I have been to the Basque Country a lot of times for trials competitions but only once with the enduro bikes. We went last summer with Andreu and Ernest, and we loved it so much that we wanted to come back this year too. This time we stayed in San Sebastian, at Alvaro’s apartment in the seafront of la Zurriola Beach. From there we moved around.
We spent two days riding the mount Ulia, also riding down to Pasaia to cross to Pasai Donibae and access mount Jaizkabel and its trails. Another two days around Zaláin and Endara dam, we followed a track Ernest got from one local rider and the last day, on our way home, we rode one of the trails around Eugi.
MONTE ULIA + JAIZKABEL
Monte Ulia (+243m) is located east of San Sebastián and even it does not have super flowy trails the views are just amazing. While riding some of the trails you can see the Atlantic ocean and the rugged coast. The cool thing is that the trials are short but the pedalling to the top is also short, so in an afternoon you can do about 6 o 7 different trails. As it rains a lot in the Basque Country, the vegetation grow really fast and you can often find trails full of it. However, sometimes this makes the adventure even cooler.
The second day we decided to do a longer route, going to the Jaizkabel mount from San Sebastián. So we rode up mount Ulia and rode down about 250 stairs to Pasaia. There we took a ferry, a 2 minutes ferry, and we crossed to the other side.
Once we cross, the steepest part of the route began. Luckily it was paved and it was easier to pedal. We arrive to an open field where we we found horses and sheep, and an amazing views to San Sebastián and the mountains around. We started the first trail and we felt like in a GoPro promotional video, the sun was already low, the horses around and the breathtaking views. After the open field part, we entered a singletrack that we followed to the end, very fun to ride.
Then we went for the longest uphill of the day, 7,5km. It was long, warm and sweaty, we could felt the humidity hitting but once at the top the views were just simply worth it and we forgot about the heat. We arrived close to the sunset and the warm colors painted everything we could see.
After that, the moment we’ve been expecting all day, a 5km and 500m downhill to Lezo, linking 3 different trails. We really enjoyed every metre of it. It had almost everything, faster parts, sketchy ones, rock gardens, even some flow turns until we made it to Lezo and we decided to go back to San Sebastián by road because it was already 9:15pm and ti was getting darker.
ENDARA DAM AND ZALÁIN
We spent two days riding in these area. The trail to the Endara dam it was about 11 minutes riding down through some serious steep parts. We found very nice terrain with some grip, however the shadow parts where still wet and it was tricky not to slide. The first part its more open and with some nice views to the reservoir and the last part you enter a dense forest with some super steep parts where you have to trust your braking skills…
EUGI TRAILS
On our way home we stopped in the small town of Eugi, we didn’t had much time but we decided to stop for a ride. Turned up in 25.52km, 1.106m and 4h of riding! It was the warmest days and we could feel it so much we ran out of water in the middle of the route. The terrain was dry and very slippery but we got out the most of it. As we couldn’t stop to take a lot of pictures we filmed everything with the GoPros, so soon you will find the video in my Youtube channel.
As always, I love to discover new places and new trails around. We were also lucky because it didn’t rain any day, which is really strange in the north, and even we crash sometimes we didn’t broke anything, just Andreu had a small injurie in the small finger of his right hand, nothing to worry about.
Hopefully the pandemic gets better and we will be able to travel international for the next adventures… Stay tuned!
Make sure to follow Pol Tarrés (@pol.tarres), Ernest Adalid (@ernestadalid) and all their friends for more great MTB adventures.
Pictures by Alvaro Rodríguez
(@alvarokrodriguez / www.alvarokrodriguez.com)
