Riding and racing motocross from a young age, DiNapoli didn’t spend much time on a mountain bike until 2012 when he joined the local high school mountain bike team. “I knew nothing about mountain bike racing,” he said, but cross country mountain biking spurred an interest in downhill and then enduro racing.
Traversing California’s highway system became a regular occurrence as DiNapoli moved his way up the amateur ranks and into the pro category in the California Enduro Series. Last year, DiNapoli took his racing international, competing at the infamous Whistler round of the EWS, which also happened to be his first time racing the premier enduro series.
Throughout recent years, DiNapoli had been involved with Specialized Bicycles as a sort of unofficial ambassador. This past winter, he got in touch with the Specialized Racing enduro team. They came to the agreement that so long as he could get to Europe, he would essentially receive the same support as the full-time team members for the Italian and French EWS rounds.
Europe has a famed history of mountain bike racing, in part because of its tracks that are different than the race courses in the United States. High-speed grass corners lead to slippery rock gardens and tricky 180-degree switchbacks. No trail? No problem. If it looks like it can be ridden, European track builders have probably sent mountain bike racers down it.
DiNapoli says the tracks in Europe were a stark contrast to those back home. “Everything has a lot in common here [in California], and Europe was like nothing in common.”
The “Euro Style” switchbacks 10 minutes into stage 2 in France particularly stood out to him. “You’re physically pretty fried by then, and then you have to work on like 10 switchbacks in a row. Some were like, ‘my bike doesn’t even fit through this,’ you know. That’s where you’re trying to master the grabbing the front brake, popping the back end around.”