markie_wales
Registered user
Having said I couldn’t be bothered doing a ride report, I just got a load of pictures from my mate who I went with and it’s made me want to capture the trip (probably more for me to remember than entertain you!).
Initial we were going to do a return ferry tip down to Northern Spain (Santander) but some family things stopped that so the only ferry crossing we could get for the time we had was to and from St Malo. OK well let’s find some off road routes in France then. Never done a week long off road trip in France, so as change is good, let’s do it. Some asking around, some searching the internet and got us a decent amount of trails so we were all set after very little “looking forward to it” time.
First trail was about an hour from the ferry, and was wooded, a little muddy under-tyre and very like the lanes we were used to around Hampshire. How like Hampshire? Well while doing about 25 mph down one lane I managed to have a bramble branch rip across my throat leaving some lovely cuts. Still, it was good to be off road and very different to the wide open spaces of Spain in 2012. Some of the lanes were very narrow, and how you are meant to get over this in a 4x4 beats me....
Getting back on the bike after his crossing I managed to knock it over (it was VERY vertical)! Bugger, but unbeknownst to me, neither of us would have a proper crash all week, although there were few more drops
After an hour of mixed riding we started coming across more and more lanes that were either signed as “no vehicular access” or had a bloody great big gate across them. These were mixed with some really nice, fact lanes that were open so we stuck with it for a while.
Nice mile or two long lane, that crossed between two lakes. Ended in a locked gate with a “no entry” sign from the way we came (oops), but we managed to wiggle around it.
After about 6 closed lanes on the trot, a couple around what looked to be a beautiful reservoir we were starting to get a bit fed up. Decided we’d keep trying “a bit” but in a slightly different part of the region in case it was some local government dept that were closing them. Nope, same in the next department, but did come across a very hidden monument (1/2 mile off road) which due to my lack of French was a bit of a mystery!
They were putting up fences all around the woodlands and forests here, so we decided to head south for the evening to La Rochelle (below)
Looking at the weather forecast over a cracking T-bone and some beers, the weather in France looked pretty bleak for the next 3 or 4 days, but looking further afield into Spain it looked gorgeous. Long way away though, better have some more beer before deciding. No, still too sober, a Gin and Tonic in the hotel should do it.... arrh that’s better, plan confirmed – we would decide over brekkie in the morning. Woke up to rain but it was easing off. So we decided to bimble “generally south” on the back roads for a morning and decide later. As you can tell, we are both keen to plan everything well..... It actually turned out to me a really nice morning’s ride once we got out of La Rochelle, through vine yards, near the coast, and finally ended up just south of Bordeaux for a coffee stop. If I was on a road bike, I’d go back to this area as the riding was great. OK forecast still looked grim in France and great in Spain so decision made to head for “at least” Biarritz, but if all went well to Miranda de Ebro, where we’ve been before and have lots of trails mapped in that area. Ride down was uneventful until my mate nipped round the wrong side of some cones in some road works and managed to fire a cone underneath the car I was about to slip by. Mentioned this to my mate via walkie-talkies and I’ve never seen him take off so fast all the way to Spain! Even when the heavens opened (I was already in water proofs) he didn’t stop until we’d crossed the boarder Got to Miranda de Ebro tired but content to have good weather ahead.
Spain (as it always seems to) dawned bright and sunny, and within 4 miles of the hotel we are off road for most of the day. Up rocky climbs, barrelling along wide, well surfaced tracks, skirting round the edge of vine yards, through some lovely wooded sections, all really good stuff & so much better than France (even if the trails had been opened). What is hard to convey if you’ve never been is the length of some of these trails. Looking at my track log, I see two on this day of 13 and 22 miles, without a sniff of tarmac, and the sense of being away from it all and remote, is hard to describe.
About half way through a 22 miler, we hit a 2 – 3 mile uphill section of larger loose rocks/scree that had both wheels moving around and you just got this feeling that if you stopped you wouldn’t get going again! It finally eased off a bit just as we met some walkers coming the other way. I must admit I was ready for a bit of tarmac but settled for a rest, as we still had another 10 miles to go! This one rose to a bit over 2,000m so was a bit chilly at the top and almost 1 ½ times the height of Ben Nevis and we were still riding bikes, gives you a sense of Spain vs the UK.
On the Spanish plain.
Waiting for the walkers to pass. Picture does not show steepness!
At the top – bit chilly.....
After looping round a couple of miles we ran down this fantastic ridge
Bikes parked up for a coffee break after coming off the mountains.
