Every winter Rocky Mountain Bikes takes a select group of team riders to an exotic locale to search for new trails and get stoked for the up-coming season. This year the location was the vacation town of Bariloche, Argentina.
After landing and spending a long night in Buenos Aires, we had seven days to sample the goods in and around the very European looking town of Bariloche. We hired some local rippers as guides and the rest was smiles for miles.
Day one was a warm up ride around the lake in Cerro Catedral ski area where we quickly figured out this place was the real deal. We ripped high speed, wide open mountain bike trails through a surreal forest of massive, gnarled trees called Coihue. Day two we sampled the budding bike park at Cerro Catedral ski area. It's only been three years since the locals convinced the ski area to host a bike park in the summer, but judging how fast and fun the trails are, this place will one day be a hub for DH in South America. Day three was epic...an up-and-back to a "Refugio" (Mountain Hut with staff and food) on Mount Lopez. The views were outrageous and the rip back down from the hut was some of the best tacky, snaking, high speed trail I have ever set tire to.
Stay tuned for part two, where the team steps it up a notch and goes for an overnighter on a very active sounding volcano.
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 The Rocky all-star team. Thomas Vanderham, Wade Simmons, Geoff Gulevich and Andreas Hestler. |
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| Buenos Aires is rad if you like to party...not so rad if you don't, because that appears to be the only thing people do in Buenos Aires. |
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| Mount Tronador in the distance...our goal for day four. |
