Danny MacAskill’s Drop and Roll opens Livigno’s bike season

Every year, once the snow melts away and trees start to blossom – thousands of bike fans are eager to discover what new bike, shock, apparel and bike trail is available. The place to be to learn all of this is the BIKE Festival in Riva. To celebrate the best of biking, Italy’s “little Tibet”, Livigno, invited the YouTube sensation, Danny MacAskill and his Drop and Roll Team to the festival. Together, Danny and teammate Duncan Shaw were the hit of the week!

Performing on the water front on Friday, the team received an echoing applause from the hundreds of fans who came out to see their incredible skills. For the evening performance, no other than the legend, Hans ‘No Way’ Rey joined the show as a co-commentator. On Saturday, at the main stage, visitors also screamed in amazement as Duncan dropped from the 10 foot tower and Danny demonstrated some of his famous tricks from videos like Imaginate and Inspired Bicycles. Coordinated by tracks from the videos, the atmosphere was electric. Shortly after the shows, fans could meet Danny and Duncan in person at the Livigno signing sessions.

Livigno, in these last years, has earned the title of International MTB Queen, focusing on active tourism during the summer. For this it is equipped with facilities and services that meet every biker needs: from bike hotels and apartments with an inside mechanic’s workshop, daily laundry service and bike storage, several bike shops where to find the latest news of bike equipment, but also mtb rentals.

In Livigno all bikers are welcome: for kids there is the Bike Skill Center, where to learn to go biking and be more confident on two wheels; for families and beginners there are 15km of cycle path, where to enjoy healty time on bikes with the whole family, surrounded by pristine nature. Two trends of last year are getting more and more important: Fat bikes, whose fat wheels are perfect on uneven trails, and e-bikes, that with the assisted pedal, allow everyone to explore new trails and reach places and peaks that otherwise wouldn't been so easy to achieve with a regular bike.

Livigno also hosts a bike park set on 600 meters of vertical drop, with slopes up to 4.5 km long and trails suitable both for beginners and experts, up to the pro bikers. And for those looking for excursions of one or more days, there are lots of tours in Livigno valley, in the Stelvio National Park and in the nearby Engadina to be carried along with professional guides. Moreover for the opening day 10 km of new tracks divided into two trails will be already rideable. The “Coast to Coast”, 6 km of curves and jumps in front of the beautiful scenery of the Livigno lake, and the “Roller Coaster”, 4 km of pure freedom in flow style. During the summer two new paths will be under construction and shall be accessible as soon as they will be completed.

Moreover with Livigno are linked names of athletes who are a symbol of this sports, such as the Scottish rider Danny MacAskill, Red Bull athlete, the Swiss pioneer of the mtb Hans Rey and the pro cycling team Tinkoff-Saxo, that this year chose Livigno as summer base camp for high altitude training. News of this year is the Tinkoff Sport Academy, in Livigno from July to August, perfect for everyone that wants to improve their bike skills, taking advantage of the trainers, mechanics, masseurs and experts of the Russian cycling team.