I have been able to travel again a week to the Pirinees mountains with the mountain bike. This is a journey I love to do and I was able to do it after 2 years off.

The first thing is to prepare me physically. 7 weeks riding at least 3 times a week made the difference. This time I prepare the days of training combining climbing, long rides and specific workouts with high slopes.

The speed during the routes is very slow, and this helped me to be at the same pace of the group. It’s vacations, not a ride, so we stop to take pictures, talk to people and this type of things.

We have stayed in Castejón de Sos and Ainsa.

The routes we have done were:

1. Day 1: Castejón de Sos –  Integral de Gallinero: 40 kms, 1600m positive high. 6 hours ride. Good feelings as I rested some days and the pace was slow. We extended the original ride going to Gabás, so we added an extra downhill. The fact that this week I rested help too.
2. Day 2: Villanova- Rabaltueras: 20 kms, 1050, positive high, 3 hours. The slopes were more complicated, but the ascend was only 10kms. The downhill is in a forrest and it was very good to stop from time to time an enjoy the views. The cows were in the middle of the path when we were downhilling, so a technical stop was required.
3. Day 3: Ainsa – Viaje al Inframundo: 55 kms, 1585 positive high, 7:30 hours. We wanted to do this one some years ago, but in summer is not suitable because of the heat. Even today it was a hot day. The travel to infraworld is a ride reaching some abandoned towns and old houses were there is nobody. Today we did not see anybody in almost 40 kms. It was a large day but it was a nice day, as the route description says: it’s a bad route for the body and good for the soul.
4. Day 4: Ainsa, raining, so no bike today.. so the alternative was a gastronomic route with special meet of the region.
5. Day 5: Ainsa, Portillo del Vallés: 39 kms, 1360 positive high, 5 hours. We picked this route due to a local rider told us there were less posibilities of mud. The worst part was the start of the downhill on the north face with a lot of water there. The other paths where fine. We started at 13:00 as the whole morning was raining. It was a good decision as finally we were lucky and no more rain falled. The path over a river with stones was fantastic.
6. Day 6: Ainsa: Saravillo – Ainsa: 37 kms 960 positive high and 1400 negative high. We took the van till Saravillo, there we started going to Badaín, then we stopped to take lunch in Laspuña. After lunch we went to Araguás, Torrelisa and finally Ainsa. The final path over the badlands was amaizing.

You can find all available routes here:

• For the 2 of Castejón de Sos: Puro Pirineo.
• For the 3 of Ainsa: Zona zero. We have to thanks again to the guys of the Intersport store in Ainsa for the guidance on the routes and the election of the best ones taking into account our directions and the weather.

Only 2 falls without consequences and the bike without any incident, what else can I ask for?

I hope I can come back next year.