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A definite area we will use for our South Pyrenees Mountain Bike Holidays.
Today’s ride was incredible, tough, exciting and painful in pretty much equal measures! I have been cleaning and building new trails for the last few days and have had a couple of big days out between filming (watch this space!) and it took its toll today. I knew I was in trouble on the first climb, my shoulders and back were so painful. It was really a case of gritting my teeth and trying to enjoy the stunning views as we winched onwards. Javito was spinning away from me with remarkable ease on every uphill and there was just nothing I could do about it. I was digging deep for the easy bits and by the time any harder bits came I’d already given all I could so it was the old two-foot-drive. Read on for the full story and to see why I was smiling through my tears!
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Do you want your next mountain biking holiday to include views like this?! |
First of all, there aren’t going to be so many pictures from this ride. This is because I was so far off the back that I couldn’t get ahead to take photos! Even when I did catch up I was so busy trying to recover that I didn’t think about the camera. The day started with a climb on a mixture of rough tracks and stunning singletrack until we reached a beautiful little village built around an old church. From here we pushed up an awesome descent to reach a monastery at the summit. There is also the option to climb on a road, and we might uplift this in the van during our south Pyrenees mountain bike holidays. The track we pushed up would be a stunning descent, technical and exposed but a special trail. I think that as we did the trail today it’s a little bit too long for an average mountain bike holiday so we might split it into two and add in this descent on the first day. So many options! |
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Mountain Biking in the middle of nowhere. |
Dusty, dusty, dusty! |
We were offered perfect mountain biking weather today, a real taste of what is to come. The air was still cool but the sun was warm. The trails were dry and dusty, but not too dusty. The sun tan cream was used for the first time this year as well! As we wound our way through valleys on old singletrack it was easy to forget we were only a few km from Jaca, it felt like we were mountain biking through a forgotten land. I love the Basque Country and it’s green trails and big variety but we don’t get this type of terrain. Every time I drive the hour or two south it feels like a little mountain bike holiday just for me! A change is as good as a rest as they say. |
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The last climb of the day. |
The top of the trail after a very scenic lunch. |
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This singletrack sections was so much fun. Little ups and little downs. |
Today we rode just under 2000m of vertical and 64km. The descents were amazing. The first descent was clifftop stuff, big Pyrenees views to the left and Pre-Pyrenees views to the south. It was loose and drifty but it felt like you could push the bike into the ground and gain lots of grip when you needed it. After this we had a short singletrack climb before we reached the second descent of the day. This one was a lot more technical. Loose switchbacks took us down the hill and in some places you needed to hop the back-end of the bike a bit to get round. The trail was littered with drops, from a few centimeters to around a meter or a meter and a bit. I have to admit that I was so tired by this point that I walked one of them but normally they’d be OK. Following that BIG descent we climbed, all on singletrack, to another ridge and the last descent of the day. This was the sort fo singletrack that you dream about. It was fast and flowy with switchbacks that were wide enough that you could carve round them. No hopping here! Lower down it got rougher but it was still flowy. Eventually it dropped us back to Jaca and the waiting van. A really superb day and thanks to Javito for sharing it with me. It was tough. Partly because I was so tired from all the cutting and digging. Partly because it was tough! A great day of mountain biking and a definite trail for our south Pyrenees mountain bike holidays.
You can also see some pictures from a previous ride on Javito’s excellent blog here. |
This entry was posted
Friday, March 2nd, 2012 at 3:22 pm and is classified as Uncategorized.
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