Downhill in the Garda Lake

My experiences with mountain biking have always been very "intense". Since the first time I was convinced by a friend of mine to try downhill biking, I realized that it was a sport that I would love, but that would also make me risk my life very frequently.

A few weeks ago with two of my friends, we decided to go to Lake Gardato try out some of the downhill trails found in the surrounding mountains.
To get to the lake it takes about 3 hours from my house so also to not come back too late in the evening we decided to leave the night before.

We stayed in a residence very close to the lake, which was in a raised position with respect to the lake itself and then when we woke up the next morning, I went immediately to check how was the view from our balcony and ...

The day after, after a consistent breakfast, absolutely necessary in view of the physical exertion to which we would have been subjected, we prepared our bikes and headed towards the beginning of the trail which was not very far from our hotel. Obviously, in order to get down, you have to go up first and the more you want to go down, the more you have to go up. Whenever I do major elevation changes, I'm always there thinking "but who made me do that? ", giiven all the effort I have to put and especially the physical pain that inevitably comes after a while. I'm always thinking that probably it would have been much better to buy an electric bike, since it allows you to enjoy the descent in the same way as a normal bike and also, to not to get too tired in the initial part. In the end, however, I still make it to the top and I must admit that the feeling I get is very satisfying and so all the fatigue accumulated disappears. And so I find myself in the same situation every time 😅.

This time, however, mindful of old experiences, and above all, not in great shape after the holidays, I decided to borrow an electric bike from a friend and to climb up with it. It was definitely a great experience, now I understand when I hear people say that once you've tried an electric bike, it's hard to go back to a normal one.

But of course, since the ascent had been so much easier than usual, by the law of counterparts, the descent was going to be pure hell.

But let's go in order, as I said before my ascent was the most beautiful part of the day as I had an electric bike at my disposal and so perhaps for the first time since I have been doing downhill I was able to enjoy the view without having to think about fatigue.

This is something that I really appreciated and it made me think (and still makes me think) that maybe buying an electric bike was not such a bad idea.

Being in the middle of winter, of course, we also found some snowy parts along the way, in particular, there was a very suggestive moment when we found ourselves inside a tunnel, completely in the dark, inside which it was not possible to see the way out.

We, therefore, continued to go at a walking pace with the bike in hand and using the flashlight of the cell phone as a source of illumination until we saw the so-called light at the end of the tunnel. As we got closer to the light we also began to notice the massive presence of snow. The exit of the tunnel was almost completely covered, and in order to get out, we had to lift our bikes and climb.

Once out in the open, however, we found ourselves in front of a wonderful view. We stopped there to have lunch and to enjoy the view and once refreshed we left ready to face the descent.

My experience with mountain bikes is quite recent, in fact, I started a few years ago, being convinced by my friend, much more experienced than me, to try this sport. The main problem with going with people who have much more experience than you in a certain sport is that you are presented with two possible situations:
1 - in the lucky case, the trail you face is at your level and therefore you don't risk your life, but you probably risk making others bored;
2- in the less lucky case, the others have fun, because the path is technical and requires certain skills, but you have less fun because you are in constant breathlessness and you spend most of the time walking and carrying the bike by hand because otherwise you would risk to die.

Unfortunately for me, this day at Lake Garda falls into the second situation. In fact, this was probably the most dangerous situation I have had to face since I began to ride a bike. Together with me, as I said before, there were two people with much more experience than me in cycling, one of them was a mountain bike instructor. Even for them the path was quite challenging, so much that in some parts, they had to get off the bike because it was impossible to descend (as you can see in the video), so I let you imagine my situation and my state of mind in those moments.

Unfortunately, the videos made with the cell phone do not give much idea of the slope of the path, since they tend to squash real image and lose a little 'sense of depth, so even though it may seem that the pieces I filmed are not so terrible, I assure you that even going on foot I was really struggling not to fall. About half of the route I had to do it holding the bike by the hand, given the presence of very large rocks, steps, and really tight turns.

This was one of the few times that even after descending to the valley and having finished the route, I was not relaxed and happy, since I had not enjoyed the descent at all. I understood thanks to this experience that I am stil not ready for this kind of trials and I need to train myself a little more if I want to reach the next level 💪.