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Hey
Booked a "in the unlikely event we can travel" free cancellation hotel in La Thuile and it happens to be the week of the EWS. Does anyone have experience of riding a bike park being used for an EWS, will there be restrictions on the trails they are racing on outwith the actual race?
I was in Finale Ligure last year two weeks before the EWS. There wasnt any restrictions.
But up the road in Pietra Ligure, we rode on the Sunday, and they were starting to mark out the tracks for the EWS the following weekend. By the end of the day, the ones they marked out were blocked off.
I assume to stop riders getting extra practice.
But the ones around them were all still open.
Outside of that, i went a couple of years earlier, and the guides took us down some EWS tracks that had been used previously.
So you should get the EWS experience if that's what you are after. But if its more of a worry about not being able to ride some trails due to the EWS, you might be restricted.
Not La Thulie but Canada a couple of years ago, a couple of ladies working for the EWS tried to stop me and a mate riding down a trail as they said it was for EWS riders only to practice on, but a truck pulled up and told them it was fine as it wasn't in the bike park they have no authority to stop us apart from race day.
Guess it varies from region to region and what agreement they have with the landowners or park owners.
Rode this event a few years ago and from memory a lot of trails/lifts are restricted during the race days and one day of practise. However different format this year and depends on what trails are to be used.
What a place by the way! The event is 8-12th, we'd be riding 4-9th so not a problem to go back country or to Pila on 8th and 9th, but would make it fairly pointless if the better park trails were shut 4-7th
Yeah great place and would like to go back just for fun.
We were in La Thule for the last EWS, our daughter was competing. We were in Pila before and so bought the lift pass for both the areas.
We weren't allowed to use the lifts during the practice days and during the competition. You had to have a race number board to get on the lifts However we could use the trails that weren't been used for the race so still managed to get some riding in by climbing up to the top a couple of times every day. It's a long slog in the heat.
We should have gone back last year as part of our Lake Garda and Italian Alps trip but was cancelled and bookings moved to this year but can't see it happening. Maybe next year.
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Thanks @Tracey
Top parenting!
We went for 1 day from Pila in 2019, and only half in the park after doing Colle Della Croce, could have spent a month!
Yes you can generally ride the area, and the trails.
Most of them are taped out in the week prior, and to be fair people just ride them anyway.
I've not race at any that have not been a functioning riding area anyway, so lifts have been open, the only caveat is they tend to give priority to racers on practice and race days.
And if you are going somewhere where its uplift only (like Finale) it's bloody hard to find spaces, even as a racer!
We pitched up at La Thuile on the last day of the EWS and watched a stage. Next day it was all back to normal, with the added bonus that with a bit of hunting around we found one of the freshly dug stages that we then rode.
However, La Thuile, whist still good is all bit worn out compared to when we rode it the first time we were there.
I’ve run a couple of trips at the same time as the Ainsa EWS. It was a bit complicated for us because we raced too so I had to be careful not to ride anything in the race. The non-racing people could ride where they wanted and plenty of people rode the new race stages just before the race. Nothing was closed off although there were people on the tracks.
Uplifts were hard to come by, everyone was running the practice or shuttling press.
Great fun though.
We were at la Thule when the ews was on and as has been said the lifts were closed to all riders except those competing for the whole event. You could use the lift with out a bike and you could ride the trails they weren’t using but you had to ride up yourself. We gave up and went to less arcs as there was virtually nothing to see in the village itself. TBH we were disappointed with the whole thing. Nothing to see or do race related in the village
LA thuile doesn't have a huge amount of riding/trails and even less ones that are worth more than one go. If you have transport you can get to Aosta/Pila La Rosiere and even bourg st maurice/les arcs easily.