This past June, I turned the big 4 O. Leading up to this established “life event”, I debated what I could do to celebrate. My buddy David was occupied with new parenthood, as was my brother Adam. At one point, I envisioned a couple of close friends and my brothers heading to the famed Retallack Lodge in BC for several days of backcountry epic mountain biking, but it just wasn’t in the cards for this year. My buddy Erik and I have big plans for next summer to bikepack in Switzerland, but I had the desire for something sooner.
One evening, Kyla mentioned a dream to do some European road cycling in the near future. This idea initially put me on the path of thinking about a classic big Alps roadie holiday where you go and knock out various famed Tour de France climbs. But at heart, I’m a mountain biker, and also these days with the autoimmune disease, it is harder to keep the energy up for day after day of all encompassing physical punishment (I’ll let you know how Switzerland goes!).
I was talking to Dan around this time, he mentioned that Gabe Amadeus had recently been raving to him and Cristina about a mountain biking trip in Spain. I remembered being enamored with Gabriel’s instagram photos from that trip, so I thought, fuck it, maybe this is the right path for me. I reached out to Gabe and he had nothing about good things to say about the experience provided by the mountain bike tour company Basque MTB.
Looking at the calendar, the timing was great for a Fall trip. The Pyrenees mountains generally stay dry and warm through October, so we could get June back into school to take the pressure of Kyla and the timing would be ideal. With Kyla’s encouragement and blessing, I reached out to Doug at Basque MTB and booked up their classic “High Pyrenees trip” for the last weekend of September.
I spent August and early September doing my best to get ready for a full week of big backcountry riding. I gave my bike to Fat Tire Farm to get everything tuned and readied. I tried to get some endurance riding in to prep the body, and most importantly, I tried not to take any injury risks that would force me to cancel. Unfortunately in the couple weeks leading up to the trip, my Rheumatoid Arthritis started flaring the worst its been since before I started medication (still flaring RN) AND the weather in San Sebastian, where the trip departed from, looked, to be frank, like absolute shit. I was under the false impression that the trip hewed pretty close to San Sebastian, unaware that we’d be driving many hours across the Iberian Peninsula and starting the week close to Andorra.
I flew out of Portland on Thursday the 22nd on an overnight flight to Amsterdam. Then after a few hours in Amsterdam, I took a two hour connecting flight to Bilbao. Schiphol had been in the news prior to the trip for massive delays with security, and I was pretty freaked out that my bike bag wouldn’t make the transfer, but lo and behold, after a few anxious moments in Bilbao, it was booted out to me and I was ready to go. I went to a nearby airport hotel to get some rest and try to adjust to the time change. I actually slept great the first night, and woke up feeling happy and ready to take the bus on to San Sebastian to start the trip.
On the bus, I met a few of the guys who were signed up for the same trip and had a nice chat with John, James, and Rob from England. It positively hammered rain on the bus ride to San Sebastian, and myself and the guys were really starting to dread the thought of a week of soaking wet rides. We got to the San Sebastian bus station, hung out for a couple hours, met some of the other guys on the trip, then met Jorge and Enaut, our guides for the week. Bikes were loaded, and we were off to Doug’s house, the owner of Basque MTB. In addition to owning the company, Doug continues to guide, but he was set out with a group of women from Alaska and Utah in a similar neck of the woods, but doing more cross country high elevation riding with camping gear and supplies transported by burro.
After we got the bikes put together, it was back in the van for a longgg 5 hour trip through France to the Spanish mountain resort town of Bagergue. We ate a very late meal, and I climbed into bed and had a middling night’s sleep. We woke up to a cloudy but dry day. It had rained overnight and for a few days prior though. After breakfast, we started on an extremely rough shuttle up to the first trail of the trip. We were getting shuttled by a local company and the vans were getting absolutely thrashed.
The first trail of the day was… not good. Conditions were slick as shit and we were out of the gate into what would be considered a hard American black trail or perhaps a double black. I don’t think any of us were feeling properly warmed up for such an immediately committing experience, and within the first 5 minutes, I got crossed up in a chute, and I had a soft OTB. We were originally going to do another run at this spot, but the shuttle drivers were finding the road too punishing, so we went a bit further out of town, up a beautiful valley filled with mushroom hunters, and had a nice climb and traverse to a very cool bench cut historical trade route with more predictable conditions.
Strava File: 1st morning in Pyrenees
After a pleasant lunch, we settled up for what they called bike park laps. Really, it was just a more purpose built MTB trail system with easy shuttle access. The trails were fun, steep and traction was more predictable. I found myself slotting in as the third fastest rider in our group of 15. Everyone’s confidence started to grow as the conditions were better and we’d had a couple hours on the bike.
