Southern Europe’s Stone King Rally sure comes with a certain mystique.
Depending on where you look, it is a “genre-defining event with an awe-inspiring itinerary,” “the toughest trans-alpine MTB ride,” or “a wormhole between two otherwise mutually-excluded zones.”
Dizzy yet? Wait ‘til you ride the thing. The six-day, 24-stage course zig-zags along 160+ rugged miles from the Italian high country to the Mediterranean coast, covering a staggering 28,311 meters of elevation change.
Or at least it did in 2022. The Stone King morphs each year, based on its organizers and various route gurus’ whims, so it’s still unclear where exactly this year’s route will take riders come late June.
But if you want to get a head start, you can check out the recently-announced Stone King Touring Club. The club exists as a “structure of information to help all avid, experienced mountain bikers enjoy their own adventure along the annually-renewed route.”
Translation? It’s a trail guide you can use to ride the route without entering the race.
If that sounds cool, well, it does to me, too. The Stone King Rally not only looks rad based on the topography, location, and last year’s event footage — it’s also the self-proclaimed “spiritual successor” to the Trans-Provence, the legendary six-day big mountain enduro race from the French Alps to the Mediterranean that ended in 2019.
Psyched? Check it out. The Stone King’s organizers like French enduro luminary Ash Smith have gone the extra mile to make sure you won’t be under-endorsed in terms of information.
