Potato Pila!

Yesterday we headed over to Pila in Italy to ride some dusty dusty trails! It's a pretty epic location to ride in. The first Gondola has two mid-stations, and goes for miles up into the sky. There's then a chairlift that goes up even further, taking you right high up the mountain overlooking Aosta and the valley below, looking up towards Mont Blanc in one direction and across towards Switzerland in the other. But, you can grab another chairlift that takes you right up, bringing you some way towards the 3000m point, and the view from the top is unreal.

Now, the riding. Dusty! You can actually ride from the very top of the highest lift, to the very bottom of the valley in one go (and if you're super human, with no stops). The majority of the trails however run under the middle chairlift. Here there is the World Cup track, the recently used IXS European Cup track, and a labyrinth of other trails with varying difficulties that split and rejoin all the way down the mountain. The trail from here to the very bottom is long and again features easy and crazy sections. I found it unbelievably tough on my hands and forearms but the track is unreal!

Loose and dusty are the two words that you think of immediately after just one run. You can drift into every corner and kick up a dust explosion, making you feel like the best rider in the world. The IXS Cup and World Cup tracks are both demanding but very achievable for riders looking to take the next step, but there's also some fantastic blue and red trails (with steep black options) that criss-cross down the hillside.

As an awesome bonus, it just so happened that my brother and the Bournemouth crew were also headed to Pila on the same day, so I got a chance to ride with those guys again which was really good. Overall I'd say if you're spending some time in the Alps, Pila is well worth the trip. €20 for the day gets you access to some of the most perfectly built, mostly braking bump free in all the right places, and just plain fun tracks that you'll find.

View right from the top

Look how far below the towns in the valley are. We were high up.

Paul was absolutely piling it into this fresh corner they'd built for us. And there's the dust!

Not quite as pinned as Paul looks but oh well!