Strava file: Spanish Wildcat aka Day 1 afternoon
After riding, it was time for another fairly long transfer to the quieter mountain town of Benasque.
Unfortunately ,while in Benasque, my jet lag went into overdrive and I wasn’t helped by a mediocre, loud room and bad bed. We spent two nights at the little hotel there, and while the hotel itself was very cute and the staff were friendly, I was losing my mind with sleeplessness. Eventually I got a couple of hours, and before I knew it, it was back into the van for a shuttle up to the ski resort behind town.
The first descent of the day was a lonnnggg one. It was very chilly out but the skies were blue and the grip was getting better and better. There was a long, very fun XC-style downhill with lots of pedaling, pumping, good corners, and not too much distant visibility, a run I would love to do again in drier conditions. We eventually found our way over to one small village, regrouped, and then had a wildly fun and aggressive stone path trail over to the next village to meet the shuttle drivers.
The next trail of the day was the first time up into what truly felt like an alpine environment. We were treated to stunning mountain vistas and lovely warmth, and dry trails. We started this route with a quick fireroad bomb, some technical traversing, and then we got into what would be a theme of these trails, steep, rocky smashfests with extremely tight switchbacks. I definitely didn’t have my technique dialed at this point in the trip, but I got along okay.
After lunch, we rode a tremendously fun trail with lots of whoops and optional lines in a loamy forest, and then we shuttled back up to the ski resort one more time for a different, very fun and diverse trail that dropped us right back into Benasque. That night, Randal, a rad guy from Ontario, also on the trip by himself, and I went out to get some dinner from a Tapas bar in Benasque and had a lovely fresh meal.
We were later joined by Paul, the guy who was by far the fastest/most confident rider on the trip. Paul is an Irish guy, but he lives in Bilbao. He unfortunately let us know that the trip wasn’t working out for him and would be heading home the next morning. I had another insane night of no sleep manic jet-lag, and then it was time to get up and move onto the first really big alpine shuttle.
We drove high up into the mountains near Bielsa and got started with the first truly of two truly punishing hike a bikes on this trip. We were slowly pushing and pulling ourselves up to an incredible pass, but there were no formal trails here, just pure overland choose your own adventure. I got to enjoy what Chris Bernhardt so eloquently called, “The Euro-Carry”, as seen below.
We took an initial break about 20 minutes from the saddle. We snacked on some cured meats, and took a rest from having our backs/necks destroyed by our bikes.
Then, after more Euro-carrying, we arrived to the saddle and were treated to outrageous views and winds.
I loved the experience of being on the saddle. The brutal winds, alien clouds, infinite vistas, one of those places that puts the feeling of vivacity straight into your veins. After everyone had recovered from the hike-a-bike, we started down the other side, through a long scree section that I really enjoyed, and down to an alpine lake that was unfortunately fairly empty. Then we climbed to a small cottage and began an outrageously rowdy 3000′ descent in 4 miles before getting spit out to the incredibly beautiful village of Saravillo.
Strava File: MOAHB (Mother Of All Hike Bikes)
The feast that awaited us was absolutely one of the high points of the trip.
We started with a beautiful Paella, and then had some lovely local sausages with frites. Plus, the ever present coca-colas and black-as-the-night Americanos.
The fun wasn’t over yet, after the incredible meal, when I felt like curling up into a ball and going to sleep, it was once again time to get back into the van for another long and remote shuttle. We were passing through high-mountain pasture land and had to contend with many stubborn cows on the way. The views were incredible and the light from the late afternoon sun was very dreamlike.
This descent was… wow. There were no optional turns or junctions to be concerned with, just a pure backcountry river trail dropping 3500′ in 4.1 miles. I was feeling really good and confident at this point and opted to be the first one down the trail. I dropped in and didn’t look back and treated it as a personal enduro stage. I hammered the whole thing out in just under 30 minutes, good enough to put me 4th on the strava file. Descending fully committed, on a fully natural trail, at dusk, was incredible. I was fully in a headspace of unified focus and physical exertion, and to be able to exist like that for a full 30 minutes was very special.
Strava File: Just a completely epic 3500’ descent before dinner, no biggie
We pedaled that early evening into the more remote mountain town of Bielsa and this time we stayed at a fantastic hotel with excellent food. I was sad to not have the time to poke around this old stone city, but it was once again a whirlwind of a late dinner, finally some good sleep, and then before I knew it, once again waking up to another full day of backcountry, high mountain riding.
This was a relatively short shuttle, but my god, we were treated to the most out of this world views on the way up and for much of the ride.
