Back in the winter Atherton Racing decided to start working with ALPI bike resort.

All i really knew was that it is based around a little town called Sauze D’oulx, in the Italian alps, just over the hill from Sestriere, a place that i idolised for its quality skiing World Cups and that it is favoured by Lindsey Vonn, a hero of mine!

I now know that Alpi consists of 8 towns/ resorts which means basically that you have the run of those 8 areas/ towns on your DH, XC and Freeride bike…and 40 minutes from Turin airport too!

We got out the first day on our DH bikes, Myself, Affy, Gee, Stevie Bell, Dan Brown, Sven Martin chief photographer, Anka Martin, Daffydd Evans (Bam), Francesca from Alpi and Enrico, Alpi’s head guy. It was awesome!

After arriving in the dark the night before i was literally beside myself with excitement the first morning to rush out into the streets and see the view. The streets are tiny, narrow, cobbled affairs, with a water butt thing and flower trough on every corner. I took a quick drink in the fountain and then snuck around the corner, i crept because i thought that i might catch the view in some sort of action, and i did! Behind the tops of the old italian houses, behind the church, i saw the mountains sprawling out in both directions! YESSSSSS. i knew id love it here! they didnt know i was watching and they were lazy, chilling in the sunshine, trying to melt their still snow topped heads, it was awesome.

After breakfast we walked to the main square in the town, which was the furthest point which we could get the big race truck too. Stevie had unpacked EVERYTHING, and to be fair i think the locals thought a bomb had gone off! Our entire racing lives was strewn across the carpark with race kit drying out, bikes being fixed, bikes being not fixed, wheels, tyres, shoes, parts etc everywhere!

We were a week too early for the lifts to be open,so we piled into this Ghetto van and trailer and trundled our way out of Sauze D’oulx to the top of the mountain. I loved how Enrico explained that ”this side is for the cows to play on, the other side is for the bikes to play ” we couldnt believe the terrain, it was so pretty and obviously Alpine with meadows of wild flowers, but what struck us was the lay of the land, how it rolled and tumbled in little dips and valleys the whole mountain across,in the open and in woods, it offers the most potential for mountainbiking out of anyplace we have been, just the scope to use the way the land lies in those natural berms, banks and kickers is unreal.

The next thing that struck me as we arrived at the top was the size, i thought we had like, one piste or something to play with but the area from Sauze is huge, i mean its the whole mountain range along, and over the other side to Baradonecchia, with Sestriere over there in front of us, and the other places you couldnt even see, all Alpi!

We set off from the top on one track, did photos, shouted at Sven, gee disappeared off the side of the fire road upside down, Dan Brown got his shoe laces caught on the old tyres strapped to his hire bike for protection, etc etc. Then we arrived at the mid point and that was when i decided we were actually in the land of Fairies! it sounds stupid and girly but it was true. The woods were PERFECT, the like of which i dream about riding my TTR in.

The trees were straight and grew spaced apart from each other, giving the forest floor the ability to thrive, it grew in a non stop blanket, green as you would expect in the spring time, and bouncy when you trod on it, it was the most perfect forest ive ever seen, and non stop, it just carried on and on, down and across and everywhere. The track was the only mark thru the perfection, a brown seam peeling thru the trees, following the dips and fades for step ups and down, bombing down hidden glens and scrubbing over rises, it was Dope!

I loved riding that first day, the track was so much fun, it was long and flowy in this perfect forest, with endless lips, berms, flat turns, smooth roots,wooden kickers, jumps, S bends, it had it all…

The last section of track we death trained all the way down into town, straight into the restaurante L’assiette, where we ate good italian food and drank good italian wine. What a day!

The next 2 days were taken up with a visit to Baradonecchia, a place that has World Cup venue potential for sure, unreal track out in the open piste, bit of woods, finishes in a massive carpark by the gondola overlooking the town, awesome, here’s keeping my fingers crossed! The Alpine meadows were amazing again, Affy found a huge gap and nailed it, Stevie got his helmet stuck in a tree, Bam and Anka shredded the track so hard they both want to go back for the mega enduro race thing in August, and Sven went mental shouting at us a fair few times. brilliant!

The next day we trundled off to Sestriere, about 15 minutes down the road. I was stoked to be going there, getting to see where the hold the World Cup skiing and planning our winter skii trip this year…yeaaa!

We met up with the local guys from Bike Cafe who were pinners all the way down. The rack reminded me of new zealand and was different to anything else we rode there. Enrico builds the tracks and takes great care to put a bit of everything in them, so if he has sculpted the top half to be wide open, massive senders and fast as fuck, he is careful not to overbuild the bottom half which was off camber in the trees, fast as lightening, rough as daisies and awesome. We had a blast messing around, trying to see who could kick up drifty dust clouds, Dan Brown team manager was the best by far!

So that was it, we flew home the next day to rest a while and get a little training in before Mt St anne and Windham World Cups. nervous!

We return to Alpi between the last 2 world cups of the season, and then again at the end of the year to get some track construction and planning underway, if AFFY could have it his way…well you can imagine letting Dan Atherton loose over 8 Alpine ski resorts with a shovel, a digger, and his moto…Watch This Space!!

more pics over on the team facebook page.