BasqueMTB Backcountry Pyrenees Mountain Bike Holidays 2013

We closed our mountain bike holiday season early this year to make way for a new arrival to the BasqueMTB family. Raising the next Basque-Scottish mountain biking champion takes priority! That meant that we only ran two Ferien in den Pyrenäen im Hinterland this autumn, once again I´m really sorry for all the people who we turned away, normal service returns in April 2014 and the bookings are already stacking up. The last two holidays really made up for the slightly shorter season though, it really felt like all the hard work that we put into this trip has paid off and these weeks worked so well.
The full photos, with the story told in captions, are at the end of this post if you would like to skip the wordy bit!

The first week was a skills trip with Ed Oxley from Great Rock. I was gutted to have to miss this week but our daughter was born at 23:10 on the Saturday and the trip had already set sail for the Pyrenees and I wasn´t aboard. Ed rounded that week up in this cool little video.

I am very lucky that I have such a strong team, in Antonio, Dave and Borja that if something comes up and one of us can´t work, the quality of the trip isn´t compromised in the slightest. Thanks a lot guys. This isn´t just my opinion either and it is backed up by the fact that from the 6 guests we had that week 4 of them have already rebooked for 2014, one couple for 2 weeks! I am really proud of that fact as is Ed and so we should be.

basqueMTB Mountain Bike Route Spanish Utah

BasqueMTB Backcountry Pyrenees Mountain Bike Holidays 2013

The next week I had to leave my new family and lead the trip, to be honest it was both hard and needed. It was great to get one hard week of riding in before taking up full time family duties for a few weeks. All the photos are below, you can just click on them and I have added words to talk you through the trip. As you can see it was a week of proper mountain biking, tough and remote with a real adventurous feeling. We biked our way through lots of different regions, trying to keep things pointed downhill as much as possible and using the van to link areas and do the bulk of the climbing.

We descended over 12,000m through the week and climbed around 3000m. Of those 12,000m (40,000 feet), of descending, all of it was on perfect, natural singletrack. There were no braking bumps, no graded trails and no other bikers. We drank local wines, we ate local food in traditional bars and we stayed in really varied accommodation, some of which was opened specially for basqueMTB. We slept in a hostal in a semi-abandoned village deep in the wilderness and we stayed in rider-owned appartments in a medieval village with huge Pyrenees views. I will let the guys sum up the week for you, they have asked me to keep the same week for them in 2014 so they obviously enjoyed it almost as much as Antonio and I did!

“From start to finish the trip was well run from staying in many different locations, to the transport and food Doug and Antonio pulled it out the bag. plus the riding was at the perfect level. Challenging and varied. The riding is challenging but extremely rewarding, both Doug and Antonio were fantastic guides and hosts throughout. I cannot recommend this holiday enough.”
Mac

Big up to Doug and Antonio @doug_basquemtb for an amazing backcountry biking trip. Tough, exciting riding through amazing scenery. Memorable!
George

“This is the 3rd time I’ve been with BasqueMTB in 2 years… and the reason for this is that Doug and everyone else at BasqueMTB will give you best mountain bike holiday you can think of! Not only is the riding some of the best you’ll experience but the guiding, accomadation, food and drink will give you a holiday you won’t forget!”
Jamie