Course Description

Great Rock Mountain Biking Holiday in the Basque Country, N.W. Spain

This is a luxury mountain biking holiday with built in skills progression to make you a better rider. The trip is based on the Basque Country coast in quality accommodation, surrounded by the delicious food and culture of the region. We pride ourselves on knowing the best local trails, must see views and places to eat and we enjoy sharing this local knowledge.

We do a lot of good, technical trail riding on this trip as well as having a fun and relaxing holiday. We spend 1 to 2 hours a day looking at bike skills and the rest of the time is spent riding the “high tech” Basque trails. We are out riding for most of the day. The skills sessions focus on riding with more flow and confidence and look at good body position, cornering, pump and proper bunny hop technique. The riding terrain is varied and this informs the skills sessions allowing us to include switchback turns, lots of rocks, steep slopes, off camber trails, some drops and loose surfaces.

The mountain biking in the Basque Country is very accessible with a mixture of pedaling and van assisted uplift. This means that although we can soon be in remote feeling locations we are never that far away from places to grab a coffee or a bite to eat. On one day of the week we head off for an adventurous, big mountain style all day ride and take a picnic of local food to share together.  A full week of guiding with a skills element and van uplift makes this trip really good value. There is a maximum group size of 12 so that we can offer a high guide/guest ratio, especially as in addition to Ed and Doug we have extra guides and drivers to help keep everything running sweet. You won’t find many places that offer so much!

The holiday includes:

Bed and breakfast accommodation. Our place has a lovely sunny garden with stunning views out to the ocean and a small swimming pool. It’s also nice and close to the cool bars and restaurants in the ancient walled town of Hondarribia, so there is always something to do when we’re not out riding. Breakfast is included, but not lunch or evening meals. The eating out is so good in the town that it makes sense to head out each night for a taste of the local cooking and life. It is a holiday after all! If you just want to chill at the accommodation, there is a kitchen & dining area that you can use. We will do a run to a local supermarket so you can get supplies in. Rooms are shared with 2 people to a room.

6 days of guided riding led by Doug from BasqueMTB who knows the place like the back of his hand and has cleared and built some of the trails that we ride. You will not see crowds of riders or braking bumps on these trails! There is a real “off the beaten track” feel to this trip. In fact we designed this holiday to be just the kind of trip that we ourselves would like to go on. We have been running this trip since 2011 and we have had several repeat bookings and lots of positive feedback from guests. Here’s another video, this time from the 2011 trip.

Short skills progression sessions by Ed Oxley of Great Rock are a part of each day and take place out on the trails that we’re riding. We have five days of riding (1 rest day with the option to ride if you wish) so it would be overwhelming to try to do skills training all the time! The sessions are relaxed, fun and relevant to the riding that we’re doing here on the trip and back at home. Because there is a general focus on skills through the week, people find that their riding is progressing all the time, even when just riding along. With a few pointers from Ed and the chance to practice, it is amazing how your riding can progress. There is also time for 1 to 1 skills attention as we ride as a group as well as the chance to follow and be followed by both Ed and Doug.

There is a wide variety of riding here from coastal singletrack, leafy forest trails, technical switchbacks and rocky mountainous descents. The trails are technical and almost all ancient, natural, singletrack paths. We will cover the skills you need to best enjoy these big fun, high tech, mountain trails.

http://vimeo.com/22743160 http://vimeo.com/22661769

To get the most fun riding time we will be using van uplift once or twice every day. This should give us 400 to 1000 metres of free ascent every day. We will be pedalling and climbing as well during the day, but the uplift will mean that we will be going down more than we will be going up. The uplift will take out up to 70% of the climbing.

Transfers from and back to Bilbao airport  are not included. There is a cheap and easy coach transfer from the airport to San Sebastian where we will collect you. It is also possible to get here by boat or train. Details are on the BasqueMTB site. The cost of flights is not included.

Who is it for?

People who want to progress their riding whist enjoying a really great holiday in a characterful part of Spain. The trip is not suitable for beginners or riders with little riding experience as the trails are technical. You will need to have a reasonable level of fitness, but you don’t need to be a racing whippet by any means. We use some vehicle uplift every day, but there is pedaling to do as well. Trail bikes will be more fun that out and out XC bikes or heavy freeride bikes. We will be able to advise on all of this. If you want to take a day off from riding this will be no problem. There are plenty of other things to do and there are beautiful beaches close to hand. It is also possible to bring non riding partners along and we can arrange accommodation for you. Click here to see the BasqueMTB website with lots more photos, video and description of the area and its riding Lots of photos from 2012 here. And more from the 2011 trip here on the Great Rock Flickr Here’s a write up by Danny, one of the guys who came along on the 2011 trip 

From Dirt Magazine’s “Top 50 Euro Riding Spots” “Doug who runs Basque MTB has recently discovered this unspoilt area for biking. Located between Biarritz in France and San Sebastian in Spain, it is the surfers who tend to frequent this area for the great Atlantic breaks that come into Biarritz. Fortunately Doug has uncovered an area that has a long riding season with a really favourable climate. The riding is, for the most part, in view of the coastline and there is lift assisted trail riding down some good quality singletrack. The landscape in this region is green and lush compared to southern Spain and the ground more earthy rather than loose and rocky. As Doug and his crew continue to uncover trails and cut in their own, the Basque region will become a hot spot for travelling Brits, especially with the cheap air fares to Biaritz and Bilbao, and if you surf and bike, it’s a must.” Dirt mountain bike magazine

“I spent a week last year with Doug and Amaia from Basque MTB whilst filming Find for Reset Films. The area is a perfect getaway from our unpredictable and often bad weather, you have sun, sea and mountains, a perfect combo. We rode some big mountains, plenty of fast rolling trails on the lower foothills and beautiful coastal paths. The Basque region is very different to ride compared to Southern Spain, where it is loose, gravelly and rocky (but still lots of fun!) On the Basque trails you have lovely dirt not too dissimilar to mid Wales – except its dry! Doug is very easy going and passionate about the riding and the trails and Amaia knows everything there is to know about the Basque region which completes the trip, as you leave knowing a little more about somewhere new and that is what travel is all about.” Rowan Sorrell

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