[Closed] Family Fun in Finale Ligure

Got lots of good input from people here when I asked for info on Finale on this thread https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/finale-finally/ and wanted to put some notes in case they’re of any use to anyone planning a trip. A few photos, too, but as ever the photos are only on the bits where I wasn’t too involved in the riding, so they’re a bit pisch.

Righto. October Half Term. Traditionally spent in the Peebles Hydro nipping out for a few soggy laps at Glentress in between showers. This year we went to Italy, via Nice airport, and it was good.

Flights from Man to Nice with Jet2 were about £600 then £70 return for each bike; which was shit loads cheaper than Easyjet/Ryanair. Also a lot less unpleasant (for example when the bike bag was 34kg, and the hold bag was 25kg) And when they let us swap a big baggage for a hold luggage free of charge….
Hotel was 1700 Euros for the week for family of four. Pretty basic room, but food was ok and it was very handy. http://www.hotelsangiuseppe.com/en/hotel/welcome.html
The hotel picked us up from the airport and dropped us off with bikes. 320 Euros return, which was a good deal. That was included in the 1700 if I recall. It was by far the most expensive family holiday we’ve ever done, around £2800 for the week. Made St Anton skiing at half term look cheap. But it was very enjoyable, and something a bit different.

I read loads of posts on here about packing bikes in boxes etc, and figured it can’t be that tricky. Of course I forgot the small detail that I had to do four of the bloody things. In the end Hellfrauds refused to give me any old boxes, as they insist on recycling them. In the end I bottled it and coughed for a couple of Evocs and the loan of a bag from a friend

Even then it still took me four evenings of stress to get only 3 bags dissassembled and packed. Nightmare. Thankfully that was mainly due to inexperience. When we took them apart to fly back it only took about 2 hours for three bikes.

The flights were at stupid o’clock so the missus drove me and the four big bags at around 4:30 am to the newly shitterised Manc airport. Dumped me on the pavement with a pile of luggage. Walk 10m with two bags. Go back for other two bags, walk 10 to the first bags then another 10m. Go back for the first bags, walk 20m. Go back 10m pick up other bags, walk 20m. I eventually arrived at checkin just before the missus arrived back from home in a taxi with two sleepy kids.

Dragging all the kit around was hard work. The rolly bags were ok, but the soft bag was a nightmare. In addition to the fullsusser it also had a 2m Pragmasis chain in it which weighed 5kg. Silly man 😊

If you don’t fancy paying for the airport shuttle then Hotel San Guiseppe is seriously close to the train station. This was the view from our window:

The room did vibrate a bit when the goods trains went past.

I didn’t really have a clue where to start, so had booked us on an uplift day with FreeRide Finale on day 2. On day one though I just had a wander around. Luckily I ended up at Bike Link Finale https://www.facebook.com/bikelinkfinale/ which is a tiny little unprepossessing looking bike shop on the main drag near the hotel. Spoke to Pam and she was just bloody awesome. She explained how it all works and an hour later she drove me and Son1 up the hill in her pickup to the top of RollerCoaster. She pointed in the correct general direction and left us to it.

It was great. Me and the kid could just bimble along at our own pace, with no stress and no pressure. We found Rollercoaster and did that. A few portages for the kid but generally ok.
Think this is Rollercoaster. Apologies, it’s been three months:

Lovely lovely lovely

One of the harder bits (yes, I know it doesn’t look hard)

Rollercouster really lived up to its name. Amazing flowy up down, round etc

Pops you out at the church

As you can see, the weather was reasonable 😊

At this point you can go back up the road for two km to a dirt track that takes you back along to the top of Kill Bill, Cacciatore etc etc. The kid moaned a bit but it wasn’t too bad. Then we searched about for Cacciatore. Took a while, and even then we weren’t sure it was right. The kid portaged bits, like this bit (photo is of a later descent when he did it)

100% disclosure, that photo might actually be Kill Bill. I can’t remember, but who really cares. It was a steep gnarly downhill on the kid's new bike half way down a mountain that he hadn’t had to ride up.

Can’t remember if we got another shuttle up that day. Each shuttle is 10 euros per person.

Next day was Finale Freeride with Son1 and 2. The problem was that Son2 had a hernia op 3 weeks previous and was still a bit phased from a snowboarding break earlier in the year

I’ve not really got any photos of the day as it didn’t really work. Though the bigun managed fine, his wee brother wasn’t on form (and his useless prick father had left his suspension locked out, the ****er (soooo annoyed with myself for that))

To summarise, the guide sped off and left us three and two German women at the back. So far so expected, but on a few occasions we didn’t have a clue where to go. Just blundered about the forest. It wasn’t just us though, these two Germans were also left behind. Not ideal.

Anyway, it was always loads of stress trying to keep up with the group. Son2 had an OTB and hurt his other wrist. Not Good. He bravely kept on, but was in a bad way. So we sat out the next run. We did the next run though and he managed to get back in the game. I was so proud of him; he was hurting and worried, but he got it together.

The big problem was that being October the ground was covered in leaves and the Flow Trails on the Calizzano Freeride tour http://www.finaleligurefreeride.com/copia-di-home were knee deep in leaves. That was part of the reason we got lost, you literally couldn’t see the path. And riding the trail was bloddy tricky. Just like early season off piste skiing. You had no idea what rocks and nasties were lying under the layer of leaves.
Anyway, to finish off the guide took us on Rollercoaster again, and having done it with Son1 the day before I knew it was ok for Son 2. He had a ball.

So, the key thing at this point was the flow trails were further from the coast, with different woodland, with broadleaf trees. Which made riding in October not very good. Whereas the trails just above Finale were different trees, more spindly and Mediterranean, which didn’t choke the trails. The standard trails were also much more heavily used than the Finale Freeride only trails, which meant that the leaves were even less.
So basically we abandoned the idea of doing stressful guided groups and went for the lovely relaxing, go where we want, when we want as fast/slow as we want option. And Pam at Bike Link was bloody excellent. She was so flexible, and because she only had a weeny pickup she was happy to go where we wanted, when we wanted rather than having the bother of going in a huge minibus group. And she also gave us the necessary info to know which trails to go and which to avoid.

TBC if anyone's interested and I can face the struggle of trying to post on the STW forum.