2. The Quality of the Singletrack Is Exceptional
While culture is great and everything, the quality of the singletrack is the most important factor that makes or breaks a destination, now isn’t it? While I can’t fully explain in this short space the incredible scope of the singletrack riding available in the Pyrenees—check out my article from yesterday titled “5 Epic MTB Descents in the Spanish Pyrenees You Need to Ride Before You Die” for more on this point—in short, the trails were stunning and absolutely impressive! Steep and technical, slow speed and demanding in spots, high speed and flowing in others, with every kind of natural terrain imaginable from above-treeline alpine tracks to endless rock gardens, switchbacks, roots and forested sections, wet sections, and even slickrock–the variety was unfathomable.
Many times we’d drop 3,000-4,000 feet in one descent, never knowing what we’d encounter around the next corner, constantly surprised by the ever-changing terrain.
In comparison to some rides in other parts of Europe, the ratio of singletrack to dirt roads was very high, and the ratio of top-quality trail to low-quality also was very favorable. On some rides in the Alps we pedaled a lot of dirt roads for relatively little singletrack, but in the Pyrenees, especially with van uplifts to the top, the riding was overwhelmingly high-quality singletrack!
[see_also id=”199287″][/see_also]
