Day 50: World Cup Quali at Val di Sole

19 Aug 2011

Day 50: Val di Sole familiarisation and World Cup DH qualification. The first day in Val di Sole required a bit of area familiarisation. Val di Sole is obviously the whole valley, but what you need to know is that the main bike park lift is at Daolasa, in Commezzadura. And this is where all the action for the World Cup is as well, with the finish arena and team tents etc. Of course there are plenty of riders to photograph on the trails this weekend, and some of them might be quite good too! So we will still get some pictures, and meanwhile find out as much as we can about what the rest of the resort and bike park has to offer.

A good place to start is the trail map, and there is an extremely good ‘high precision’ GPS map of the trails in the whole area, available for free at the gondola ticket office. There is a beginner trail, a couple of freeride trails, and of course a downhill trail, all running down through the area underneath the lift. By the looks of the map, this could also be a possible XC paradise with some epic long routes indicated. Whilst hiking the UCI DH course today we saw lots of other trails off in the woods that suggest there are plenty of options available, but we’ll get more from the local riders tomorrow.

So in the afternoon we watched and tried to learn as the pros thundered down a course that averaged 30% gradient and seemed to have rocks imported in just to make life even more difficult! The highlight had to be this incredible boulder field no more than 10 seconds out of the start gate, acting as a ‘welcome to the race’ which gave riders no time to settle. A brutal opening and great to watch. And that was only qualifying so there is much more to come.

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