Italy - King of Dirt comp at Bike Festival

Ihave to admit being a little nervous of going to Italy because it was my first time in a country speaking a language I could not understand at all. My high-school German lessons and fluency in Dutch were fine for Holland and Germany but Italy was different. We were lucky to be welcomed by a cool trio who had recently moved to Italy from Brazil and spoke English. They lived in a little village of 800 people up in the mountains.

The house we stayed in in the little village of Lenzumo:

It was great fun staying with them and it was cool to show them an insight to the mtb world at the Bike Festival. The highlight was the Festival closing night after the King of Dirt comp when the whole expo site came to life with drunk Germans (who all come to this festival in Italy), a crack-up Italian band playing on the stage and way too much free beer, wine etc at all the company tents.

Kelly rode every minute possible while we were there, after not riding in Holland he was hangin out for it. I went and checked out the festival site and the cool Italian town with little streets and cool old buildings. The comp itself was pretty cool to watch, Kelly did some solid runs and it was hilarious hearing the announcer talk about him in German and Italian.

After the comp a rider came up to Kelly to ask him to sign his Turner bike – he had seen him in Red Bull Rampage Coverage and was stoked to see him in Italy. He was very stoked on Turner and getting to meet Kelly. When we told him our next stop was Venice, he was very excited because that’s where he is from and he immediately asked us to visit him.

Kelly signing the Turner bike:

Our Riva crew - Rafa, Andre and Marcela - Thanks for showing us a good time!

The festival by night - party time!