Having set off from Santander, after a relaxing trip on the ferry from Portsmouth, the Singletrack Safari “pimpmobile” was soon making good progress on the 1000km plus drive from the North coast, through the heart of Spain to Andalucía in the distant south. After a night’s camping (I was too shattered to drive any further after 12 hours of almost non-stop driving) we rolled into the Cordoba Province first thing on the Friday morning, a day before our first guests were due to arrive.
The following day was fantastically bright and sunny – but invisible was the dust cloud from the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano, which up until a couple of days previously had been looking likely to disrupt our guests’ holiday. So likely was it looking in fact, that we offered our clients the chance to move their holiday dates if they preferred – although no-one took us up on the offer – they were keen to get some sunny trailtime! Trust me, when you have spent over a year and a half of your life working non-stop, full-time without any income - and you’ve not only sold your house but also invested your life savings in a venture like Singletrack Safari, the last thing which your blood pressure needs is the possibility that your first overseas guests may not even be able to reach you! Suffice to say, we had several sleepless nights – clients and hosts alike!
Our first arrival at Malaga airport was registrar Doctor Oli whose flight managed to get in nearly 40 minutes ahead of schedule – something which has become a bit of a trend since the huge new extension to the airport was opened recently. It used to be a bit of a slow process getting people and baggage from the planes to the arrivals hall, so we guess that the early arrival times must be in part due to improved logistics on the ground. ...good news as far as our guests are concerned.
Within ten minutes we were joined by our second client, Pete – an old riding buddy from the UK, who was also a test “guinea pig” for us on the amazing trails of Andorra last summer. The boys skipped the option of lunch on the beach, so we headed back to the van, loaded up and drove straight inland to our first hotel at Cabra (famous for its goats cheese; Cabra is Spanish for goat!) – where we spend the first 3 nights each week. After a good Spanish meal in the nearby town of Lucena (famous for being Spain’s furniture production capital!) we got to be ready to hit the trails the next morning.
We rode from the door of the hotel into the nearby Sierra Subeticca Natural Park – where the rocky singletrack offers everything from tight switchbacks to the deep gorge of the challenging “Pinball Alley” descent. During May these usually harsh mountains erupt with wild flowers, and with the exceptionally heavy rains of early April the ground was carpeted in riotous colour in many areas. The guys had a fantastic day, and emerged unscathed at the end of the ride to tuck into the local speciality of Suckling Pig, and enjoy some ice cold giant beers at cliff top restaurant, famed throughout Andalucía for its fabulous food and views. Real Madrid footballers have been known to eat here regularly, and inside you will find photos of the owner with his arms around various members of his beloved team – although the pic of Posh and Becks seems to have disappeared recently! There’s still one of Golden Balls himself though...
The second day is designed to be a complete contrast to the first – and the change from the arid, rocky singletrack of the previous day to the smooth flowing trails in green and verdant Cordoba is significant. What wasn’t expected was the change of fortunes for the riders! No, we didn’t experience any damaging off-trail excursions, but Pete had a nasty flare up of an old injury which inhibited his pedalling, however it was once we returned to the city centre that things became entertaining...
As we pedalled into Cordoba’s central plaza, looking every bit the cool and professional group of mountain bikers, we steered towards a pavement restaurant for a well-earned break and some “hops-based energy recovery supplements”. As Oli rode towards the restaurant, he steered gently towards the tables...and hit the marble pavement. Very hard. So hard, in fact, that he caused a nearby woman to actually scream loudly in horror. With a sense of great mirth concern we chortled rushed to his aid, to discover that he was basically unharmed...he’d hit a wet marble slab and gone down so suddenly he hadn’t even had time to let go of the handlebars! This meant that the end of the bars – and Oli’s hip – had borne the brunt of the impact. As a doctor Oli declared himself unhurt – a diagnosis we might have questioned if we’d known at the time that he’s actually a gynaecologist! He was a bit bruised (a daily sport developed from examining his thigh to see what colour he was each morning, and how far down his leg the green/ purple/ yellow marls would extend), but the main damage was a badly bent set of bars. Fortunately Cordoba has a good bike shop – and it’s a universal fact that bikers don’t need asking twice when offered the opportunity to go and look at shiny things – they become like magpies with a penchant for carbon fibre and anodising.
