Stone King Rally 2022 report, results and photos

Santa Cruz Stone King Rally Volume 1 – 2022 – took place over the last week, travelling from Arvieux in France’s Alps to Bordighera on the Italian Riviera. Six days of enduro racing saw the 80ish entrants take in 24 special stages across both countries and many, many thousands of metres of descending (and, ahem, plenty of uphill too).

Climbs were assisted by CoolBus shuttles but riders weren’t completely saved the hurt – day two alone was as much riding as most people do in a month, if not more (some of the SKR competitors were out on the hill for over twelve hours!).

Stone King Rally really is an event that embodies the spirit of mountain biking and unsurprisingly captures many people’s imaginations. It certainly inspires us to head out into the mountains and explore.

If you don’t know much about Stone King Rally, the very brief story goes something like this: Ash and Melissa Smith, a couple living in the French Alps, created and ran Trans-Provence (the original point-to-point mountain bike enduro stage race/rally/traversey thing) for ten editions. Then they decided the event had run its course and it was time to put those trails to rest.

Ash spent the next few years scouring the Alps high and low (and east and west) for rides and ideas. Eventually, a mind-blowing route came together from the Hautes-Alpes region of France right through to the Italian coastline via classic Occitania.

The quality of the trails, the history and indeed stories of the areas this route journeyed through made it irresistible to Ash: it was time to begin a new mountain bike rally. An event was born.

But where does the Stone King Rally name come from? Looming high in the background for much of the ride is a famous peak: Monte Viso, also known as the Stone King.

We are putting together a special collector’s book all about Stone King Rally; you’ll be able to get a copy soon. But in the meantime, check out below the roundup coverage we helped with during the week of Stone King Rally.