A small pool of light illuminates the way ahead, but only just, shedding a circle of comfort halfway up a mountainside. To my left a waterfall gushes over a precipice. In the darkness it could be ten or it could be a hundred metres away. I take another careful step, loose limestone gravel slipping like ball bearings under my cleats. I hear the puffing of my two fellow riders nearby, disembodied presences in the night. My neck is craning under the weight of the bike on my back, I’m tired and the temperature is dropping in the night air. The half zip of my jersey, thankfully gaping open all day long in the heat, is now firmly zipped closed. And I’m hungry: breakfast seems a long time ago. It’s 10 p.m. and we still haven’t reached the top of this cursed Italian pass, the 2090m gateway to our night’s refuge on the other side. ‘Whose damn idea was this anyway?’ I curse. Then I remember it was mine. I bite my lip and plod onwards.
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 Josh and Rob reap the rewards of reaching the Forcella Grande pass with bikes |
I’m a singletrack addict. So when shooting The North Face 2011 Lavaredo Ultra Trail running event, the Dolomites' abundance of sweet, snaking singletrack trails didn’t go unnoticed. Threading its way through 96 Km of some of Europe’s most majestic landscapes, the course for the LUT was just begging to be ridden on a bike. “It isn’t possible,” said the LUT organisers, people who admitted to not being mountain bikers themselves. It’s easy for non-riders to dismiss mountain bikers’ plans, never appreciating that so many of the world’s best singletrack can only be earned the hard way: pushing and carrying to its start. “You will kill yourselves,” says Chris.
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| Drinking water is never a problem. It helps dilute all the macchiatos |
OK, so I admit to being a little foolhardy at times, and on this occasion glancing at the elevation profile of the LUT course had passed me by. I’ve been joined by British endurance mountain bike racers Rob Dean and Josh Ibbett, and planning to complete the 96 Km loop in two days we roll out of Auronzo town in high spirits beneath warm September sunshine. Then we begin the first 1600m climb. It’s steep and within half an hour we have our bikes slung over our backs, finally 5 hours later, emerging above treeline into the impact of 30 C heat. At the top, we ride across to the Lavaredo refuge for our planned lunchstop, some 3 hours later than anticipated. We consume a mountain of pasta beneath the mighty Tre Cime peaks. The climb has been steeper, tougher and taken longer than we expected but our reward is 1300m of descent almost entirely on singletrack, beginning with high alpine technical rock steps and finishing in fast, buff loamy forest trail. In between the trail leads us around the mountainside, but throws in some lung-punching little climbs too, just to keep us on our toes.
And then it gets dark.
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| Ok who brought the wrong shoes for a hike-a-bike? That will teach you for being young and fit and liking race shoes |
We start the final climb of the first day, up to the Forcella Grande pass, way too late and with 900 vertical metres to scale, and with a leg-crushing 2000 metres already behind us that day, we’re toast. It’s as close as I’ve ever been to quitting on any of my bike adventures, but I’m kept on course by the stubbornness, or naievity, of Josh, a rider sporting the kind of build more typical of supermodel catwalks. “Quitting is not an option,” he says as if this was a Topgun sequel. Josh is half my age I remind him. Again.
At 11.15 we stumble down the last loose gravel strewn bit of trail to the door of our night’s accommodation, the San Marco refuge, rousing the hut’s caretaker to let us in and feed us soup. We wash it down with a carafe of red wine, partly in celebration, partly to try to numb the pain. I get the impression that they don’t see too many mountain bikers up here.
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| Three to a bed - the Italian way |
Morning comes too soon, but the trail that greets us is a magnificent swooping traverse of the mountainside and we cover ground quickly. These are the trails that make the effort, the sweat, the blood and the tears worthwhile: rhythmic, flowing, easy pedalling. “Here, you have a problem,” our refuge host had told us stabbing at our map with a finger at breakfast. We reach the ‘problem’, the Forcella Piccola and gaze up at a loose, vertical trail. The scramble before us would be challenge enough to anyone appropriately shod with the most serious of hiking boots, let alone stiff, cleated bike shoes. The ‘problem’ takes us 30 minutes to scale, relaying our bikes to pass them up vertical ledges to each other.
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| A 1500m climb for this. If we had the energy left, we'd have appreciated the scenery more |
All around us vertical peaks soar skywards. There is only one way out of here and that’s down, and we’re quickly focussed on the fast descent that brings us to the 21013m Galassi refuge for lunch. We rehydrate with copious amounts of tea (hey, we’re British), relishing the fact that we’re well over half way through our challenge. Our descent continues, leading us down another 900 vertical meters of beautiful singletrack until spitting us out at the valley floor to refill our packs’ reservoirs from the icy mountain stream.
With over 4000m of ascent behind us it’s with weary legs that we begin the final climb, a steep bike-carrying set of switchbacks. In the forest we’re sheltered from the heat of the sun, but the trees seem to cling onto the humidity. Talk turns to foods we’d like to eat now, a topic that always seems to arise when the going gets tough. Comfort talk I guess. We roll past the Ghiletto refuge and into a traverse that dips and dives around and down the mountainside.
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| The Tre Cime - one of life's little luxuries |
Following the LUT route closely we’re led along a rutted, pock-marked cow trail, that leaves us cursing out loud. There is no-one else to hear our expletives. Emerging from the trees just as the sun dips behind the ridgeline we drop into the LUT’s final descent. It’s steep and damp and dark. With brakes literally steaming, finally we are flung out of the bottom of the trail at the Auronzo lakeside. Behind us is 24 hours of riding, hiking and bike carrying. It’s been tough and we’re filthy. Our gear has held up well to the rhythmic sweat-soakings and repeated drying in the sun, but beneath it we’re sporting that odour that only comes from climbing 5000 meters. Enormous effort sits behind us, but there have been ample rewards. Now tired, hungry and demolished we think of the winner of the LUT race, running the same route in 9 hours. We’re smiling, laughing even. “Yeah, but he didn’t have a bike on his back,” says Rob.
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