t get away from the conditions being extra slippery. Sliding around the tunnel corners. Yeah, it’s actually really cool today cuz we got some female rippers. I’m not sure if Emily talked about that, but it’s very cool. [Music] Woo! Jump. Yeah, I like jumping. It’s a tall jump with a little gap and you can land in the middle of it. It’s very flat and not very fun. Trust me. But we got big enough bikes. It’s fine. Just I sound pretty confident. But this is what happened last time. Oo. get to hit the jump again. Let’s see if I can hit this jump with a little more speed this time and not try and destroy my rear wheel by casing the heck out of it. Hey, not bad. Just a baby case on the landing. My front I couldn’t pull on my front brake. How on the landing it broke? That was scary. What did it hit? Did it Was it just your finger? Yeah. That’s not good. Uh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My my brake lever broke. Oh no. So many brake problems on this day. But these are the kind of trails where things break. Brakes break and they’re breaking. Fortunately, we only have a spoke brake so far through two sets of brake pads or yeah, front and rear. We’ve got a lot of day left. And Yan just broke his front brake. I cannot imagine riding this trail or any of these trails for that matter without my front brake. I mean, look at this. This is super steep, super gnarly. If you make a mistake, you’re falling off the side of the trail. I would not want to ride it without my front or my rear brakes. Both of them are essential. Now we’re going to drop into this gnarly super steep option line. Now flowing behind Nicole. Super fast rider. She was riding my butt the whole day and I was getting tired. So I told her to just go on ahead. [Music] We’re just getting to one of the steepest parts of the whole trip. This little trail exit is no joke. I’m literally questioning whether I can make it down this on my bike in one piece or if I should get off and walk. Somehow I overrode what my brain was telling me. Ride five, 1.3 miles, 1100 feet of descending, difficulty of 6 out of 10, except for that last part, and a fun of eight out of 10. This one was a ton of fun. Ride six has us hitting the last ride of the day on the hardest, chunkiest, gnarliest, most unridden trail we’ve ridden yet. Few more amazing views. Cruising on the fire road before we get our last long trail of the day. This trail is actually called Badass Luc, and it is super tame to start, but then we’re going to get into some of the most gnarly, chunky, unridden trail of the whole trip. The great part about this trail is that it’s a little bit wider, so you have more ability to kind of choose your line and pop in and out and gap things. Phew. It makes it very fun. Whoa. There’s the line. Yep. The wide trail couldn’t last forever and now it’s about to get sketchy. Side hilling. Oh, thank you. [Music] [Music] Got the little side roots keeping you on your toes. Try not to slide out on them on the rocky bits. [Music] We survived the first part of Badass Luca, which felt more like a blue. But now it’s about to get really gnarly. By really gnarly, I mean this feels like a completely different trail. There’s way more rocks. It’s much steeper and harder to get through all of this without breaking your bike. [Music] At this point, I’m wondering what we’ve gotten ourselves into. Oh jeez. It’s ridable. It’s definitely ridable, but you got to be a little bit crazy to do it and willing to throw yourself down these rocks on day five. Not for me. At this point, we’ve already had a very successful time here in Molini, and we just want to make it through and survive this last day. Hopefully with a smile on our faces. It’s the downhill hiker bike right here. Looks like this trail hasn’t been swept for a little while. This is by far the least maintained trail we’ve ridden in Molini. Little trail maintenance. Everyone else thanks you. You know, this kind of reminds me of riding gargantua. Gargantua in Chile a little bit. Really nice. You can just get into like your flow mode. You’re just feeling it. Not tense enough. Just letting the bike kind of be one with you. I think that feeling only comes from just riding your bike a lot. Yeah. [Music] Nice. Oh, here we go. Some fun technical, not too steep corners. Feeling good. And this just got really steep. I don’t know how these got two people riding kind of messed up brakes. No thank you. At this point, our guide and Yan have broken the brake levers. I don’t know how they’re able to ride this without having full brake modulation. It’s something that I hope I do not have to ever figure out how to do. Woo! Yeah, bucking along. Sorry, pedals. Try and keep your speed up, babe. These 29in wheels will roll over almost anything on a normal trail. So, that just tells you how big these rocks are. As I say that, I’m losing my speed and then almost go over the bars. It’s all good. Where’s the line? Yeah. Nice. Thank goodness for 170 mm of travel. Yeah. There we go. Nice. In this type of terrain, my brakes are on the whole time. Not fully on, but modulating in order to control how much speed I have and adjust for each one of these little micro turns that I’m doing. Oh, you okay? I almost went over the bars like three times already. Okay, rock and roll. Done with the technical bits, but rocks are still here lining up, hitting things. Maybe done with