Day 49: Fabulous freeride in Pozza

18 Aug 2011

Day 49: The Pozza freeride trail and travel to Val di Sole. Although we had to travel today we felt it was worth spending one last morning at Pozza to properly explore the trail that we had not had time to photograph yesterday. And it was well worth it. We met up with Mauro again, and we were also joined by Rosa to further increase the female rider contingent for the URT.

The ‘Z-Line’ trail is billed as a ‘freeride’ trail and is coloured green on the bike park map. But green has not been used here to identify an easy route. This is a very challenging trail, called Z-Line for a good reason; the top of the course consists of some very steep switchbacks dropping down through a gully below a huge cliff face. About 6 corners in a row have huge sections of red safety netting (think ski-racing) strung up alongside the trail to catch you if you come off – this should give you some indication that it’s a fair old drop over the edge! It is hard to get a picture that does it justice. It gets slightly less steep as you descend but still continues with some tight switchbacks through woods. It is a really beautiful trail, again mostly natural, which takes you through open woodland with views of the opposite valley through the trees. If you are a beginner you will walk a large part of the top section but if you are happy to do that then you will be rewarded with more gently rolling single-track lower down (albeit still interrupted by the odd technical or steep section). The further down you go the more it mellows, and it finishes with a great ‘Enduro’ style single track that follows the river pretty much all the way back to the lift.

Couple more useful bits of info… If you need to you can hire DH bikes and associated kit from a tented hut right next to the lift station, run by the guys from the Panet Bike shops that are at various locations up the valley. And there is a big info board next to the lift with a list of all the hotels and restaurants offering the discount for bike park riders that we mentioned yesterday. And it’s also all in English, which is helpful!

For us that was it at Fassa and we had to hit the road. Still in the Dolomites though, another road pass, down to Bolzano and round the corner to the Trentino region. This weekend it’s the UCI World Cup Finals in Val di Sole. Awesome.

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