The next trail we just couldn’t work out where to go so after drawing a star fish on our track log we jacked it in and headed for Soria for the night. What a cracking town, loads of life for a Tuesday night – loads of bars, tapas etc and just a lot of “life” around and about.
What I didn’t know when I woke up, was this was going to be the best day of the holiday. Not for distance to first trail (that was a bit of a slog road section). Not for lunch (we just grabbed a couple of coffees and toasted ham/cheese sandwiches quite early). Not for some beautiful Senorita saying she wanted to come on pillion (I just dreamt that bit). Not for the Hotel we ended up in (back in Miranda de Ebro). Not even that we found all the trails really easily and none were closed (one closed, one just dead ended at a mining works and we had to turn back). No it was the 3 main trails we did do. Each one an absolute “memory bank for life” trail. The sort of thing you’d pay to ride in the UK, the 25 miler (i.e. left tarmac and hit the dirt, didn’t hit tarmac for another 25 miles!!) would be worth the ride from St Malo and back just to ride it the once. Enough chat on to some of the pictures…...
Entering a small gorge
Just before we turned round in said gorge as it was turning into a very small foot path!
One of the countless miles of beautiful riding through some woods.
Jokes about if the hotel was fully refurbished on a post card please....
Miles of this on the 25 mile trail – view, riding, weather all just perfect.
Abandoned hamlet on 25 mile trail
Although the church was still in OK shape. Must be a story there.
Right at the end of the 25 mile trail, and I mean RIGHT AT THE END, the trail descends pretty steeply for the last ~ ½ mile over loose gravel, rocks, rock steps and 24” deep, 18” wide gullys where the rain has worn it away. It’s probably a car width wide trail at most, and in some places not that wide. I happened to be in the lead at that point and was going down really slowly (if you are in the US I should probably write that as “real slow”). Basically a little quicker than walking pace if my memory serves, just picking my line, crossing the gullys at 90 degrees, back brake locked as much as it was turning, you know the sort of thing. Over the intercom “speed up”, yeah right, I don’t want to drop it here. “OUT THE WAY!!!!”, and my mate comes barrelling past me at a fair old lick. “How’s that ABS working out for you?”, “Arrrgggghhhhh *£&^%$&£(£0 you *£&$^£* arggghhhh ” – luckily he made it down unscathed, and a lot quicker than me Never seen a display of why ABS is not always such a good thing off road!! We stopped in the village at the trail end and discussed the ABS benefits vs non ABS benefits over a coke and a giggle. Then as the day was nearing it’s ended just hopped onto an Autoroute back to Miranda de Ebro for the night. If you stay here, try and find Café Mozart. From the blue/yellow/red fountain sculpture go down the pedestrian road until it turns back into a road. Turn right down the side road, over one road and it’s on your left. Basically the burgers go S, M, L, XL, XXL. You will not be able to finish an XXL. We didn’t even try But the burgers are nice, staff and customers friendly, atmosphere good , and COLD beer!
The last three days are a bit of a blur. First day through Pamplona (stopped in the KTM shop for my mate to pick up some foamy chain lube – very odd stuff, very cute girl serving), over the Pyrenees West of Arette. Weather was a bit grim over the mountains with rain / cloud so not the mountain ride we wee hoping for. Up to Dax for a coffee and croissants “Pardon Monsieur but je ne pas sell croissants”, hummm but “Monsieur can buy them over the road in la boulangerie and eat them ici” – result Afterwards we just headed up the Autoroute to Cognac for the night. Yes it was very tasty poured over my pudding … Next day my GPS decided it wasn’t going to give any sound out. I think it’s either the mount or the GPS not detecting the mount as the voice/music comes out of the speaker. It was a bit off and on for the rest of the holiday but gradually improved so not looked at it yet. From Cognac up to Saumur, and then Saumur to St Malo was a mix of back roads and any off road tracks we would come across. As we didn’t have any plotted we didn’t come across anything closed we thought would be open but just did the ones we saw. We stopped in Angers for a coffee stop in not exactly the nicest area of town, and could not work out if the cafe was a gay café, or a gang café. Given; when we were leaving; a bloke came up and started chatting to my mate, I’ll let you decide….
Picnic lunch stop somewhere NW of Lavel.
Then it was all a bit dull back to St Malo and home, with the traditional ferry bought Toblerone for the kids
So given it was all a bit last minute, we had a great time.
