Photo Story: Zam4 in Sardinia - Part One

,Zam4: Looking for a perfect trail in Sardinia

The ,Zam Project is focused on exploring the world on a bike. It is the brain child of of mountain biking freerider Richard “Gaspi” Gasperotti. Gaspi continued the adventure this summer with ‚Zam4. His new destination was Sardinia.

,Zam means journey in the Mongolian language. It’s not only a never-ending journey, but also a way to explore the most fascinating places in the world, which are just begging to be discovered. The tour begun in 2012 when Gaspi and his friends departed to the remote Mongolian Altai mountains to explore wild and undiscovered slopes and trails.

During the Mongolian expedition, they travelled fifteen thousand kilometers in a specially adapted van, which became their means of transportation, the base camp and an escort vehicle for the crew of four. During the expedition, one of the crew members, Martin Smolik, filmed for the movie ,Zam. The documentary gained critical acclaim at international film festivals. Shortly afterwards, the guys won fourth place in the international online poll for the Adventurer of the Year 2012! After that, they made more trips to Sicily and New Mexico in the United States of America.


Well what to say about Sardinia? It is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (after Sicily and before Cyprus) and a autonomous region of Italy. While the beaches are visited by thousands of tourists every year, the inland’s backcountry stays untouched and wild. The highest mountains reach over 1800m. Gaspi and his crew wanted to travel through the island to discover the best trails and locations in the bewildered countryside which were still unknown to the mountain biking fans.


If you want to get to the island with your car, you need to take a ferry boat from an Italian harbor like Livorno. We jumped onboard in the evening and right after the daybreak we arrived to harbor of Olbia and from here traveled in a south westerly direction. After studying local maps and loosing some hours trying to find the correct trail leading to the mountains, we finally found the first interesting spot. After a day spent on riding we came to the car just to find out that our battery is nothing but empty. Without any other cars around or jumpstart set to bring our van to the life, it seemed we were lost in the middle of nowhere for the ages. But once you become a traveller you can never loose your chances. As our driver Lukas suggested, Gaspi connected two older batteries from our Dji Quadcopter with the car battery, dim smoke came out of the both connectors and the engine ignited. With laugh and relief we were convinced that even MacGyver wouldn’t do it better.



The nickname for our Ford Econoline 6,7L 10VTriton is hard to translate from czech to english, but it has something to do with its huge appetite. The car was adapted for longer trips. There’s added 50 gallon tank for liquefied petroleum gas fuel which is much cheaper than petrol. There’s a special expedition roof rack with holders for up to eight bikes and a fold up tent. Another member of the crew can sleep inside of the car. The car is further equipped with a electric winch to get out of the troubles when got stuck in the deep mud or sand.


In upcoming days we turned to the west coast to Nebida with lot of trails leading over the rocks to the sea and than later to Genanhari where lot of places turned to the ghost towns after the numerous mines were closed down in late seventieth and most of people abandoned their houses short after that. Gaspi pushed his bike to the top of the landfill to experience a long free rides to the bottom. After the day spent on sun it was nice to jump into the sea and have some beers in the mobile bar on the parking place.


Looking for a perfect trail is like a game. Sometimes you’re full of hope and you believe there will be nice trails over there, but you can’t get over the fences or walls and it’s a complete failure. Another time you discover a beautiful area with trails running almost to the coast.


The ,Zam team got in touch with many locals who helped us massively. The mountain biking community in Sardinia is not so big, but they are insane. They ride great and everyone was super friendly and helpful. Every day they made stops when they liked some part of the countryside and we were looking for meeting with the local guys which we contacted via Facebook. Roberto and Andrea are the real mountain biking pioneers of the southwest part of the island. They keep the local trails in shape and organize downhill races on them. In the future they’d like to found a touristic centre with a bike rent and arrange the guided tours in the mountains.


Another crew is concentrated around Globike bikeshop in Carbonia owned by Danielo. He has a great team with great riders Luka and Simone who accompanied Gaspi for a whole day ride on their trails. After riding they invited us to the lunch in the shop where we had the opportunity to get familiar with the true atmosphere and taste of Sardinia with lot of wine, grappa and delicious food. After all Gaspi signed their wall of fame and we moved again.


Our next destination was a seaside resort Cala Gonone. It’s probably the most beautiful place in Sardinia. Paolo Insolera who is local champion in freediving showed us the coast rocks from the sea. We explored some caves and Gaspi rode down some trails where nobody else dared to ride before.



Gaspi would like to thank to all people who helped us to make this trip. Sardinia is a beautiful island and it is still pretty unexplored for the freeriding purposes. Stay tuned for a movie which will be out until the end of September.

words/text/photos by Adam Marsal

www.facebook.com/zam.journey


zamteam:
richard gasperotti
martin smolik
adam marsal
lukas jusko

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