elba

June 2012, my wife Giulia is 7 months pregnant and we’re having our last holiday together, before the baby comes and wipes clean our current life¹.

We drive our van to Elba, a beatiful island off the coast of Tuscany, just before the hoards of tourists take over the whole place. We spend these 7 days camping in the only campsite that has no animation and no music; and we notice the relation between the percentage of non-italians staying in this campsite and how quiet this place is, and we connect the dots.

We drive around tasting several beatiful little beaches and gulfs and sceneries and the smells of summer. We cook and we rest, we sunbathe and we swim, we even do a rather long walk under the sun and I am once more surprised by how strong Giulia is, carrying around her big belly like it’s nothing.

I have my bike with me because I know that Elba is supposedly a paradise for mountain bikers. I manage to sneak in a few bike rides, and there are three longer ones that I still remember for various reasons.

The first one, riding the cross-country trails around Monte Calamita. Wide and easy fireroads with some juicy singletrack deviations that I enjoy very much because I am still adapting to the new setup I have on my Covert (1x10 transmission, clipless pedals, skinny tires).

The second one, a long loop on the southern side of the island with the supposed highlight being the Serra del Pero trail that even now, five months in, I get angry just remembering how a colossal waste of my time this whole thing was (and I get even more upset at the cretin that described this trail making it more interesting that it actually is).

Finally, the third is a charm: Pomonte trail, beatiful and very technical, one of the reason for going back to Elba.

brief interlude about bike parts

I wanted to try again riding clipless, something that I left aside when I first started mountain biking but then left it for the safer shores of riding flats; when I first rode in Finale Ligure in 2005 I was scared shitless of the terrain so I never considered the option to be one with my pedals — I wanted the psychological help of getting ejected out in the air whenever I wanted.

So before coming here I got some cheap Crank Bros pedals and fitted them to the Covert. I had zero problems adjusting to them, until I went to ride the Pomonte trail (more on this later), which has so many tricky sections (tight and exposed switchbacks on loose rocks) that I frequently have to unclip or (shame on me!) walk the bike down. But overall such a good experience that I have converted now my xc bikes to clipless (and I put flats again on the Covert, it just gives me that extra bit of confidence that I need when riding the kind of trails that I like).

It was also the first time I used my new 1x10 transmission (Sram X9), geared 33 at the front and 11-36 at the back. It was a good gearing on my wanderings around Elba even if I wasn’t in top shape, so I have good feeling that it might suit me just fine for my weekend rides. On top of that, I enjoy immensely the streamlined cockpit view with just the brake levers, the seatpost command and the rear mech trigger².

the worst trail ever

I am not talking here about this Serra del Pero loop and I understand that the biker that originally described this trail quite possibly found very different conditions from mine.

But I want to make a general point, which is that there are trails that are not made for bikes, and an experienced biker has to recognize these trails if he then writes some story and publish the GPS track somewhere.

It’s his responsibility to do so: I know that this sounds like a bigger thing than it actually his — responsibility should be a word to be pulled out when discussing about the environment not bike trails, but limiting ourselves to our little universe of bike riding then yes, you do have to be a little clever and objective in your assessments.

If you are a riding god then you have to understand that the trail that gives you good vibes may not be as enjoyable for humans; if you are a lesser entity unable to ride a switchback, you don’t just dismiss the whole trail because you are not technically up to it — and that’s where the “clever” bit comes in, because you need to be clever and honestly admit that the trail was good and you were not.

the best trail ever (pomonte)

My gps track is here.

It starts from Fetovaia in the south of the island, goes north (and up!) to Marciana and then down on a long, winding, rocky, cinematic trail which takes you down to Pomonte and the beatiful beaches on the western coast of Elba. I had an idea of what this trail would look like because of a mtb-forum.it article which featured Wade Simmons and Richie Schley venturing down this path.

I know I have to tackle this trail in exploration/reconnaisance/safety-first mode because: (1) I am on my own, (2) there is nobody else on the trail and I have the uncanny feeling of being very detached from any human contact³, (3) my tires are some skinny Maxxis 2.1”, (4) I am a newbie at riding clipless, and this does not help my confidence and commitment.

This is one of those trails that you can plan an entire holiday around; it’s epic, it’s beautiful, it’s not impossibly tough on the body (40 km and 1400m of climbing), there’s incredible sceneries all around, it repays with an incredible sense of adventure, and even the long road climbing is not that annoying. And what’s more than ending up directly into the bluest Mediterranean sea you can imagine?

A wider selection of photos is here: flickr.com/photos/aadm/sets/72157630441741146