Le discese dell'Annunziata

Exhausting endurance outing exploring the trails above the hamlet "The Annunziata."

Free parking at the cemetery, start immediately in the hamlet.

1 - Ascent first in hamlet and then very steep on dirt road, then nice forest and asphalt to Casstelpoggio and "Bastardo" descent (CAI trail 365): nice technical fast nature trail often in a canyon, a bit dirt and leaves as per period, but very doable.

2 - Alternative ascent: after the hamlet concrete start with ramps and then dirt, at times nice and at times sloping, then the rest of the ascent as before, with the difference that arrived at the asphalt this time I went for the CAI 295 trail. Uphill little stuff, and once around Mount Bastion and related ruins the "Tullio" descent begins: long and fast singletrack, full of earthy switchbacks, a couple of raises in the middle, a few nice stone passages, then towards the end a couple of difficult points exploiting canyon banks, nice and cleaned well.

3 - climb like 1), but this time from the dirt road I didn't go all the way to the asphalt but went up the "Cariola" trail made especially for bikes: first meters steep and then some nice wide switchbacks very rideable, nice on e-bike, then arrived at the pylon I took the descent to the left of the "Scannizzagatti" pylon: as before a somewhat bumpy dirt canyon with hairpin bends, with some fast forestry sections at the top, part below more rocky however nice sloping, all last part with brakes pulled and forearms on fire.

4 - Dirt climb as 2), pylon this time to the right. Giannicolo is the usual beautiful and challenging rock canyon, then at the junction it looked dirty, I did it anyway and in fact in the second part it was dirty and a bit abandoned but still doable, canyon style up pine forest this time, technical to rise towards the end, too bad it wasn't clean.

5 - Dirt climb as 2) and descent to the right of the pylon in common with the previous one, then at the forestry I went left to take the "Fadiga", also beautiful technical varied and tough, nice clean, top finish.

Back to the parking lot after 7h of biking without finding a soul. Kudos to the locals for cleaning the trails!

58 km | 2761 D+ 7h (e-bike)