https://www.pinkbike.com/news/a-tour-of-the-pyrenees-endless-trails-photo-report.html

Check out this fantastic article by Swiss journalist Tina Gerber writing for PINKBIKE about our Backcountry Tour of the Pyrenees Orientales trip.

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/a-tour-of-the-pyrenees-endless-trails-photo-report.html

This is our flagship trip. Only the best of the best from this immense region make it onto this trip!!! Spectacular trails, incredible scenery....

To get the most out of our trips we recommend that a good standard of mountain biking skills in natural rocky singletrack terrain is needed. An ability to comfortably ride red and black Welsh and Scottish trail centre trails is good, but we are riding natural singletrack! You should be comfortable riding all day for multiple days to get the most out of your trip. This trip is not for inexperienced riders.

We recommend that riders wear knee pads as a minimum on the descents as the trails are rocky! other protection is at the riders discretion.

Backcountry Tour of the Pyrenees Orientales

Are you looking to ride some of the best singletrack on the planet?

The Pyrenees Orientales were recently described as "Massively underrated as an MTB destination" and in the opinion of the US Editor of Singletracks magazine Greg Heil "Better than the Alps" where he was blown away by the quantity of "high quality singletrack". High praise indeed! Danny Milner from MBR magazine stated after his visit, that a trip here was like "a journey through the world’s best singletrack" and based this opinion on the variety of types of trail brought about by the changes in rock type and vegetation as we move from alpine, to sub alpine, to mediterranean scrub areas available to us.

Check out what Swiss rider Tina Gerber has to say about this trip in her report on PINKBIKE. CLICK HERE

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you might say and why is that? Well the answer lies in the history and geology of the region. We have a variety of rock types in this part of the Pyrenees including Granite, Limestone and Conglomerate which keeps each day fresh as we change ride zones. Plus the Pyrenees has a tradition going all the way back to prehistoric times as being traversed in all directions by its population for many reasons which has led to a trail network of incredible proportions. This plus a long history of subsistence farming and smallholdings or hamlets dotted all over the valley sides gives us a mix of natural mountain trails and manmade cobbled packhorse type trails to choose from.

On top of the quality of trails the region has had very little modernisation or large modern industrialisation to change its feel of really stepping back in time.

With all of this in mind we have been scouring a larger area than we would normally ride in a trip based solely at our boutique hotel "The Mouli del Riu" to bring you the opportunity to taste the best that the region can offer in a week of uplift assisted riding. We say uplift assisted because, rest assured, to access the most spectacular trails you will still have to put some effort in. But this trip is really about getting to grips with those long mind blowing singletracks.....

Our home base is on the French side of the border in Saint Pierre dels Forcats, but on this trip we will spend time in both Spanish and French Catalonia as the Pyrenees Orientales make up the dividing line between the two countries. This gives us the opportunity to explore not only trails in two countries, but also two different cultures during our weeks riding. With excellent cuisine and wine featuring highly in the lifestyle on both sides of the border we eat and drink like kings of old as a reward for each days efforts.

If you like your riding to be a mix of "steep and techie" and "fast and flowing" all on natural trails then this trip is for you!

Weeks program 

Saturday- Arrival in Barcelona. Airport pickup and transfer to "The Mouli del Riu" roughly 2hrs drive to St Pierre dels Forcats. Bike build up. Welcome dinner at "The Mouli".

Sunday- Warm up day! A nice climb to get your legs moving followed by 9km of singletrack downhill from the Valley of Planes to St Thomas les Bains (1300m drop). After a late lunch by the hot springs we shuttle up for another 1000m of descent before the van picks us up to head home.

Monday- Heading out! A shuttle up to 2200m gets us to the start point for the climb. Another 500m of uphill gets us to our start point at 2700m. We cross the border and head down into Spain, 1500m in the first descent.

Check out this early season short video of "Dino" the lower section of a very full day out...

and this video of the top couple of minutes of the Red Earth trail with another hour of descending still to come...

And on it goes like this..... On this trip there is no rest day! We keep it coming until you beg us to stop.....

On average we will ride around 15500m of descent during the week with around 4000m of climbing. All on natural singletrack!!! To put that in perspective it would be like riding down Mt Everest one and a half times! ;)

For avalable dates please check the top of the page. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to get in touch.

We look forward to showing you around a very special region....

Check out the additional information for our summer holidays.