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Andreas Kavalieros is our fellow blogger from Greece who writes sports, movies and various news for Greek people. Andreas is a die-hard windsurfer and mountain biker, and we are very happy to have him on board! As I mentioned in HomeboySki weekly newsletter, we are going to write about summer sports as well because the skiing season will soon be over in northern hemisphere. Another reason for writing about those sports is because we are also damn keen on riding bikes and surfing the waves! Although we will talk about mountain biking, surfing and other nice sports, our biggest focus will stay in skiing. Anyhow, let’s read what Andreas says about mountain biking in Rhode island in Greece! – Marko Pyhajarvi

First of all I must make it clear that I wouldn’t call myself a skiing freak like most of you probably are or willing to become, since you are reading this blog. I have been practicing downhill skiing from time to time back in those years that I was living in Finland, but probably having Greek genes in my blood I couldn’t let myself evolve enough.

Anyway, you are probably already wondering what a heck am I doing in this blog. Well, I am sure most of you beside skiing have an alternative or even equal passion for some other extreme sport like mountain biking. I personally, would consider myself a summer guy and since I live at Rhodos Island in Greece, how could I be something else! You guys watch the skies hoping for some fresh powder and I pray to the gods of the wind for some high pressure areas over the north Aegean Sea that will generate my ”powder”, the wind! Yes I am a windsurfer but as the snow is not always there when you most need it, the same unfortunately applies for the wind. Therefore I have recently been more active on something that only really bad weather can prevent me of doing, mountain biking!

The mountain bike trails of Filerimos Mountain at Ialisos, Rhodos most probably are not like any other well maintained trails of some well known mountain biking trails of US or Europe. They have however their own charm because of the changing terrain the level of difficulty and the interesting scenery of the forest.

It consists of 3 loops, a 4.5 km cross-country that stretches around the mountain, a 1.5 km downhill trail, and a freeride trail of a moderate length. My favorite, nevertheless, is the downhill trail and the reason is because of its technical complexity and difficulty to reach the pick. I usually ride this trail with a friend of mine and we start by ascending the track by foot and when it’s possible by cycling. Most of the time it is mostly carrying the bike on our shoulders and trying not to slide down the steep path, this can really put you off sometimes but the ride back definitely pays off the hard work. On our way up we plan the descent carefully in order to choose the best track because this singletrack trail changes considerably at some areas where the water erosion has modified the morphology of the terrain. It can be really challenging having a trail that changes after heavy rainfalls! It is also important to remove any obstacle like a fallen branch or rock.

The whole trail can be divided into 4 different trails. The first part on the top is a path between cypress trees made decades ago by Italians which is nowadays abandoned and very much unknown to locals, it is not a very steep singletrack and it has obstacles that slow down the descent although it is wide enough to give space for some race action. The second part is a narrow old road taken over by the forest flora, it gives you the change to gain some speed before jumping over to the third trail which is a path with rocky steps that some parts of which are covered by dirt but some other parts make you feel like going down the stairs! It is this part that due to water erosion becomes very demanding with sharp turns and jumps of few meters high. The bottom part of the trail is the widest singletrack with smooth ground and fairly steep turns.

Reaching the top after a hard climb creates a sense of euphoria of the mtb action that follows. Getting to the bottom of the mountain won’t take more than 15 minutes if you ride at full speed. I personally like to hammer it, and ride fast and hard. My friend on the other hand has even tried to get down with trial riding!! No matter how you prefer riding, mountain biking at Filerimos Mountain can be really worth trying it…while waiting for the winds to blow!