The Hard Alpi Tour Extreme is an 850 km adventure motorcycle rally starting at Sanremo on the Italian Riviera, and finishing in Sestriere in Italy's Western Alps 41 hours later.
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- Start - Event build up and team meal 🍴 7m 25s -
- Event start, 22:55 Friday, Zero hour 🏍️💨 10m 20s -
- Leaving the tarmac for the first time 🏔️ 11m 12s -
- Lee decided to do his tyre pressures.....now. And Carlos "helped" him 😂 13m 0s
- Rezzo, 05:00 Saturday, 6 hours done 15m 10s
- Sunrise on Saturday 🌄 18m 24s - James' Saturday morning nap 😴 18m 36s
- Bardineto, 09:30 Saturday, 10.5 hours done 20m 10s
- Reality hits home for James and Stuart, as Stuart plans his escape 🏃➡️ 22m 42s
- Sam's near death experience ✈️ 25m 36s
- Stuart and James' synchronised crashing 💥 27m 48s
- Playing catch up off road 28m 13s - Sam's epiphany (Absolute committment) 💪 30m 45s
- Garessio, 15:00 Saturday, 16 hours done 32m 6s
- Roadside power nap 😴💤 33m 35s
- Riding above the clouds on the Via Del Sale (Upper Salt Road) 🏔️☁️🏍️ 36m 5s
- The terrifying drops of Tornante Della Boaria 😱💀 37m 10s - Col de Tende ⛷️ 37m 38s
- The broken men of Boves, 21:00
- Saturday, 22 hours done 🧟 43m 23s
- Rucaski, 01:45 Sunday, 27 hours done ⛷️ 46m 59s
- Drone shot from the Parco Montano, north of Rucaski 50m 10s
- Perosa Argentina, 12:55
- Sunday, 38 hours done 51m 4s
- End of the off road 🛣️ 52m 1s
- Sestriere, 16:15 Sunday, 41 hours 20 minutes 🏁🍾🙌🎉 53m 56s - Later that evening 🍝🥩🍷🍻
All of our kit was purchased (no freebies), and we used a range of gear from different manufacturers.
TYRES - 5 of the bikes used Michelin Anakee Wild, 2 used Continental TKC80, and 1 used Mitas Enduro Trail XT+. All of the tyres were great, and as a team of 7 bikes, we didn't have any punctures.
HELMETS / EYE PROTECTION - Most of us used Adv helmets with safety glasses at night and sunnies during the daytime. Joe and Andy also used goggles at times. Four of the team used Arai, 1 used AGV, 2 used Klim, and 1 used a HJC MX helmet. Nobody had any problems at all.
CLOTHING - Most of the team wore ADV trousers with vented / air mesh jackets, although two of the team wore enduro gear.
EVERYONE wore waterproofs for a LOT of the event. 😂
BOOTS - Everybody wore Sidi boots, although there was a split between MX and Adv boots. They all performed well though and nobody picked up any injuries. The MX boots aren't waterpoof at all though.
EAR PROTECTION - A number of us used Auritech motorcycle specific filtered ear plugs. They're comfy, even for really long periods, and they allow great music and speech transfer while blocking out most of the wind noise.
INTERCOM - Cardo Packtalk is 100% the best intercom currently on the market. We use this kit ALL the time, and just have no problems. If somebody tells you otherwise, they're using it wrong.
NAVIGATION - We used a variety of setups, from free Garmin apps Tread and Explore on iPhones, to Garmin Zumo XT and XT2, and 2 of the team used DMD2. Everybody's setup worked fine, but take the time to try it out properly first, particularly when going off road. Joe had a new garmin XT2, and it was faultless, but he hadn't got the track set to the maximum width and didn't have the right map layers selected at first.
PHONE MOUNT - Everybody except one used Quadlock, and they're just brilliant. They're simple, they're not expensive, and they work.
LUGGAGE - Sometimes, you use a product and you can immediately tell it's been designed by somebody who actually uses it; that's Kriega. Five of the seven bikes used Kriega luggage, and it's just incredible kit. Your gear stays clean and dry, and the kit is so durable.