Darren McCullough and I had the pleasure of traveling to the Riva del Garda Bike festival. We were there to meet up with Shimano riders, Wade Simmons, Andrew Shandro and Thomas Vanderham. The annual festival is hosted in Garda Italy, located about halfway between Venice and Milan. Garda is one of the most beautiful towns and has more than one thousand kilometers of bike trails for all abilities, a perfect backdrop for our 3rd video installment of the Shimano brake series.
Our trip to Europe started with the usual 14 hours of travel via 3 airports and then a rental car. Apart from Darcy’s gift of ordering Darren and me small Hindu meals for the flights, all was good!! (thanks Darcy…)
The next morning, shortly after Shandro’s mandatory morning cappuccino, we got down to business. Wade is basically a Garda local (this was his tenth visit to the festival) and his knowledge of the trails took us right to the goods. Shot after shot, our cameras were filling up with A-grade trail ripping. Over the next 3 days, our time was spent capturing a blend of scenic, urban, and singletrack ripping shots.
The Highlights of the trip: - The warm shots of espresso throughout the day - The after hours bar which allowed us to watch the Canucks playoff game until the morning sunrise. - Handing out German and Italian Beer at the festival - Shimano treating us to an amazing classic Italian dinner
Huge thanks to the Shimano Family for their hospitality (Johanna, Benny, Tony, Flo, Harold, Chris, Mart….)
~ CJ