Sunday, May 6, 2012

Garda Sympatex Marathon: Friday training ride

First shake down ride in the afternoon. From our house to Rifugio Al Faggio on the road, about 1.5 miles. Found a trail paralleling the road back down into Lenzumo.
Explored a short section of unpaved road on the trail map, turned out to be unmaintained super steep and loose scree old road, non rideable. Hiked up a bit then turned around and descended.
Garda BA track up la Rocce and Malga Trat, a narrow paved road climbing steeply out of the valley.  Eventually turned into a dirt road, with patches of snow towards the top. Turned around at Malga Trat, 0.5 km from Rifugio Pernici, which according to signs was closed. 
Downhill to BB track, dirt trail, climbing to a logging site, asked the crew if the trail went down to Locca, confirmed. After another km or so of loose surface climbing, came to an abrupt end of the road on a cliff with some weird signs in blue color but no indication the trail continued. Turned around and retraced my way back down to the valley.
With no extra clothes, tools, phone or anything, just 500ml water, this was a mistake to go up the mountain onto unknown trails.
Checked the map later to find a description saying there was a short hike a bike section before the downhill to Locca resumed, to me looked like a tough hike without a bike. May try to find the other side riding the BB track from the valley today.
19 miles, about a km (3000) of climbing in 2.5 hours.
The bike rides Ok with a tendency to wash out the front wheel in loose corners, fork feels stiff even with pressure lowered, overall very XC feeling and can't really tell it is a 29er because of its quick steering.  On steep climbs, it is quite difficult to keep the front wheel straight without wandering around.  For the race, I will lower the front tire pressure, although I expect lots of sharp limestone rocks that this whole place is made of. 

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