Juliana Strega

That’s all I had in mind when I chose Juliana’s burliest bike yet as my Dream Build.

- Nicole Formosa

ONE ROCK

A single rock drop that makes up the most consequential move on one very short, fallline descent. The trail is less than a half-mile long, but it cascades 425 feet from the ridgeline in one continuous rock garden with varying levels of commitment and speed required to emerge unscathed. It’s one of my favorite trails in the local network, and a cheater line that skirts the drop had allowed me to keep my lines clean, but conservative in recent years. I wanted to be faithful to the steep, speed-required section, but each time I crested the point of commitment, fear revealed my weakness and I chose the less-consequential option. That weakness being drops requiring a mandatory front wheel lift. Mind you, this is not huge air— we’re probably talking equivalent to what a 10-year-old in Whistler would huck—but the mental jump it requires of me rivals that of the drop itself.

After spending a few days on the 170-mil-travel Strega on a press trip to France and Italy in late May, I returned to California wondering if going back to 27.5- inch wheels was my ticket to flight. While I’ve been happily rolling on a 140-mil-travel 29er for the past year, I occasionally miss the playfulness of the smaller wheels, and the Strega, with its 65-degree head angle, low bottom bracket and whippy chainstays, had been a wicked weapon for the ancient European trekking trails.