the technical bits. The guides say that, but then now we’ve got loose slippery rocks to contain with. Get it. Couldn’t see it on the camera, but I had a proper nose pivot right there. Thanks, Max for Max Mitchell for hooking me up with all the coaching. Now, just trying to put it into practice. Just a little offtra road exploration before getting into the last part of Badass Luc. Looks like it could be a little bit slippy. some loose rocks here. Woo! Yeah, trying to abuse the bike a little bit more for the end of a Molini trip. I was just thinking how I don’t know if we talked about it, but we put Kush car in the rear. We probably did. So, forgive me if you’ve already seen me talk about us putting Kush Core. Kush core is a tire/wheel insert which protects your wheel from damage when you hit big rocks. It’s hard to see around the grass on both sides. Actually, find spots you can break the old islands of safety. Oh, this is super cool. The terrain just totally changed and it’s like almost nothing that we’ve ridden here so far. This really reminds me of riding in Spain. And just like that, we’re back to the forest riding. But it’s not going to last for long. The back and forth changing terrains is just so unique and so interesting. It’s awesome. When riding in spots like this, it’s kind of like choose your own adventure. There’s not a super defined trail here, so you have to pick your line number one, but then you also have option lines, so you can choose different ways of riding if you think they might be more fun. I actually think being open to creative interpretation of these trails is a safe way of riding. You got to adjust to whatever is going to work the best for you. Cool lens. Yeah. So cool. It’s a little road riding. Yeah. Or good downhill. Loving it. So different this rock. It’s cool. Oh, just hit a sticker. Prickly bush on the hand. This is literally the last section of the last trail of the last part of this trip. So, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, ride fast, ride fun, be safe, do not crash. Oh, step trying to wear the arms out for the end of the day. Weird rocks. Check out that ledge on the left. That’s not a fall you want to take. And now we’ve reached the busy hiking trail portion of the ride. If you crash here, it not only sucks, but also has an audience. Oh, you not quite as fast as Red Bull, but having watched people ride a lot of stairs, I know that it looks really cool. But what you’ve got to realize is it’s not easy. It is super hard to ride these stairs, especially when there’s tight turns like this and the rocks are kind of slippery. Whoopsies. Oh, this is so cool. I love this. Slow speed riding. And that’ll do it for ride six and our final ride, Molini. 6.5 mi, 4700 ft of descending, difficulty of 8 out of 10. There was some tough stuff in there and super super fun. A 9 out of 10 for this trail. What an awesome crew we had for this ride today. Check this out. The totals for the ride were 20.2 mi and a descent of 14,500 ft. That’s like a legit bike park day. Gelato, Jerry and Jela Gelato to finish our Molini riding. Woo! All right, we’re coming to you from Melini MTV headquarters here in Molini, Italy, and we are closing down our trip after 5 days of super intense, super awesome mountain biking with Alb’s. Check out Molini MTV and Albi if you want to come through here. It was [Music] hard. Woo! Advanced mountain bikers only. Super cool. Yeah. Some of the most challenging rides we have done for sure. Also, just really, really amazing trails. Like so much fun. We would totally come back. The town is awesome. It’s beautiful here. Not super busy. I mean, everyone we met was super friendly and nice. We had such a great time. We got a ride with awesome riders. Like, the caliber of riders that are here and coming here is off the charts, and we were so lucky to be a part of that. Unbelievable. I mean, we got to ride with some professional enduro riders 2 days ago. Uh, and then just people that were so good. Yeah. So, it was an amazing trip. We were super glad we spent a whole week here. We were able to ride a ton of trails and we rerad some stuff, which is always really nice in a new area. So, we can’t wait to come back sometime and check out. There’s apparently some more cool stuff in in the region. We didn’t get to ride all the trails, so we got more to explore. Pro tip, too, take a day off after probably 2 days. Yeah, we literally rode from 9 to sometimes 6:00 p.m. uh shuttle laps. So, if you have the time, uh I think the ideal setup is 2 days on, one day off, and then however many times you can do that cycle. It’s just so abusive. We’re pretty good at recovering and it was still super abusive. So, yep. And bring some groceries in case you feel like you need to eat more cuz options are limited. But we made it made do and we are off to our final destination now which is Finale. So we have two full weeks in Finale coming up and we should have some awesome riding videos hopefully some good food. If you like these videos give us the thumbs up if you really like them. Hit subscribe. Have yourself a fantastic day. Thanks for watching. See you.
3 Comments
Bello. Ma manca tutto oltre i trail 😅
We are going tonight, Sunday Finale Classics, Molini tour on Monday , Nava on Tuesday… rest of the week Finale and backcountry… Molini looks great!
Nice content about Molini. Greatings from Germany.