THE PIEP PIPER
As someone who travels around Europe seeking the best riding spots for my guiding business and to quench my thirst for adventure, when I heard about a place that a few of my friends had raved about – their stories always ending with the line, “but it’s brutal” – but could never pinpoint the location of, I knew I had to find out more.
Sure, they knew roughly where it was. Owing to numerous conflicts over the course of history, the border between Italy and France is criss-crossed with a huge network of old trails and military paths. Perfect singletrack is in great abundance, if you’ve got the legs. To access these trails you have to crank up very long and tiring climbs. The good stuff is hidden up in the high Alpine, at an altitude between 2,500 and 3,000 metres above sea level, which makes for stunning views and great treeless riding. Further down in the valley you are back in the woods, with lots of vertical metres to the valley floor. It was after hearing one too many stories about
