Scott 11 honcho and trail builder Claudio Caluori sent over a great story about his efforts to build a pumptrack at a hotel in Tuscany, Italy.

After two trail building jobs in Switzerland had do be stopped because of the snow, I went to Massa Marittima, Tuscany, Italy, to build a pump track for a Swiss hotel. Not sure if this might even be the first pump track in Italy. If not, dirt readers will let you know.

I planned on ten days of work with the Velosolutions crew, but the Italians taught me the Italian way: On the second day, the builders didn’t want to work because it was slightly raining. And they didn’t want to start again before the dirt was dry, – meaning some time in spring. It took me a week to find another digger and digger driver to be able to get going.

After another week and technical problems with the digger, we thought we were now finally on the right way, when the police showed up and took the digger driver with them. – He didn’t come back. But at least we still had the digger, and so we took turns driving it.

I had two days left before I definitely had to go home, when it started snowing! What about global warming?!

One day left, and suddenly, the Italians were working like machines, and we made it Saturday night!

I’m now back home, back to the kids and back to SCOTT11 business!

Have a good holiday season!

Claudio Caluori

P.S The job we had to quit in Samnaun, because one morning, it looked like this:

Send your wonderful tales of Winter Digging to Billy