Mountain bike guide to Sardinia

Peter Herold

Sardinia is bigger than Wales and has higher mountains, and I and two colleagues are just finishing documenting for Italy’s main mountain sports publisher Versante Sud 70-odd mountain bike routes in central and southern Sardinia (where the mountains are, BTW) with a mix of XC and technical “Alpine” singletrack, often by the Mediterranean’s best coast. The guide, one of a series which includes Ticino, Valle d’Aosta and Lecco and Bergamo (all in Alps) will be published around Xmas 2011 IN ITALIAN. I am trying to work out whether there’s a market for an ENGLISH translation.

Many people (including Italians) know Sardinia only for its beaches. The two riders from N Italy who I took to Punta La Marmora, the island’s highest point 1834 m on Sunday exclaimed, “Wow, it’s just like the Dolomites here!”
and added, "But from the Dolomites you can't see the sea!"
Northern Italian riders like these are starting to discover Sardinia. Here’s a photo of mine :-) from June’s MB Action Italian edition

and the text says, “Sardinia has a thriving MTB scene which’ll soon be revealed to the world with the publication of new guides. This photo is a first taste of the mountains which rise to over 1000 m within 20 km of the coast and where you can ride in winter! [The weather conditions in N Italy are not too different from those in UK]. In the photo Davide rides the muletrack of the Codula Sa Mela Urzulei Supramonte. Photo Peter [url=http://www.mountainbikeogliastra.it[]www.mountainbikeogliastra.it[/url]“

The last guide to mountain bike in Sardinia was published 20 years ago, so another is well overdue. Do people think there’d be a market for an English translation? Would they be interested in coming to a relatively undeveloped destination where they can combine XC and AM riding on natural trails with a beach holiday? I don’t decide, it’s up to the published, but your comments would be welcome.

Thanks Peter

ddraver

I'd love one, but honestly it's another place added to the list of places I want to go, so won't be buying it any time soon. There is another fact that if you put maps in and some symbols to highlight the important details, much of the rest of the italian can be worked out...

If you can do an English version of a (?non existant) Dutch/Belgian MTB guide I'd be even more pleased

Peter Herold

I'd love one, but honestly it's another place added to the list of places I want to go

The first question people have answered (to themselves) when they come here is that they want to do their outdoor sports next to the sea, perhaps combining them with a beach holiday or coming in the mild winter. This is a good test which separates (say) Liguria, Sardinia and southrn Spain from (say) the Alps or (in your case) the Netherlands/Belgium from where many people come to Sardinia using Ryanair from Charleroi or Hahn.

There is another fact that if you put maps in and some symbols to highlight the important details, much of the rest of the italian can be worked out...

You will be able to downldoad GPS routes for the guide using the 16-digit code inside the front cover and the Italian edition comes with an English translation of the symbols used (see above). All the routes have maps.
Before we started working on the guide, we have put some GPS files for routes where we live on the Sardinia section of MTB-FORUM.IT, with descriptions in English as well eg http://itinerari.mtb-forum.it/tours/view/2438 which is my regular run from where we live. Here's a video of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbeI6BitKLY
Lots of other videos (often with English subtitles or commentary) of mainly All-Mountain routes that'll be in the guide at on http://www.youtube.com/user/thelemonhouse

cheers Peter

ddraver

I think that would satisfy most English people, especially if the website is built in such a way that google chrome or similar can translate it straight away. At the end of the day there still arent that many UK MTBers and not all of us take our bikes away with us

(But I'm a humble geologist with no experience of book publishing at all so what do I know?!)

Peter Herold

I think that would satisfy most English people, especially if the website is built in such a way that google chrome or similar can translate it straight away.

The website lets you only download the GPS routes, and with the legend card you can understand what type of route they are and look at the photos, there isn't though any web version of the paper guide, you have to buy it. Do you think people would buy a guide in Italian with nice photos and gps routes downloadable and lots of technical summary info about the rides (style, star rating, physical/technical difficulty,...)? That's the furthest one can go without making the full-blown translation, which tells you lots of interesting things about Sardinia as well as what the rides are like.

cheers Peter

ddraver

Pfft, Look i honestly don't know mate, this is getting abit far out of my comfort zone but I think you could get as much as is needed most out of the info with a website that will run through an auto translate and a book in Italian. Obviously a 100% english book would be better but I can't say if people would buy enough to make it worth it

I don't know basically, not my area of expertise.