4. Pas dels Llaeres, France to Spain
Length: 16.6 miles
Elevation Gain: 1,263 feet
Elevation Loss: 5,430 feet
Roughly translated as “The Thieves Path,” this singletrack route was created as a way to smuggle goods between Spain and France. Yes, that’s right: on this mountain bike ride you get to pass from one sovereign nation to another, via an above-treeline mountain pass. But don’t expect a fanfare-filled border crossing up top: a line of concrete pillars standing about three feet tall and spaced a couple hundred feet apart mark the border between these two venerable nations.
The way back down from the mountain pass is steep, fast, and harrowing. The first chunk of singletrack up high was stupid-fast, as my discolored brake rotors could attest. But thanks to a cloud bank enveloping the entire ridge, it was difficult to tell how steep this trail actually was. While I wasn’t quite to full-blown vertigo, when looking at the singletrack laid out before me, it appeared that I should be able to let off the brakes altogether and just let ‘er rip down what appeared to be an almost-flat descent. But after letting off the brakes for just a couple of seconds, I was up to “oh shit, I’m going crash and go rag-dolling down this scree field!” speed instantaneously—the trail was much steeper than the cloud made it look.
The vertigo was kinda terrifying, but thankfully we rejoined the trees in a few minutes. The next challenge was to try to keep from flatting through a highspeed section of braided singletrack leading into doubletrack, and big, bouldery rock gardens.
After crossing a fenceline and following a sign onto a singletrack that was barely there, the grade mellowed considerably, and fed us into some sections of swoopy sidehilling singletrack, punctuated sharply by quad-killing surges up slimy root webs.
After a few unmarked turns, the technicality of the trail ratcheted up to 11. There were no serious, massive, totally-intimidating features to overcome in this section, but rather, the tread was extremely narrow, the consequences were high with a steep, rocky hillside below, and the terrain was extremely technical in a tight, twisty, demanding, low-speed sort of way.
This technicality was further exacerbated by the endless web of trail options created by cows grazing in the area. While there was one key route that the trail took through the path, to the untrained eye it was oftentimes impossible to pick out, so more than once I found myself on a different hillside terrace than my guide, forcing me to find a way to regain the primary route.
This was the final ride of our trip, and after five days of punishment my nerves were absolutely shot. One unplanned trip off the bike turned into two and then into five. Eventually we reached a small mountain village with less than five miles to go to the very end of the ride, and I made the judgement call to pull the plug and pedal pavement for the final few miles. While I didn’t endure any serious injury on the previous few tumbles, with the state my nerves and body were in, it wouldn’t take much to go from smiling to emergency room.
While not the most exposed route of our trip and not necessarily home to the biggest, most formidable-looking features, the constant onslaught of technical features, tight singletrack, and the requisite ultra-precise bike handling can take its toll—but it’s so worth it! With 5,430 feet of descending, you get to drop over a full vertical mile on the Pas dels Llaeres.
