mountain bike holiday > A Mountain Bike Holiday in Spain for 3 Canadians

Chris is a Canadian who visited us last year for a mountain bike holiday on the Basque Coast, Spain and we had a great week, with a group of other bikers. This year Chris booked again and this time took a couple of his friends from Canada, Kent and Jaycee. Kent and Jaycee have been on a lot of mountain bike holidays all around the world so it was a bit of pressure but great to get their opinion on our set-up. Read on to see how they got on…

First Day in Spain: Basque Coast Mountain Bike Trip

On our first day of the Canadian´s mountain bike holiday the sun was splitting the sky and we decided to ride along the coast into San Sebastian. It´s a great ride to let me check out people´s levels because there is a maze of singletrack which lets me test the group and change the route accordingly. It was very quickly apparent that the group rode at a very high level, funny that with a group from Canada who have ridden all around the world! We rode all the way into San Sebastian, taking the harder options all the way and stopping for plenty of photos.

“It was a great trip!! I don’t think I could’ve asked for anything better”

Bear

I already knew Chris aka “The Badger” and had enjoyed his dry sense of humour immensely the year before so it was great to be mountain biking with him again. The Badger hasn´t been riding for that long but he improved a lot during our last week together and this year his skills had improved again and he was flying down the rocky coastal singletrack.

Second Day of the Holiday: Stinky Goat, Celtic Flow and Heavy Rain

The second day of everyone´s holiday, the Monday, was a perfect day. Today we were also joined by Bear, a Californian who lives in Sweden and France; Bear, meet Badger and Badger this is Bear! Oh yeah and we have a Doug too, (you need tae be fae glasgae fur tha´ tae work). Anyway, if anyone is still reading after that then I will continue. We decided to use the van and have a couple of big uplifts today. We would take the van up to around 700m and ride back down, taking in some climbing and descending through the morning and riding Stinky Goat, The Joshua Tree, Rattle and Hum, Celtic Flo, Cross the Streams and Under Heavy Rain.

“Accommodation: PERFECT!!! Love having the garage.”

Chris

The trails were in amazing condition, plenty of grip and neither too dry or too wet. It´s all very twisty and technical natural singletrack and is a great morning´s riding. We eventually finished around 2pm and had a lovely 3 course lunch while Bear helped me get the van back down. After lunch the guys decided that they had had a good day´s worth of riding and wanted to hit the beach that afternoon so we called it a day there, it is a holiday after all and we don´t have to ride all day, every day!

Mountain Bike Holiday Day 3: Riding on the Spanish Border

By day three we knew each other pretty well and I turned on the “challenge” switch! Today we´d do a series of trails taking in the infamous “nutcracker” and “Carlos’s ridge”, a difficult technical day in the best of conditions but, as we were climbing, a light drizzle came in, making the already difficult trail a bit greasy. Kent and Chris handled the descent like pros, keeping their nerves and staying off the brakes on the slippery bits. Jaycee was more hesitant, despite being easily one of the better riders we´ve had, and she was struggling on the very top bit. It´s a viscous circle, you are nervous so you brake more so you slip more so you get more nervous. It was awesome to see JC break the cycle though and within a few minutes she was nailing some seriously hard sections with her trademark huge grin back in place. Kent´s a lucky guy getting to bike everywhere followed by JCs beautiful smile!
The climb up the Roman Road was typically difficult but, knuckling down to the challenge, we got to lunch in time and I left the guys there while I moved the van 500m below and cycled back up to guide them down to the van. We finished the trail tired and damp but all smiling and looking back on the near (and closer) misses we´d had and comparing scratches and bruises!

“It was a great trip. The riding, the guiding, the accomodations were all top shelf. I couldn’t have asked for more – except maybe having more holiday to ride more days. We’ll be back!!!”

JC

Day 4 of The Canadians Mountain Bike Holiday: “Nacho Hecho”

Gracias to Nacho for lo que ha hecho! It´s a long story but basically Nacho is the man responsible for the trails we rode today. Hecho is Spanish for “has made”, so Nacho Hecho means “made by Nacho”. These trails wind along a ridgeline between medieval villages in Navarran wine country, offering short climbs and descents. The area is seriously dry and around 1hr from our base so we use it to escape any rain hitting the Basque Coast. They are enjoying their worst May in living memory but it is still a good bet for dry trails. Not so today though, they had some heavy rain in the morning and we got wet. Over our fantastic lunch, (3 courses for €12), we dried out and so did the weather so we enjoyed some fantastic trails after lunch. Towards the end of the day however the rain passed over again and we got wet, dropping off the ridge to take a shortcut home.

Last Day of Chris, Kent and JC´s Mountain Bike Holiday in Spain, Uplift on the Coast

“Nacho Hecho” is a tough day so today we decided to rest our legs a bit and put on some uplift on the Basque Coast and surrounding mountains. The trails were a bit slippy and tough but we managed to get in 2500m of descending and finished in a little bar for a beer. Everyone, me included, was tired although Chris and Kent picked up when their beers arrived and they were drinking them with both hands! That night we went out for a nice paella with Amaia as well and enjoyed sitting there at the end of the week with new friends reliving the week over a glass of wine.

Like I said over dinner, thanks for coming, that was way to much fun to call work! It would be great to see you all again and get another fun week on dryer trails!

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Tags: Mountain Bike Holiday Report, trail tales

This entry was posted Friday, May 31st, 2013 at 2:36 pm and is classified as mountain bike holiday.