2012 - MTB in snow (english)

Sunday February 12, 2012

In the last few days it snowed abundantly in Italy with negative temperatures and Umbria was no exception.  Temperatures of -10°C were not that uncommon for a few nights.

It did snow last night!

The local VTT group usually goes out every Sunday morning but given the conditions I called my friend Massimo B. to find out more about to-day’s program. After checking out with the colleagues he informed me that there were another two « crazies » willing to go for a ride this morning.

Massimo and I rode on the snowed-in via Flaminia vecchia (built in 200 BC) and met Marco T. and Roberto S. in Massa Martana.  The program was simple: ride as far as we could and have fun in the snow.

The road up Monte Martana was quite snowed-in and though some car tracks allowed us not to sink too deep in snow we were still happily sliding all over the place.  Fortunately the snow cushioned our occasional falls.

Roberto as a leader.

Followed by Marco.

Massimo and his warm gloves.

And Jacques closing the "pack".

After 3-4 km the tracks disappeared and we were axle deep in snow, which gave us a good chance to slide all over, to push the bikes, to walk and to have fun while getting some healthy exercise!  Shining sun, immaculate snow, good friendship and being reasonably trained made for great fun.  

Sliding and sinking in snow.

Not the best traction!

However all good things had to end and it quickly became obvious we could not go any further and decided to back track.  Followed another session of slides and near falls between blue skies and white snow.

Close to Massa Martana there is a wooded area called “le macchie”, with pleasant, if quite steep, paths where people collect mushrooms in summer.  It is also famous as a challenging MTB trail.  NO way we were going to miss out the chance to ride that trail under snowy conditions.

Gorgeous landscapes, virgin snow (who would be crazy enough to ride a MTB under such conditions!) to soften an occasional spill and a fun trail provided material for fond memories for the forthcoming summer months, when we would miss all that snow!  We experienced serious loss of traction going up the last hill but once that final obstacle was behind us, it was easy biking back home.

"le macchie" a great playground for MTB.

Hard to believe but this is Umbria!

Beautiful (and abundant) snow.

We were gone less than 2 hours but will remember that day for a long time.