Europe 06

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For 06, we got ambitious with our bike tripping and planned a trip out to Europe. Our Friend Chris had been living out in Switzerland for a few years already at this point, and we planned to meet up with him and tour and MTB around France and Italy. After some hasty (as opposed to . . .) planning, we packed up our bikes and hopped a plane to Geneva. Chris meet us there and we loaded up our bikes into his Toyota Previa and struck out for Les Gets. Our first taste of MTB in France was an eye opener. Partly since we were a bunch of spandex CC riders at a downhill park! Our 5" travel bikes were a bit out of place among the 10" downhill monsters. But we hopped the lift up and had some fun (trying) to shred the downhills and get some climbing in as well!

After Les Gets, we head out to Alpe d'Huez to catch a stage of the Tour de France. After having to deal with the police, insurance, and CC companies after Ben and I had our shit stolen (/sigh, cautionary tale for those of you sleeping on the side of the road. . .), we made our way up the famed switch backs to join the other spectators along the route at the top of the course. Once near the top, we settled in and watch the parade come through and then the racers come up the mountain. Was pretty cool to be part of the race scene and witness the Tour in person.

After Alpe d'huez, we headed south down to Monaco for some street riding. Making sure we stopped off a beaches in Nice, we cruised into Monte Carlo and raced around the streets with all the high end cars and rode up to the lookout for a grand view of the multi million dollar yachts moored in the bay.

From there we continued on down to Finale Ligure on the west coast of Italy where we spent 2 days baking in the heat, getting lost on an impromptu night ride, and hitting up some sweet single track. After Finale we hit the pinnacle of the trip at Garda, in the mountains along Lake Garda. Here in this tourist resort we found some great riding through old WWII tunnels, mountain climbs, sweeping views of the mountain lake, and killer downhills.

We finished up the riding in Livingo, along the Austrian border. At this point of the trip, our legs were shot, and the weather was kind of crappy, and we were all too happy to spend the evenings bowling, and getting into mischief with some fireworks :)

We ended the trip with a couple days in Lucerne (were Chris was living) and then back to Geneva to head home.

All pics from this trip are from Chris, Ben, and Steve (since my camera was stolen on day 3 :( )