{"id":851,"date":"2018-04-22T13:00:13","date_gmt":"2018-04-22T19:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gergltd.com\/home\/?p=851"},"modified":"2018-04-24T03:46:13","modified_gmt":"2018-04-24T09:46:13","slug":"mountain-biking-in-lerici-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gergltd.com\/home\/mountain-biking-in-lerici-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain Biking in Lerici Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a reasonable amount of mountain biking here in Lerici.\u00a0 It’s not nearly as big as Rothrock, but it still beautiful and worth putting in the effort to see.\u00a0 We bike in areas behind our flat called Monte Rochetta and Redarca.\u00a0 It’s a 3-mile uphill ride to get to the trailheads.\u00a0 There are quite a few gravel roads but most of the true mountain biking trails are enduro style quite so because it’s very hilly around here.\u00a0 Many of the trails are built for a single direction of travel. Everything is well labeled though with the trail name and its difficulty level (they use the green, blue, black diamond system).\u00a0 Many of the true MTB trails here are black diamonds.<\/p>\n

I picked up a whip from a place called Eurobike\u00a0in Romita Magra.\u00a0 It’s a 2015 Specialized Stumpjumper Comp Evo (aluminum).\u00a0 Slightly different feel from my Salsa Horsethief and El Mariachi back home.\u00a0 I also rarely ride Specialized bikes.\u00a0 I like the bike well enough though.\u00a0 I ride 27.5″ wheels here with tubes which were recommended by the store owner given the terrain.\u00a0 At home, I have been running 29″ wheels tubeless for as far as I can remember; that was a bit of a change for me.\u00a0 The guy who sold me the bike was great.\u00a0 He even dropped it off for me because I couldn’t take it on the bus.\u00a0 In fact, we bought Ryanne’s bike (the yellow one in the pics below) from there as well.\u00a0 Again, the guy offered to take the to our flat free of charge.\u00a0 While we were waiting for the bus from Eurobikes to head home, we ran into the same guy and he stopped and let us hitch a ride home with him!<\/p>\n

There’s a lot of history in the hills leading up to Monte Rochetta.\u00a0 On the ascent, you can see old trails and terraces which are long abandoned.\u00a0 Off of Trail Branzi (one of my favorite, http:\/\/www.lericibike.com\/2016\/05\/16\/trail-branzi-2-2km\/<\/a>), there are some ruins.\u00a0 One prominent structure is a hunting lodge built in the 1600s by the Count at the time.\u00a0 Around the 19th century, frescoes were pained inside which you can still see today. During WW2, this building was actually the home base of a clandestine print press which distributed anti-fascist literature.\u00a0 The Germans came upon it in 1944 but someone had informed the occupants before they Germans got there to capture them and all that was left was the printing press and the abandoned building.\u00a0 No one has occupied it since and it stands has pictured today.\u00a0 Inside there is a plaque which reads (translated into English), “Here at the Rocchetta in the long clandestine silences, simple and courageous men, defying the Nazi-fascist anger, gave new ideas to the press and affirmed in the history the freedom of thought and the right democracy demanded by the resistance. “<\/em>\u00a0[1].<\/p>\n

The mountain biking community here is fairly organized and does a good bit of trail maintenance it seems.\u00a0 There is somewhat of a gentlemen’s agreement whereby you don’t ride the trails for 2 days if it rains.\u00a0 This is to help keep the trails in good shape.\u00a0 They also organize beginner rides through the gravel roads and easy trails to help the youth develop their skills and foster an appreciation for the sport. [2]<\/p>\n

Many of the trails here are always designated hiking trails which are marked with red and white horizontal lines.\u00a0 I made the mistake once assuming the markings meant these trails were maintained.\u00a0 I took a wrong turn once which let me out off a big drop onto the road.\u00a0 No turning back to go the way I came.\u00a0 So, I continued on until I found a red and white marked trail.\u00a0 It was steep with quite a bit of scree\u00a0— clearly\u00a0not bikable.\u00a0 I figured since the trail is marked it can’t be that bad.\u00a0 Well, it was.\u00a0 It was at least 100m of scree and I had to carry my bike the entire way.\u00a0 The work paid off though because I was rewarded with a beautiful view once I reached the top and discovered a local rock climbing area.<\/p>\n

Ok, on to the views!\u00a0 There are lots of great views along the circuits of trails here.\u00a0 Vineyards, old camps, panoramas of Lerici, and of course, spectacular views of the Carrara mountains. On trail La Serra, I once ran into a man and his son with a group of what looked like small donkeys.\u00a0 You never know what you will find on the trails here.<\/p>\n

Ciao!<\/p>\n

[envira-gallery id=”872″]<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Clandestine Printing House in Redarca. http:\/\/www.tramedilunigiana.it\/it\/risorsa\/monumento\/stamperia-clandestina-di-redarca. Fetched 22 April 2018.<\/li>\n
  2. Lerici Bike on Facebook.\u00a0https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lericibike\/<\/li>\n
  3. http:\/\/www.lericibike.com\/<\/li>\n
  4. http:\/\/www.lericibike.com\/2016\/05\/16\/trail-branzi-2-2km\/<\/li>\n
  5. https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Eurobikes-di-Piero-Arpesella-474552732565146\/<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There’s a reasonable amount of mountain biking here in Lerici.\u00a0 It’s not nearly as big as Rothrock, but it still beautiful and worth putting in the effort to see.\u00a0 We bike in areas behind our flat called Monte Rochetta and Redarca.\u00a0 It’s a 3-mile uphill ride to get to the trailheads.\u00a0 There are quite a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gergltd.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gergltd.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gergltd.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gergltd.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gergltd.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.gergltd.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":924,"href":"https:\/\/www.gergltd.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions\/924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gergltd.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gergltd.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gergltd.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}