The third day of the trip is our changeover day, where we head a few hours east to our second hotel - a journey which we break in two, by dropping into Granada and riding in the northern fringes of the Sierra Nevada. This area is still fully legal to ride – not many people realise that mountain biking is actually banned within the Sierra Nevada National Park itself; we’ve been told that this was following some issues in the south of the mountains with illegal trail building. The Spanish authorities can be extremely pig-headed, so we stay legal, and ride some of the stunning routes in the “foothills” around Granada....if mountains of 1700m can be called foothills!
Due to Pete’s injury he opted to explore the city on foot whilst Oli and I rode an amazing route which heads out of the city on rolling singletrack, before a technical ascent to the top of the ride. The amazing views across historic Granada are complemented by the historic nature of the singletrack – you follow the routes of amazing Roman aqueducts back to the city – passing a huge mountainside monastery and the ancient city walls along the route. We make a point of stopping to look at the views, as the trails are such fun you might fail to look up and see what you are passing otherwise! Super narrow, fast singletrack – interspersed by sweeping switchbacks are the order of the day.
After meeting back up with Pete in the city we enjoyed some great Tapas – and yet more large beers were hungrily gobbled up (are you sensing a theme here?) before we headed inland for the second hotel – the guys watched a movie in the van and the journey seemed to take no time at all.
Our original countryside hotel nestled at the foot of the mountains had to be reconsidered at the last minute – due to its unexpected and sudden closure – so we instead have swapped to a family run hotel in the nearby village of Fatima. The rooms are lovely; they are recently refurbished to a high standard, and the proximity to the main village of Castil offers more opportunities for evenings out. And on that first evening, with a day off the next morning, Pete and Oli decided that the local bars should be examined in more detail! By 3am, we had managed to investigate a total of exactly 1 bar – “El Ultimo” – so called as it’s the last in the village. Tamara (the owner) and several of the locals were very amused by their English visitors – and we soon learned that the Spanish are more than familiar with most of our drinking games....
The following morning breakfast had pretty much turned into lunch (even by Spanish standards) by the time everyone was up and about...and a gentle day consisting of a local walk in a nearby Gorge and some R+R was called for in readiness for the last couple of rides.
Our penultimate day was in the nearby Sierra De Castril, and we began our ride from one of the stunning nearby reservoirs which this area possesses. It’s a long way to the top – about a three hour climb to the top at 1800m - but the descent is scintillating and, in places, very technical. We couldn’t ride this trail at the beginning of the week – it’s somewhat out of most people’s comfort zones in comparison to UK trails – but after several days of getting into the Spanish riding most people are feeling confident enough to tackle it! There’s probably less rock to be ridden than the first day, but there are also a lot of loose, gravelly surfaces which don’t offer much traction here – which combined with some tight switchbacks and tricky cambers make for a testing descent to the valley nearly 1000m below!
We always spend our final day of riding in the incredible Sierra De Cazorla – this isn’t a mountain range familiar to most riders, but any riders who have lived or worked in Southern Spain know it by reputation, although probably not experience! Cazorla is a long way off the beaten track – and that’s where Singletrack Safari’s unique format really comes into play. We’re not fixed to a specific base like most companies – and with the trails here being nearly a 2 hour drive from Granada it’s simply not possible for most companies to bring their guests here for a day trip.
A long, gradual climb rewards riders with an epic descent - an hour long, dreamy, singletrack drop from the remote mountaintops through thick pine forests down to a beautiful lake in the valley. This trail has it all; fast open sections, tight corners, rocky challenges and stunning views. The final part of the descent involves dozens of switchbacks – but they are all perfectly formed so very rideable...we really must count how many there are some day! Pete summed it up at the bottom by saying “That’s probably the best descent I’ve ever ridden!”
The reward at the end of the day was a nice, relaxing meal at the restaurant of the shores of the enormous, vivid blue lake, whilst looking back up at the mountains which the riders had just descended. As they tucked into the final lunch of their holiday the guys reflected on their week, and discussed which days were their favourite. For Pete, there was no contest; the final day in Cazorla was firmly imprinted on his memory as one of the very best days riding he’d ever had in 20 years of riding. Oli meanwhile was somewhat undecided – he’d really enjoyed both the rocky tech of the first day in Cabra and the fast flowing trails in Cordoba and Granada. He later summed up the week by saying that the holiday had been everything he had hoped for – which as a brand new company we were genuinely over the moon to hear!
The week had been great fun for me too – both guests were brilliant company, and I really enjoyed spending time with them. It was with a genuine tinge of sadness (although my liver was breathing a sigh of relief) that I waved them both off at Malaga airport the next afternoon. However, I couldn’t afford to spend too much time saying goodbye – the next group of clients were about to arrive within minutes....
