On June 2, Mount Etna, the volcano that emerges from the Italian island of Sicily, saw its largest eruption in years. Magma, ash and steam exploded into the sky, while red-hot lava flowed down its slopes.
Fortunately, at the time I was wrapped up in bed, cosily dreaming about shredding trails and eating unlimited amounts of chocolate.
Why is this relevant? Well, only a couple of weeks earlier – a blip in time when it comes to volcanoes – I was riding down those very slopes.
I was in Sicily to cover the launch of the new Ghost Poacha freeride bike, and the German brand had a rather special day trip planned.
While tourist access to the volcano is widespread – there’s a gondola stretching up a large portion of it and behemoth off-road coaches ferrying people higher – it’s not exactly a common mountain bike destination.
In fact, in order to experience the higher slopes, where there are no bike trails, you have to be accompanied by a guide trained in volcanology.
Fortunately, Ghost knew the right people, spent the right money and had arranged access to the flanks of the volcano, even if we weren’t able to get to the very top.
Our plan was simple – we’d spend the bulk of our time riding laps from the gondola and making our own tracks down Etna’s desolate, lava-strewn sides, before dropping into the trees surrounding the volcano to sample one of the best enduro trails Sicily has to offer.
Volcano vanquisher
We rode down the flanks of Etna on the new Poacha, a bike built for the toughest environments.
With 180mm of travel at each end (as standard), punchy brakes and chunky rubber, it’s well-suited to gnarly terrain, such as the trails we rode in Sicily.
The monolith awaits
As we drove from our accommodation, situated on the Sicilian plains, to the volcano, the road became increasingly twisty, winding its way higher and higher.
At first, we passed fertile soils – the material spewed from the volcano over millennia having created ideal dirt for crops – but farms soon gave way to forests, where chunks of rock-hard lava were embedded in the ground.
The higher we went, the more the ratio of trees to rocks tipped in favour of the hard stuff.
Jumping out of the van, I was surprised to find myself in what felt like an Alpine ski station – and sure enough, Etna is a working winter resort, with a gondola station surrounded by eateries and bars. Who knew?
After loading my 180mm-travel machine into one of the lift cabins, I was whisked 600m higher, to an altitude of around 2,500m.
The wind on this spring day was brisk. In fact, it was blowing a hoolie.
The cabin swayed on its cable – not ideal, when the first lift ride of the year is always a bit puckering. Or is that just me?
Thankfully, I was soon distracted by the sight of the dark monolith that was Mount Etna’s summit emerging from the clouds.
At the top, I was glad of the baselayer, body armour, jersey and windproof layer I’d packed, as well as the full-face helmet, which would prove equally useful in a different way later in the day.
With black dust billowing from under our tyres, we pedalled up a short but steep dirt track to a pass between two volcanic outcrops.
Etna is covered with numerous such humps, lumps and craters, and we’d be navigating these features throughout the day.
At 2,500m altitude and with no warm-up, it didn’t take long before we were panting, and as we turned off the established track onto softer ice patches and pumice, we were soon pushing.
As we skirted a mini volcano blocking our path, the winds pushed the clouds from over us, enabling us to see all the way down to Catania and the Mediterranean sea extending well into the distance. It was a spectacular spot.
Whole lotta lava
With little more than a few words, our guide saddled up and vanished in a cloud of dust.
I approached the brow of the slope he’d disappeared down – it was maybe 150m from top to bottom, a couple of hundred metres wide and set at an angle of around 30%.
With no track or trail to follow, it was a free-for-all to the flat ground at its base.
As I dropped in, it felt as though I was in one of those epic freeride films where the rider is carving down a remote, rocky mountainside.
With few landmarks to orientate myself by, the descent almost felt slow, although the gritty pumice flinging up from my front tyre and chattering off my down tube did give some sensation of speed.
The ride feel was like nothing I’ve experienced on two wheels.
While the ground was soft, the sharp stones mixed in with the soil still offered support, allowing me to dip my tyres’ shoulder tread in and start carving turns, spraying grit every which way.
As I came to the bottom, I had another lesson in riding down lava fields – braking performance is atrocious! I definitely ended up going far past my expected stopping point.
After traversing a little, we dropped again, this time into the clouds, which had returned, reducing visibility to 50m or so.
Our guide’s tracks showed us a vague direction in which to head. This section of the volcano required more attention, with football-sized chunks of lava littering the slope, primed to slice tyres or fling you from your bike.
Despite the mostly soft surface and lack of visibility, I’d built up more trust in the terrain and the Poacha’s ability to deal with any unforeseen obstacles by this point, and found myself squeezing the levers of my SRAM Maven brakes far less and allowing the bike to run.
As we descended, the mountain changed. With more time having passed since fresh lava and ash had made it this far down, hardy grasses had started to establish themselves, creating what were in effect mini lava dunes.
These mogul-like lumps proved excellent terrain for a bit of slalom fun – we twisted between them, spraying chunks at each turn, before launching ourselves over the top of them. MBUK TV’s videographer Max was in his element here.
Having spied a lump that would make the ideal lip to launch off, he couldn’t resist sending it 20ft down the volcano with his camera pack still slung on his back. Thankfully, he landed upright.
Eating dirt
After tackling one more section, we reached the access road and spun our way back to the gondola for another lap.
This time, Max and I headed off with our own guide so we’d have a little more time to film.
Once we’d shot our intro, the clouds still doing their best to interrupt the amazing views of Etna’s smoking peak, and the wind whipping our faces, the guide pointed to a 100m-high hump behind us.
“You can go up there if you like,” he said with a nonchalant shrug. I needed little encouragement – this would make for one of those epic ridgeline shots, with the peak of the volcano in the background.
It may have only been 100m high, but it was the toughest hundred-metre hike I’ve done.
The ground was so loose that it was one step forwards, two back, at times. With my bike on my back, I trudged up as best I could, grit getting in my shoes, feet sliding, lungs panting.
Eventually, I topped out, to be greeted by a huge crater venting volcanic steam amid red, orange and ochre dirt.
I instantly regretted leaving my action camera at the bottom. With Max primed and a couple of bemused tourists looking on, I dropped straight into the flank of the mini volcano, where huge chunks of lava were interspersed with extra-soft grit.
It was far harder to ride than anything else that day, and steeper too. Sadly, I ran out of talent just metres from the top, and in full view of the sightseers too. My bar twisted, my front wheel dug in and I flipped over the front.
Black pow
Thankfully, my back protector, full-face and knee pads saved the day, but I was left with a throbbing pain in my finger.
With Max, the tourists and our guide looking on, I had to save face, so I retrieved my bike – which had sacrificed a fair bit of paint to the volcano gods, but was otherwise unscathed – ignored the pain (I dared not remove my gloves until the day’s riding was done) and dropped in once again.
To make the shot suitably iconic, I needed to go straight down the slope, so, with some gentle feathering of the brakes, I pointed my bike towards the base of the hill, held on and hoped.
This time I made it – what a rush!
As the day progressed, my confidence on this alien surface grew and grew.
After three runs, we dined on pizza, cakes and espresso, which warmed us up and fuelled us for the forest enduro track that was still to come.
The black loam of Etna’s lower slopes was pure joy to ride on, as we made our way back to the transport on our final trails of the day.
Twisting through the trees, we hit warp speed as we slashed through beautifully crafted turns and pumped rollers, all while dodging occasional rocky outcrops that threatened to slash our tyres.
The party train to end the ride was like no other, with Ghost-sponsored 4X world champion and urban downhill legend Tomáš Slavík leading the charge. It was a day to remember.
