Mountain Bike Holidays with BasqueMTB: The Thorn, it isn’t always snowy!
| 20km | |
| 4-5 hoursm | |
| From 800m. | |
| 1600m | |
| Moderate-Hard | |
| Hard |
In Three Words: Epic. Singletrack. Remote.
In More Words: This is a trail that is very popular on our mountain bike holidays. A big uplift and lots, and lots of singletrack with a real epic, backcountry feel.
[justified_image_grid preset=c1 thumbs_spacing=5 row_height=150 height_deviation=100 caption=off mobile_caption=off overlay=off mobile_overlay=off margin=0 max_rows=1 width_mode=responsive_fallback disable_cropping=yes randomize_width=500 ng_pics=2716,5795,4096,4107] The Thorn, it’s a stupid name really but nothing better has ever come up. Sometimes we just call it the 2 Country Traverse because it takes you out of the Basque Country into Navarra. There are two ways of doing it, either as a complete loop with a lot of hard climbing, or as a point to point with a big van uplift but we almost always use the van uplift, meaning we start the day at 800m above sea level. The rest of the day follows a big ridgeline round in a C-shape, finishing with a 10.5km singletrack descent back into a little town. The trail is mostly singletrack, with the first 15km entirely on singletrack to reach our lunch stop.
After lunch we have some hard climbing, with some carrying, to reach the summit for today at around 1100m. The massive views on all sides out to the Pyrenees mountains and Basque coast really distract from the climbing! After the summit we have around 10.5km of singletrack, contouring and descending all the way to a traditional Basque village where the Basque MTB van will be waiting and we can have a cold beer! There is the option of running some uplifts or visiting a local bike park if you haven´t had enough by now but that is very rare!
As with all the trails, if you would like to ride here on your mountain bike holiday then please just let us know.
[justified_image_grid ng_gallery=140 row_height=150 height_deviation=100 randomize_width=500]
