Basque? French? Spanish? Take your pick! We are lucky to be based right on the border between Spain and France which gives lots of choice for eating and drinking within a few minutes. This is the reason why we don’t offer fully catered packages as standard, we feel that tying you down to one restaurant is a waste and would limit your enjoyment of your holiday. We will never leave you at a loose end for dinner though and will be delighted to recommend a restaurant each night, book it for you and take you there. We might even join you for a meal occasionally if that’s OK with you?

In your base in Hondarribia you can choose between typical Spanish and Basque food in the huge number of local restaurants or you can take a 5 minute trip, in a small boat, to Hendaye, in France, if you feel more like French cuisine. There are also some great places for pizza and a great Vietnamese if you fancy a change. Another option is to wander the bars and sample the delicious pintxos; a Basque version of Tapas. This is a great way to see the town and experience a huge variety of local food. Eating times are generally later than in the UK with French people eating between about 7 and 9pm and Spanish from about 8pm onwards.

San Sebastian is very close and is well worth a visit for it’s lively bars which are generally lined with unique and delicious pintxos, or if you fancy a special treat it also boasts the highest concentration of Michelin starred restaurants in the world.

Worthy of a paragraph all by themselves are the Sidrerias. These typically rural places make the Basque cider, called Sidra, which really is the nectar of the gods. They offer meals, typically including Chuleta; a large portion of a cow covered in salt and cooked on an open flame. I really recommend letting us take you here one night, after a ride, to fill your bellys and quench your thirst.

When we’re out biking we try to stop at small restaurants in the hills whenever we can, but this isn’t always possible because I try to take us off the beaten track, to see the wild side of the Basque Country, as much as possible. On days when we won’t get to a restaurant, I can organise packed lunches for you, or, we can stop somewhere and you can pick up a sandwich to take with you.

The food here is generally well priced. An evening meal will cost you between 15 and 25 euros with wine. Lunch will be between 4 and 12 euros and will range from a hot baguette to a 3 course meal with wine!

Some comments from previous guests, and the press. This page has just been started and will grow through time, hopefully becoming more interactive. In the meantime if you want some comments to be included here then please email them to me.

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Doug,
Just a quick note to say thanks for a fantastic week in Hondarribia last week. This my first week of guided riding, and it was awesome from start to finish. I was expecting brilliant trails and beautiful countryside, and that’s just what I got. The combination of sun, sea and singletrack was unbeatable. What I wasn’t expecting was the opportunity to really improve my skills and really push the limits of what I thought I could do on a bike. Excellent coaching, and confidence-inspiring guiding – and a foolproof technique for riding switchbacks!

Hopefully see you next year for another ascent of Larrun!

Cheers, David, September 2009

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Hi Doug,
Just a quick note to say thanks for last week. We all had a really great time. Really appreciated the time you spent working on our technique and skills etc. Really enjoyed the riding and thought the routes were great. Looking forward to getting out on my bike again locally this weekend !!

As I mentioned , if your passing through London I’d be more than happy to take you round the secret bits of Epping forest.
Thanks for everything.
Craig, September 2009
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hi doug!!
wow, this fotos are great. what a good time we had in basque! thank you very much again!!! you are anytime invited to come to zürich – we would be glad to host you and show around

best regards
Christian and Riccarda, May 2009

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(taken from a longer e-mail) …the riding was sublime. There is everything you could want from the mellowest of coastal singletrack trails to technical rocky trail riding in the mountains. The combination of great trails, sunshine, excellent food and great accommodation made for a trip that was as much about the holiday as it was the riding. I would have no hesitation in recommending a trip out there. Doug has really taken to the area and was an excellent guide for the duration of the trip.