We got our bikes from the trailers and said see ya soon to our wonderful drivers, then we had a brief cruise across some pastureland doubletrack before once again dismounting and putting the bikes on our shoulders.
Our guides gave us the option of either going to the summit of Comodoto or skipping a few hundred vertical feet of Euro-carry by going to a side saddle. I, of course, wasn’t here to skip the hard option.
Strava File: Hombres de los Montanas
Once back to the lower slopes, we clicked into a series of more purpose built Enduro trails that were pretty fun. We had a solid lunch and then returned to those same trails in the afternoon for some additional laps.
Strava File: You’re once, twice, three times an insane Spanish Enduro course
After the last lap, we had a nice cross country cruise back to Bielsa and had one more lovely night in the hotel there.
The next morning, we once again returned to the same trails for a lap and then another nearby trail that we hadn’t ridden before. On the way up the final trail in Bielsa, a local hunter stopped the vans to give our guides a piece of his mind about mountain bikers. Some things are universal it turns out. But eventually he relented, and we did our final, very short trail there. Then into the van for the final epic outdoor lunch of the trip.
We drove an hour or so out of the mountains and into the more arid slopes surrounding Ainsa. We arrived at a restaurant, really a small estate, in the near ghost village of Oncins, and again, were treated to a fabulous meal of local tomatoes and peasant lentil soup. There were many charming feral dogs roaming the property too, from newborn pups to old fellers close to the end of their days. All were friendly and gentle and were a lovely amusement.
After lunch, we began our second ride of the day from the restaurant and were back to doing more all-mountain / cross country riding (dare I say, downcountry) which I really do have great affection for. The routes here are relatively popular and we leapfrogged with a small group of French XC riders on old hardtail bikes who were getting violently pinged around the rocky landscape while we blasted through until it was time to regroup at an intersection.
Despite being less Enduro in feel than what we’d been previously riding, Ainsa has actually been home to the EWS a couple of times. There were definitely places here that reminded me of Moab/Sedona, though the terrain was not quite as playful as the American SW.
We did a second lap starting a little lower and that was a little more direct to the infamous Ainsa “skatepark” zone. We staged just outside the village of Torrelisa. Another fabulous stone enclave that is slowly headed to desolation. I briefly hung back from the main group to fill up a water bottle at the public fountain in town and Enaut pointed out the above table with the metal frog. I’d never seen anything like it .Enaut picked up one of the brass coins, and demonstrated that it’s a community children’s game where you try to toss the coins into the frog’s mouth. It was such a small but beautiful and evocative reminder of the past, and I felt very lucky to have been shown it. We caught back up with the group and enjoyed another fun downcountry cruise before riding into Ainsa.
After a nice evening in Ainsa having dinner with Norwegian crew and Randal, I woke up on Friday to the final morning of the trip. This time we headed to a group of trails just west of Ainsa. These were short shuttles and relatively short trails, but still very enjoyable. We again rode through a couple of tiny abandoned villages, and saw many old homes with the slate stone roofs that I’ve been obsessed with since I started watching Martijn Doolaard’s youtube channel. The last trail of the day was traditional mountain bike fun, grippy dirt, good sightlines and of course, the ever present insane switchbacks. And then, it was all over. We arrived at a campground where our shuttle drivers had brought us sandwiches, we all had a beer and a coke and an Americano, and then it was time to drive back close to San Sebastian.
I had to step outside my comfort zone to do this trip, and particularly in the last couple weeks leading up to it, I was full of doubt. It was very satisfying to have it pay off. I’ve never done a cycling trip like this by myself, and I’m greatly encouraged at how socially easy it was. To this, I owe the other riders on the trip a great deal of thanks. I truly appreciated hanging out with anyone. I didn’t get photos of them, but Jim and Jeremy from Cornwall, Sacha, Morten, and everyone I’ve previously mentioned or tagged were all great, friendly dudes, and I wouldn’t doubt I’ll see a couple of them at some time again.
Our guides and shuttle drivers were awesome. I was telling some of the other guys on the trip, but here in the US, I’ve often gotten near hostility from shuttle drivers, its just a scraping by job they’d rather not be doing. The guys in Spain were totally relaxed, positive, and funny. And Enaut and Jorge, our guides, were the epitome of keep things simultaneously positive, fun and professional.
The main payoff, of course, was the riding and just being in Spain after 2.5 years of Covid. Some of these trails were amongst the finest I have ridden anywhere in the world and I felt so lucky to be alive in these places. I adored the scenery, the personality, and the layout of Spain. It feels like a country that has made true strides in respecting its past while moving into the future, but without the omnipresent cultural desire for growth that plagues most of the west.
I will later write a much shorter, but photo heavy article about my two days in San Sebastian. Thanks y’all for reading along.