If you’re travelling a long way or across several time zones to Finale we advise arriving in Nice, France a day early to allow your body to adjust to local time and to make sure any flight or luggage delays don’t spoil your trip.
We recommend spending the night before your adventure at Novotel Suites or Radisson Blu hotels at Nice airport, which is where you’ll be picked up tomorrow morning.
Your driver will meet you at one of the above hotels in Nice in the morning, transfer you to Finale, where you’ll meet your guide.
Over a coffee she will go through the all-important pre-trip briefing. She will set the tone of the week ahead, explain the trails to come and answer any questions that you may have.
You’ll then build bikes or set up rental bikes, before hitting the trails in this beautiful corner of Italy. Your guide will take you for a short warm-up ride to prepare the legs and the mind for the Finale style of riding, before returning back to your hotel for your first evening meal as a team.
On your second day in Finale we will ride from your accommodation through the medieval old town, weaving through the high walls that protect you from the intense sun.
Before loading our bikes on our final uplift vehicle of the week, an impressive 4×4 Landrover, we will grab a coffee and pastry in the morning light of the old town.
Our 4×4 shuttle will allow us to access a network of old and newly built trails on the backside of these coastal mountains. These trails have a very different feel to the front range – they are tighter and more natural feeling with some truly breathtaking chutes, berms and technical sections. We’ll ride to a mountain village where we settle down to a welcome lunch, topped off with home-made gelato!
After lunch we will shuttle back up to the top of the mountain where we will ride a new local trail that will criss-cross an access road, giving us a chance to shake our hands off and laugh at how awesome it is. Then we will head higher again to pick off our last run of the week. We will come down the front face all the way to the sea, taking in some trails we have been on earlier in the week, and mixing up with new ones to give us the best run of the week to finish.
As we reach the road we’ll weave through the lower parts of the valley, and back to hotel through singletrack lined with bright and colourful flowers, gardens and alleyways all the way to the sea and a swim with a beer on the beach!
Today is your pedalling day. We will meet along the road from the hotel in the now familiar ‘Piazza’ in the middle of Finale. And when in a piazza you must have a coffee, so we start our climbing day with an espresso and a chat about today’s rides.
As we pedal out of town we will gradually leave behind the traffic and humid air, as we start climbing up and away from the seashore. Our climbs are not too difficult, but are sustained at 30-40 minutes each today, so plenty of water and suncream are essential.
The descents on this part of the mountain range are fun, flowing and at a perfect gradient for mountain biking, but every so often there are committing and technical rock features that will require brains to be in gear and ready for action.
As the day progresses and we are deep into our second climb, we will start a hike-a-bike portion that will take us to a rocky outcrop with 360° views over the surrounding valleys.
From the top of this descent we will take on a new trail that was opened up for the 2018 enduro race, flowing and swooping with an impressive chalk cliff dominating a large part of the trail that will lead us to an almost jungle environment.
For lunch today we will be in a cave/grotto restaurant that is also at the top of a wonderful descent – a descent that has featured in every enduro race in Finale, and a must do for any rider who visits this area, if you can find it.
The afternoon trails will drop us directly to Finale and the piazza, and a waiting ice cold beer and snacks. Life is pretty special in this corner of Italy.
Today we head to the backside of the Finale region. To access the first trail of the day we pedal through the Barbottina forest, one of Europe’s biggest beech forests and descend into the rural area in the valleys inland where logging is more important than the seaside tourism.
This is much less-travelled singletrack, but just a stone’s throw away from the main trail network. We will ride classics like “Supercanaletta” and “Euforia”.
We travel further away towards Castelvecchio di Rocca Barbera, a 13th century castle overlooking the sea. We will have lunch here inside the hamlet surrounding the castle before we slowly make our way back towards to our seaside home.
With such a packed week of mountain biking and descending, we are having a half day today. In the morning we will hit some Nato Base runs, picking off your preferred trails, sampling some new guide favourites and dialling those features you have had your eye on all week.
Then we will retire to the beach for a relaxed Italian lunch, long coffees and sample some ice cold white wine while watching the world go by in Finale.
In the evening we’ll saunter up to Finalborgo, the old town, to a favourite dinner location of ours, and continue eating and drinking Italian style into the warm evening hours.
Today we head into the backcountry, where locals who have biked in this region for the past ten years haven’t even ridden these trails!
Setting off early morning from the piazza we will travel around an hour and half along the coast and inland to our secret trail network near the village of Nava. These trails are all uplift assisted by a converted 4×4 9 seater bus, with a monster truck appearance and trailer to match.
We will spend the day shuttling and riding on a number of mountain ridges that resemble the fingers on a massive rock and tree lined hand. Your guide will weave from one side of the valley to the next, linking trails and valleys in such a way that you will feel you have been in multiple regions in one day.
As we pull up to a small village early afternoon you will be welcomed into the locals’ restaurant, where all walks of life come together to enjoy a three course lunch and down tools for an hour of chatting and relaxation.
As we finish up with a coffee and grab our bikes, we’ll take a shuttle to the highest trail of the day. You’ll enjoy around 1,300m of descent from this trail, that will see us above the tree line and dropping into ancient singletrack back to the valley floor, where towering cliffs reach high above your heads as we ride along the river back to the waiting van. A day to remember!
On our final day in Finale you’ll have a calm start, watching people head for the beach and a day of sun-bathing, as you sip your cappuccino and enjoy a pastry.
After breakfast we’ll head to the bike room to collect your bikes and load them onto the trailer outside your hotel. From here we will head up into the mountains that surround Finale, around 1,100m in altitude. We have a very short climb to the start point of our day of ‘Finale Classics’. We will build you up slowly to understand the terrain and riding style of Finale, but in the process we will tackle stages from the 2013, 2015 and 2016 enduro races.
As our stomachs start to rumble we will peel off the well-known trails and onto a more natural favourite of our guides. This will lead us to the home of a local family (friends of your guide) who have set up a table for us under some vines in their front garden, with a view over the valley below.
We’ll enjoy delicious home-made Ligurian food and wine under the shade of the vines. After our late lunch, we will ride a short uphill to the shuttle that will take us back to the tops of the mountain, where we will ride a varied selection of trails that will lead us all the way back to the beach bar for a post-ride beer and last chance to swim in the Mediterranean.
Sadly this is the end of your EWS Travel experience in Finale. It’s time to pack your bike and head for home.
Your guide will arrange pick up times from your hotel and your driver will drop you to the airport at around 12 noon to catch your flight home. Arrivederci!