LIVIGNO

Today is the day! It finally arrived! I haven't been to Europe in 10+ years and finally I will be going back. There are 28 hours of travel in front of me and in there somewhere I am supposed to drive in Italy. That is the part that worries me the most. For some reason it seems that the Italians don't have much in the way of, well, rules... I guess. Stories on the Internet, as well as personal experiences of friends confirm that you have to be on your toes behind the wheel.

When I boarded the plane in Denver to Germany the woman I sat next to spoke broken English with a thick German accent. We have a good conversation with plenty of breaks to figure out what the other is saying. In the end she asks where I am headed. I told her I am on my way to Milan, where I will rent a car and drive about 4+ hours to Livigno.

"Rent a car?... in Italy?"

"yes" I said.

"Well, Good luck!!"

With that vote of confidence I was off! I landed in Italy to meet my travel partner, Fraser Britton from Transcendmagazine.com, we rented a car, the Fiat Punto and we were off. This tiny little diesel beast is great! I love driving it, but the driving was interesting. Of course neither Fraser nor I speak Italian, so street signs and direction were problems.

Immediately we found that the signs in Italy don't really give the information that you would expect. Each sign lists 3 big names and 3 small names...eventually we figured out that the 3 small names were the names of the towns at the NEXT exit. The 3 Big names are the towns on THIS exit. Of course we figured this out a bit late. Fraser made his best attempt at getting directions from a local, and it worked out ok!

Our total trip took just over 6 hours for what should have been a 4-hour journey. During this journey, I was pretty tired, the travel was coming to an end and I was ready to get to Livigno. However the driving was insane. Along the way we were passed by a Ducati 999r with 2 passengers, a guy on the front and a girl on the back. This was on a blind turn in a mountain pass with no sign of who may be coming the other way. We also spend a lot of time behind a Semi cab that was hauling through the mountain passes, the Fiat screeched around corners to keep up, but I stayed on his tail...it is much easier to stay behind him than worry about the break checking at narrow bridges.

When we arrived in Livigno we descended down a mountain pass into a town that was sunken into a valley it was a beautiful panorama with mountains in every direction. There are lifts up almost all of these mountains too! Then there is the quaint little town. Livigno is a beautiful town with hotels and restaurants all over the place. The ENTIRE town was wrapped up in the event. Every available building housed media, volunteers, riders, staff or anyone or anything that was necessary to make the event go on.

The venue was great as well. A steep and fast MTNX course was lit and completely visible from all parts of town. A bridge was constructed to make the XC course go over the main road in town. The pits were jammed with trailers and tents. It hasn't even started yet and I knew it would be big. We found our room and finally ate dinner, after about 30 hours from the last time I saw a bed I finally slept again.

The next day we went up on the mountain to see the course. Practice had begun by the time we were able to get our credentials sorted out, apparently my name is Mountain Biking and I work for Josh McGuckin Magazine. You can imagine the problems this little typo could create. The course was steep and fast with jumps, berms, and flat corners speckling the course. The big thing though was seeing the number of riders, the number of spectators and the determination and enthusiasm of the spectators. Throughout the event we saw spectators on every stretch of the course with bells, horns whistles and just about anything else you can imagine. The competition was fierce at the World championships. Sam hill was the favorite, but he was edged out in the end by Fabian Barrel.

When I was walking down the mountain immediately following the final rider they began the awards. At first I was a little upset that they started the awards so fast that I couldn't get down there. But as I walked down the mountain I realized that seeing the presentation wasn't as important as seeing the number of people gathered around the stage. It was packed! So packed in fact that Fabian crowd surfed away from the stage. When I realized I wouldn't make it. I sat above the event and just took in the scene. You don't see this type of crowd in a US race, national, World Cup, whatever. You don't see it. We were in the middle of the Alps in a town that had 1 main road into it, a town that is 3-4 hours away from the closest airports and this is the place where I see this size crowd? Simply amazing!

While we were leaving, our drive now cut down from 6+hours to only 4, I couldn't help but think that this event was the "smaller" event. At least that is what everyone told me. This event doesn't attract the same crowds as Ft William... What were we in for there?

I returned the little Punto and hopped on a bus to the airport. This bus took us into the city of Milan and I was amazed to see how much Graffiti there is there. It seemed like there is graffiti from the ground to the 8-10ft mark on just about any building you come across.

We got to the airport and hopped another plane.. This one was a commuter plane with some severe weight limits. I am sure I don't have to tell you that as a traveling photographer I was over all the weight limits. We must have chosen the right line because our line didn't mind the severity of our overweight baggage.

The flight was unique. It was like a flee market in the sky... We discovered that the reason for the baggage weight restrictions was because the airplane carries almost everything you could ever not want to buy!