After a day of hiking yesterday we decided a day of biking was in order, so after a discussion with the lady who owns the campsite, we set off on a ride to Capilera. A combination of road (down the opposite side of the valley we drove in on – that means up on the way back!) and a fire track climb to Capilera.

We had noticed lots of paths darting off everywhere the previous day on our walk but had no idea what was rideable and what wasn’t.

So we set off down the road to the village of Portugos where we were to turn off onto the fire road. When we got to Portugos we were standing examining / photographing the map of the local routes in the town square for reference, and whilst we were there another mountain biker appeared. We said ‘Hola!’ to which he replied ‘Hi, are you English?’ (As you can tell we have the Spanish accent off to a tee! or perhaps he just heard us talking).

Turns out he (Leo) is here for a week’s holiday and has been coming a couple of times a year for the past 10 years as his mate works as a guide for a local mountain bike company.  After a bit of a chat Leo offered to show us some of the local natural trails above the village, and 1 ½ hours of climbing later we were rewarded with an hour of singletrack descent back to the village.

As we rode around Leo pointed out some of the other routes in the area with names such as Tourettes which was a steep zigzag single track decent on the other side of the valley which apparently would induce a Tourettes-type outburst from any rider as the trail plummets down a series of switchbacks on the steep hillside.

Not many photos I am afraid as were having too much fun! However here are a few of one of the sections of today’s ride – a steep drop and turn called “Nemesis”