Cheers,

David Gould, July 2009

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Hi Doug,
I’ve got to say that I think our holiday surpassed my expectations on all fronts. Great location and accommodation, as was the food and the weather. You did a fantastic job guiding and the trails were great, again even better than I had imagined. Best bit about them being that they suited going fast or slow and should put a smile on the vast majority of riders. It’s really put me in the mood for more fast single track and for building some sketchy stuff near by.
Say hi to Amaia, Carlos and the patisserie girls

Mark Forrest, April 2009

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(taken from an article) … “If Doug hadn’t met Amaia in Glasgow years ago he would never have discovered this region… ergo, but for a drunken introduction in a Glasgow pub …precious few people would be aware of the amazingly technical and spectacular trails the Basque Pyrenees were currently showing us”

“We felt like visitors out with local friends, rather than tourists with a bike tour company, such was the way Doug and Amaia treated us. We gather that’s pretty typical and it’s testament to the ethos of BasqueMTB”.

Singletrack magazine, issue 53.
(The whole article is available at www.singletrackworld.com and will be put on the site soon, this is my favourite quote although Amaia is annoyed because I met her in Edinburgh and somehow she feels drunken introductions in a Glasgow pub aren’t of the same standard as those in the capital city!)

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(taken from Best 50 Places to Ride in Europe) … “BasqueMTB has recently discovered this unspoilt area for biking”

DIRT Magazine December 2009

We get asked about what a standard holiday is but to be honest there just isn’t such a thing. We are a small company, and intend to stay that way, because we feel that this lets us tailor the holiday to suit each group. Everything is set up with this aim in mind, we offer a variety of accommodation options and we try not to mix groups and when we do it’s done very carefully. Additionally we don’t have set routes, I know almost every road, sheep path and trail on the local hills, and the routes that we do will be continually changing as I see what you like, and gauge what everyone’s up for.

There are some things that will be standard though.

• You will be picked up at the airport, taken to your accommodation and helped to build your bikes, if you want.
• The biking will be tailored to your abilities.
• Coaching will be offered throughout the holiday, as much or as little as you want. Of course, if you want to take this to the next level, there are our special coaching weeks.
• We will bike for as long as you want each day, and if you want to finish early to hit the surf, then that will be organised for you.
• Other than that everything is flexible. Some people like to bike all day and stop for dinner on the way home, and some people want to bike for a few hours and then hit the surf. Both these options are cool with us!

BasqueMTB offers guided mountain biking holidays on the coast, in the Basque Country, in Spain. We are a small holiday company, run and guided by Doug, a dedicated mountain biker, and Amaia, a local girl. We understand that people generally only get one mountain bike holiday a year, and know how important that time off is, so we strive to make your holiday with us as perfect as we possibly can. We strive to keep our holidays as flexible as possible, so that they suit you, the guest, and aren’t a standard holiday, repeated each and every week, with a few tweaks here and there. We couldn’t face that and don’t think that our guests would appreciate it either!

This region of Spain hides a huge variety of undiscovered, wild, mountain biking along it’s coast and in it’s woods and mountains, which give lots of options for trails, ranging from mellow singletrack to extremely technical, back-country-type, downhill adventures.  You can read more about our trails in our biking section or see what previous holiday makers have had to say about us.

What is unique about BasqueMTB is where we are based; just outside the fantastic Spanish city of San Sebastian we are also based right on one of the best surfing coasts in the world. This gives you lots of options after a great day on the bike. We can bike right down to the breaks for a quick surf, or, head into San Sebastian for a memorable night out. Both are great options!

The following pages should give you some more information about a holiday with BasqueMTB.

What bike do I need?
The riding here is generally quite technical with tricky descents on a huge variety of trail surfaces. I ride two bikes, a Cove Hustler and a Cove STD but I need to be feeling very strong before I take the STD! A downhill bike isn’t going to be suitable because we will be climbing, similarly the descents aren’t really suited to a light weight race hardtail although if you have the skills to pay the bills then you’ll be fine!
I think that any bike with a decent fork and disc brakes is going to be OK. A full suspension mountain bike is going to mean that you can go that bit faster but a hardtail isn’t going to kill you! Tubeless tyres are a good idea but they’re not essential because we don’t have the big thorns you find elsewhere in Spain! Check out our News and Views page for a list of the tyres that I’ve tried and got on with.

Will I Need Armour?
This is a matter of personal choice. What I can tell you is that I wear armour most days. The trails here can be very technical and rocky so I think it is a good idea. I offer some coaching too, so if you want to there’s lots of opportunities for trying stuff that you might not have tried before; sometimes armour helps with that.

