Day 4: 6/12/24 - special edition

I am behind on my posts, but this one needed to jump to the head of the line.

Mike researched things to do on our pre-trip days and found an e-mountain bike tour up Mount Etna. The other VBTers did a bus/hike on Mt. Etna. 

We were picked up at the hotel by Maurizio who, it turns out, was the owner of Mount Etna Bike Tours. He picked us up at our hotel and drove us about 40 minutes to the shop.

He had at least three rooms with bikes and four staff when we arrived. 

Here's our bikes. They were Giants for all you gearheads, although don't know the model. The bike in the foreground was our guide's bike because she clipped in with SPDs. We all had platform pedals, and it was a good thing

Our guide, Liz, rode to work and was a little sweaty and breathing hard. We loaded up the bikes, got in a van, and one of the staff (Claudio) drove us to the base of the ski area.

There was a nice Italian couple riding with us, and that's them with Claudio. Mike was probably behind the building.

Here's our guide Liz with Mt. Etna in the background.

Leaving the parking lot, there was a short wooded stretch before most of the vegetation disappeared. This is what it looked like at the start of the climb. It seemed like a perfectly pleasant day at the start.

The riding was challenging. Don't think that being on ebikes made it a walk in the park. The power assist helped move us and some pretty heavy gear up the mountain, but there were multiple variables that we needed to get used to.

First, the pitch was over 10%.

Second, the road surface alternated between rocky and hard-packed dirt (which we would later come appreciate), and loose sand. Picking the right line was essential. Fat tires would be even better than 29ers.

Third, we had to get used to the power settings which would cause us to spin out if the setting was too high. This was especially the case if we hit loose stuff when the trail pitched up.

Fourth, the road was multi-use and there were buses and SUVs, and those vehicles that they use in Antarctica with huge wheels using the road too. They would come up behind us and pass us with a cloud of dust. Despite feeling pretty comfortable riding off road, I would pull over to the let vehicles pass because I wasn't confident in my bike handling skills on uncertain surfaces and a strange bike. Every time that happened, I would run into the previous problem of spinning out when trying to start going up a hill. On more than one occasion, I went down to a flat area to make the start easier.

Here are some views from on the way up.

I am not sure what the story was behind these craters but Liz said there were hundreds of them.

Looking down.

Pretty snazzy jersey!

I had no intention of being color coordinated.

This picture shows the typical pitch.

Here's the peak in the distance.

Here is the last stretch up to the observatory. I was ahead because I didn't want to stop and struggle to start again.

I was able to get Mike coming up this last stretch just before he had to put his foot down. The wind was blowing from left to right in the picture, pushing him to the left of the trail. That put him in some loose stuff and he had to stop.

The wind at the observatory was fierce. I have never had to estimate wind speed before, but it was difficult to stand. (The national Weather Service webpage says it was probably about 50mph https://www.weather.gov/pqr/wind but it felt stronger). I used one of the buses that passed us and helped myself to some shelter so I could put on my jacket without everything flying away. It was probably 75 or 80 degrees at the start of the climb and easily 50 degrees here and with the wind, it felt much colder. The wind also blew sand around and if it didn't get in your eyes, it stung whatever skin was exposed.

Here's the group hiding behind the foundation of the observatory. You can at least see Liz's hair blowing.

This was the highest point we were able to get on the mountain without a special permit. 

Here's the last picture of the mountain before we headed down, It looks clear and peaceful, but it wasn't. It was hard to stand up just to take the picture. As you can see, we didn't really get near the top. If we were allowed to climb further, I don't think we would have because of the weather conditions. Liz said there was only one other time when she could remember the weather being so fierce. 

We were pretty concerned about the descent and we rode our brakes most of the way down. We were probably most concerned with the loose stuff on turns. At one point, I was behind everyone and watched the Italian woman go down. She didn't get hurt badly and had a pretty good attitude about it but when we stopped for lunch, she cleaned herself up and had some more scratches on her legs.

It turned out that the descent wasn't as dangerous as we thought it might be although our hands were pretty tired from constantly being on the brakes.

Here's a picture of the old ski lodge and a sign of what it used to look like.

We continued down the mountain on roads until we reached our lunch stop. The Italian guy covered everything. Very nice.

After much discussion, we decided to return to the bike shop using a combination of gentle off-road and roads. There was some more challenging single track that we decided to skip. We had the option of splitting up if people wanted to do different things. I thought that was a little surprising since I assume the guide was responsible for making sure we all finished the ride. My top priority was making sure we didn't get lost somewhere in the Italian countryside.

Here's our last view of the peak before getting into the woods.

The off road segment was gentle descent almost all the way. What made it difficult was that the surface was all loose volcanic sand.

After we got off the trail, we took quiet country road all the way back into town to the shop. It really was downhill all the way. It would be a great road to take on a road bike, the kind of descent we are always looking for: 5% gradient, good road surface, good sight lines, and no cross traffic. In fact, almost no traffic at all.

One of the hired hands drove us back to Taromina where we took hot showers to get all the volcanic ash off, went to dinner, and called it a day. Standing up from the table at dinner was difficult. We agreed it was the wildest adventure we'd ever had on a bike.

Stats for the day: 28+ miles, 4000+ feet of climbing

https://www.strava.com/activities/11635771224