Holidays in June, Spanish Storms and Sunshine
| It’s been a while since my last update… we’ve been busy riding and guiding over the past 3 weeks so I’ve not had a chance. Last month I got the chance to visit Andorra, courtesy of Commencal, to check out their new bikes and have a play on some of them at the Vallnord bike park. Then the last couple of weeks I have been back in the Basque Country guiding. Read the post » |
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It’s been a while. In fact I can’t remember the last time I fell without knowing I was pushing it, and being padded up and out with friends. Today I was exploring a local area and had followed a faint piece of singletrack along a river. Read the post »
| This week I was lucky enough to have the Navurros, a group of hardy Spanish bikers from around Pamplona, show me some seminal mountain biking on one of their secret trails. They reckon this is one of the best trails in their part of Spain and I knew that I would never have found it without a local guide, so I was really excited to give it a try. I had done the second part of the route before, using a car for uplift, so I had some inkling what to expect, however this time we were starting at around 300m and biking the whole loop, peaking at around 1450m, so it was a bit of a different proposition! Epic “mountain-bike-eering” in it’s truest form was the order of the day! Read the post » |
I’ve been out trail finding a lot recently. On Friday I found a lot of new singletrack but as often happens, I ended up riding down some fantastic climbs and sweating up some fantastic descents. I was generally feeling a bit grumpy about it all and it started me thinking about trail finding in general, and how different it was to going out for a ride.
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We have just recieved the designs for the new freeride or downhill tops. Long sleeved and with a baggy fit these are the tops I’ll be wearing over my armour on our uplift days! Ready for shredding, ripping or whatever else the kids are doing these days…
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Phew! What a few days mountain biking. I’ve been tearing it up on the coast but other than that it’s been all about the big mountain ridges for me. I don’t know what it is that’s so cool about biking along (or preferably down) a great ridge line but for me it’s one of the great pleasures to be had on a bike, especially when they’re blessed with the views of the sea on one side and the mountains on the other. |
I love this time of year, there’s that expectant feeling in the air that we get with spring; a combination of the knowledge of sunny days to come and the combined sexual tension of the animal kingdom.
Every sunny day seems to be the first footfall of summer, only for the next storm to shatter our hopes! Generally the weather has been gorgeous but the air is still sharp and if you stray from the warmth of of the sun and into the shadows of the forest, the air temperature is still low. Throughout the mountains, the plants are starting to spread and flowers are starting to poke through last autumn’s leafy carpet. In another couple of weeks the forest floors will be teeming with green leaves and scented plants, and it will take an effort to recall the tingle of cold air on the inside of my lungs. Read the post »
The mountain bike season has kicked off and I’ve been guiding for the last couple of weeks. It’s been great to have people on holiday and get some new bikers on our trails. We’ve been riding on a lot of new mountains for 2010 but , of course, the old favourites are still there and it’d be a shame to miss them out!
At BasqueMTB we’re pretty excited to get some new cycling kit. We are getting a racing kit with tops and shorts made up and also a freeride style jersey.
All tops are available in a baggy or tight fit and with long or short sleeves. The price will be about £40 per top but if anyone is interested then get in touch and I will let you know the price.
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I seem to have been blogging a lot about new trails, so sorry if anyone is bored! It’s just the time of year. Spring is springing in Spain and the mountain bike holiday season will start in under a month, which means it’s the time to get our existing trails ready, and search out all the singletrack that I saw last year but didn’t have time to explore. There is only so much biking I can do though, so it’s also a great time to build the sections of trail that I have been planning since last year. I really enjoy this time, I love riding my old favourite trails, but I get really excited about all the new singletrack. |