Do I need insurance?
Let me answer this three ways. Yes! Yes! Yes! Getting injured abroad is hideously expensive, helicopter evacuation, medical treatment and potentially even getting a horizontal berth on a flight home. You don’t want to be paying for that yourself. Get some good insurance before you come here, there’s no ride without it, and make sure it covers you for mountain biking and any other sports you intend doing.
You can have a look at Travel-Quest’s insurance section which provides links to UK holiday insurance – here you’ll find a good selection of holiday insurance for cyclists, skiers and adventure activities.

I am taking my own bike, how should I package it?
I have seen various ways of packing bikes. The best way I have seen was in a specially designed cardboard box with foam inserts but not many people have access to those! I basically assume that my bike will get knocked about a lot so I completely over package mine. Here’s a link to a blog on bike packing.

What if my bike breaks?
I have a well stocked garage so should be able to get you back on the trail. There are also a variety of bike shops where we can get most spares at a reasonable cost and the mechanics know me and will try to do any work needed overnight so you can ride the next day. Having said that you need to take a spare mech hanger and a set of brake pads. I’d also recommend taking some spokes if they aren’t a standard size.

How fit do I need to be?
Unless you are on our Freeride Week we will be ‘earning our turns’. We try to make the climbs as enjoyable as possible and the guide will usually ride at the pace of the slowest rider. We also give you an uplift for the first climb of the day so the rest of the day can involve as little as 300m’s climing if that is what you want.
If that doesn’t sound like your thing then we are going to offer some uplifted ‘Freeride Weeks‘ in 2010. Please enquire for details.

I’m a beginner, will I be OK?
In short YES but we will need to make sure you are in a suitable group! Our trails are definitely challenging but we can tailor all our rides to suit most people. The best idea is to give me a shout and we can discuss it over e-mail or on the phone.

Is there any threat from ETA?
The short answer here is NO! ETA target political people and are consistent in giving ample notice of any targets to allow evacuation. It is not something that I even consider in my day to day life. What you can expect from the Basque people is genuine hospitality, great food, spectacular drink and beautiful women (I have to say that though!)

At basqueMTB we have a range of high class local accommodation that we use because we believe this offers us the flexibility to meet our customers needs. We offer two main choices, a ‘rural’ accommodation package and a ‘urban’ accommodation package, see the “What’s Included?” section for prices of both options.

Our ‘rural’ package is based in a very high standard traditional Basque house on the flanks of Jaizkibel overlooking Hondarribia and the estuary of the Rio Bidasoa. There are a couple of local restaurants within 1km which you can choose from which provide generous helpings of local food or, if you want to sample the fantastic local bars and restaurants, you can walk or ride the 1.7kms into Hondarribia. Alternatively if we’ve had a hard day on the bikes, you can relax in the peaceful garden and enjoy the peace and quiet.
The rooms are all en-suite and are really impressive. We have chosen our accommodation to give you a comfortable and tranquil place to relax after a hard day on the mountains but not to be too far from the lively night life of Hondarribia.

Our ‘urban’ accomodation is based in a more modern house actually inside Hondarribia and has it’s own small swimming pool in a large garden with stunning rooms and breathtaking views over Hondarribia and on towards the French coast. You can walk into Hondarribia in a few minutes for some drinks in the lively local bars. If you don’t fancy eating out then there is also a guest kitchen, with cooker, microwave and fridge where you can cook your own dinner.

We don’t offer dinner because we feel that since this area is famous for it’s food and there are so many fantastic, reasonably priced places to eat that it is a pity to tie you down to one for the duration of your stay. A typical meal including sidre or wine will be around €15-20. We can recommend restaurants each evening and take you there leaving you to make your way back to your accommodation once you have eaten and maybe sampled some of the local drinks. There are also excellent restaurants right next to our accommodation which we will be happy to book for you if you wish.

If you would like a different option we can look into accommodation to meet your requirements whether it’s a 5* hotel, a self catered flat on the beach or camping. All accommodation will depend on availability but (even for late bookings in peak time) if our usual accommodation is fully booked we can almost always get some accommodation of a similar standard to above.