Best Steak – La Rohelle
Miles - ~1780
Crashes – 0
Drops – err 3 or 4
Quality of Spanish off road – 10/10
Quality of French off road – 8/10
Access to off road in Spain – 10/10
Access to off road in France – 5 /10
Best Trail – between Munilla and Lagunilla Del Jubera, Spain
Initial we were going to do a return ferry tip down to Northern Spain (Santander) but some family things stopped that so the only ferry crossing we could get for the time we had was to and from St Malo. OK well let’s find some off road routes in France then. Never done a week long off road trip in France, so as change is good, let’s do it. Some asking around, some searching the internet and got us a decent amount of trails so we were all set after very little “looking forward to it” time.
First trail was about an hour from the ferry, and was wooded, a little muddy under-tyre and very like the lanes we were used to around Hampshire. How like Hampshire? Well while doing about 25 mph down one lane I managed to have a bramble branch rip across my throat leaving some lovely cuts. Still, it was good to be off road and very different to the wide open spaces of Spain in 2012. Some of the lanes were very narrow, and how you are meant to get over this in a 4x4 beats me....
Getting back on the bike after his crossing I managed to knock it over (it was VERY vertical)! Bugger, but unbeknownst to me, neither of us would have a proper crash all week, although there were few more drops
After an hour of mixed riding we started coming across more and more lanes that were either signed as “no vehicular access” or had a bloody great big gate across them. These were mixed with some really nice, fact lanes that were open so we stuck with it for a while.
Nice mile or two long lane, that crossed between two lakes. Ended in a locked gate with a “no entry” sign from the way we came (oops), but we managed to wiggle around it.
After about 6 closed lanes on the trot, a couple around what looked to be a beautiful reservoir we were starting to get a bit fed up. Decided we’d keep trying “a bit” but in a slightly different part of the region in case it was some local government dept that were closing them. Nope, same in the next department, but did come across a very hidden monument (1/2 mile off road) which due to my lack of French was a bit of a mystery!
They were putting up fences all around the woodlands and forests here, so we decided to head south for the evening to La Rochelle (below)
Looking at the weather forecast over a cracking T-bone and some beers, the weather in France looked pretty bleak for the next 3 or 4 days, but looking further afield into Spain it looked gorgeous. Long way away though, better have some more beer before deciding. No, still too sober, a Gin and Tonic in the hotel should do it.... arrh that’s better, plan confirmed – we would decide over brekkie in the morning. Woke up to rain but it was easing off. So we decided to bimble “generally south” on the back roads for a morning and decide later. As you can tell, we are both keen to plan everything well..... It actually turned out to me a really nice morning’s ride once we got out of La Rochelle, through vine yards, near the coast, and finally ended up just south of Bordeaux for a coffee stop. If I was on a road bike, I’d go back to this area as the riding was great. OK forecast still looked grim in France and great in Spain so decision made to head for “at least” Biarritz, but if all went well to Miranda de Ebro, where we’ve been before and have lots of trails mapped in that area. Ride down was uneventful until my mate nipped round the wrong side of some cones in some road works and managed to fire a cone underneath the car I was about to slip by. Mentioned this to my mate via walkie-talkies and I’ve never seen him take off so fast all the way to Spain! Even when the heavens opened (I was already in water proofs) he didn’t stop until we’d crossed the boarder
Got to Miranda de Ebro tired but content to have good weather ahead.Spain (as it always seems to) dawned bright and sunny, and within 4 miles of the hotel we are off road for most of the day. Up rocky climbs, barrelling along wide, well surfaced tracks, skirting round the edge of vine yards, through some lovely wooded sections, all really good stuff & so much better than France (even if the trails had been opened). What is hard to convey if you’ve never been is the length of some of these trails. Looking at my track log, I see two on this day of 13 and 22 miles, without a sniff of tarmac, and the sense of being away from it all and remote, is hard to describe.
About half way through a 22 miler, we hit a 2 – 3 mile uphill section of larger loose rocks/scree that had both wheels moving around and you just got this feeling that if you stopped you wouldn’t get going again! It finally eased off a bit just as we met some walkers coming the other way. I must admit I was ready for a bit of tarmac but settled for a rest, as we still had another 10 miles to go! This one rose to a bit over 2,000m so was a bit chilly at the top and almost 1 ½ times the height of Ben Nevis and we were still riding bikes, gives you a sense of Spain vs the UK.
On the Spanish plain.
Waiting for the walkers to pass. Picture does not show steepness!
At the top – bit chilly.....
After looping round a couple of miles we ran down this fantastic ridge
Bikes parked up for a coffee break after coming off the mountains.
The next trail we just couldn’t work out where to go so after drawing a star fish on our track log we jacked it in and headed for Soria for the night. What a cracking town, loads of life for a Tuesday night – loads of bars, tapas etc and just a lot of “life” around and about.
