Because the Alta Formazza always gives great emotions
Once upon a time there was the cyclist, a type of person who loved fatigue, but had a conflicting relationship with the cold and snow. The narrow wheels, the woolen clothes and little else made it heroic and sometimes impossible to ride in the typical winter conditions. This type of cyclist still exists, but thanks to the technological development and evolution of MTB, even the cold and snow are less scary.
A particular incipit, to tell an experience, more than a simple bike ride. The environment of this reflection is the high Formazza, but it could be any tour in the high mountains, where the ingredients are a bike, a snowy path and the desire to explore.
The possibility of climbing to high altitude is given by the atypical winter that my territory is experiencing, with the snow that stubbornly does not want to go down and therefore the mountains that lend themselves to different interpretations. The climb to Maria Luisa (this is the destination of the day) allowed me to make some reflections on the differences that exist in the different trails and ways of interpreting the MTB that each of us can experience. Because by changing the environment and the season, the sensations can be very different. So I wondered what could be the elements that contribute to changing the experience. The climate certainly plays a fundamental role, but the cold of winter should be a negative element in a snowy bike ride; instead, the general context probably makes this factor take a back seat.
A matter of colors
I have often wondered why there are environmental situations that immediately give those good vibrations that I always look for on my bike. Some are more adrenal, others more emotional, but often it is the colors that change the sensations transmitted by the bike.
As I said above, this reflection was born along the climb that leads from Riale to the Maria Luisa refuge, a classic tour in the summer, a little less in February. Thanks to the effort, the rarefied air and the particular environment of this slice of land on the border with Switzerland, the reasoning combined the woods that we almost always frequent, the alpine single tracks and the snow-covered trips.
There are usually two colors that are part of a biker's palette in his classic trail rides; the brown of the ground and the trees and the gray of the stones. The blue of the heavily spent sky can be glimpsed among the foliage of the highest branches, but most of the time our gaze is focused on the line to follow, so it is not perceived much. To be able to change the scenery you have to go up, where the green of the meadows appears, the path clears up and the sky returns to the protagonist. Then not only the scenario changes, but also our sensations, time expands, the perception of effort becomes less pressing and the desire to remain even stronger.
What changes in winter
what changes in the atypical turns of this particular winter is the fact that there is snow to distort our landscape, making the predominant colors become white and blue.
For those who have notions of chromotherapy it will be immediately clear that the stimuli that these two colors can give to our brain are decidedly different. So here is the reason for these more satisfying sensations in the high mountains, in fact the brightness given by the absence of trees, the presence of relaxing colors, such as green and blue in the summer and especially white in the winter, give impulses that cause those good vibrations I mentioned at the beginning.
So try to break out of traditional schemes and let yourself be conquered by these magical places. It takes a bit of effort to reach them, but trust me, it's worth it.