What I didn’t know when I woke up, was this was going to be the best day of the holiday. Not for distance to first trail (that was a bit of a slog road section). Not for lunch (we just grabbed a couple of coffees and toasted ham/cheese sandwiches quite early). Not for some beautiful Senorita saying she wanted to come on pillion (I just dreamt that bit). Not for the Hotel we ended up in (back in Miranda de Ebro). Not even that we found all the trails really easily and none were closed (one closed, one just dead ended at a mining works and we had to turn back). No it was the 3 main trails we did do. Each one an absolute “memory bank for life” trail. The sort of thing you’d pay to ride in the UK, the 25 miler (i.e. left tarmac and hit the dirt, didn’t hit tarmac for another 25 miles!!) would be worth the ride from St Malo and back just to ride it the once. Enough chat on to some of the pictures…...
Entering a small gorge
Just before we turned round in said gorge as it was turning into a very small foot path!
One of the countless miles of beautiful riding through some woods.
Jokes about if the hotel was fully refurbished on a post card please....
Miles of this on the 25 mile trail – view, riding, weather all just perfect.
Abandoned hamlet on 25 mile trail
Although the church was still in OK shape. Must be a story there.
Right at the end of the 25 mile trail, and I mean RIGHT AT THE END, the trail descends pretty steeply for the last ~ ½ mile over loose gravel, rocks, rock steps and 24” deep, 18” wide gullys where the rain has worn it away. It’s probably a car width wide trail at most, and in some places not that wide. I happened to be in the lead at that point and was going down really slowly (if you are in the US I should probably write that as “real slow”). Basically a little quicker than walking pace if my memory serves, just picking my line, crossing the gullys at 90 degrees, back brake locked as much as it was turning, you know the sort of thing. Over the intercom “speed up”, yeah right, I don’t want to drop it here. “OUT THE WAY!!!!”, and my mate comes barrelling past me at a fair old lick. “How’s that ABS working out for you?”, “Arrrgggghhhhh *£&^%$&£(£0 you *£&$^£* arggghhhh ” – luckily he made it down unscathed, and a lot quicker than me Never seen a display of why ABS is not always such a good thing off road!! We stopped in the village at the trail end and discussed the ABS benefits vs non ABS benefits over a coke and a giggle. Then as the day was nearing it’s ended just hopped onto an Autoroute back to Miranda de Ebro for the night. If you stay here, try and find Café Mozart. From the blue/yellow/red fountain sculpture go down the pedestrian road until it turns back into a road. Turn right down the side road, over one road and it’s on your left. Basically the burgers go S, M, L, XL, XXL. You will not be able to finish an XXL. We didn’t even try But the burgers are nice, staff and customers friendly, atmosphere good , and COLD beer!
The last three days are a bit of a blur. First day through Pamplona (stopped in the KTM shop for my mate to pick up some foamy chain lube – very odd stuff, very cute girl serving), over the Pyrenees West of Arette. Weather was a bit grim over the mountains with rain / cloud so not the mountain ride we wee hoping for. Up to Dax for a coffee and croissants “Pardon Monsieur but je ne pas sell croissants”, hummm but “Monsieur can buy them over the road in la boulangerie and eat them ici” – result Afterwards we just headed up the Autoroute to Cognac for the night. Yes it was very tasty poured over my pudding … Next day my GPS decided it wasn’t going to give any sound out. I think it’s either the mount or the GPS not detecting the mount as the voice/music comes out of the speaker. It was a bit off and on for the rest of the holiday but gradually improved so not looked at it yet. From Cognac up to Saumur, and then Saumur to St Malo was a mix of back roads and any off road tracks we would come across. As we didn’t have any plotted we didn’t come across anything closed we thought would be open but just did the ones we saw. We stopped in Angers for a coffee stop in not exactly the nicest area of town, and could not work out if the cafe was a gay café, or a gang café. Given; when we were leaving; a bloke came up and started chatting to my mate, I’ll let you decide….
Picnic lunch stop somewhere NW of Lavel.
Then it was all a bit dull back to St Malo and home, with the traditional ferry bought Toblerone for the kids
So given it was all a bit last minute, we had a great time.
Best Steak – La Rohelle
Miles - ~1780
Crashes – 0
Drops – err 3 or 4
Quality of Spanish off road – 10/10
Quality of French off road – 8/10
Access to off road in Spain – 10/10
Access to off road in France – 5 /10
Best Trail – between Munilla and Lagunilla Del Jubera, Spain
