Off Road / Mountain Biking

Whilst it may not have the man-made, manicured trails that some resorts now favour, the Pyrenees can still offer a superb all-round MTB experience.

Proper mountains!

Nature, together with generations of farmers, walkers, sheep and cattle, shaped many of the trails and paths we ride in the central Pyrenees. In most instances you ‘earn’ your descents by riding uphill for a decent spell. And if you’re a keen MTB climber, you’ll revel in the combination of technical terrain, testing gradients and sheer length of some of the up-hills you can choose. But what goes up, must come down and the trade-off for the work your legs do getting you to the summit or the ridgeline is usually a fabulously entertaining descent. At Superbagneres in particular, you can test yourself on the longest vertical descent in the Pyrenees – 1200m of downhill from the summit to the town in the valley below.

There is an extensive network of waymarked routes in the region, managed by the French VTT (Velo Tout Terrain) organization. We use a mix of these routes and others we’ve found from our own exploratory riding to put together rides that span ability levels from ‘blue’ to ‘black’. You’ll find fast sections of forestry fire-road, sweeping (and gnarly) singletrack, river fords, rocky drovers’ tracks and open hillsides. Sometimes, you’ll need to link these together with a bit of tarmac (it ain’t a man-made centre as we said) or put some miles on the clock to get to the trailhead, but we’re sure you’ll think it’s worth it.

Overall, the riding probably fits the cross-country classification better than any other, but the hardcore descenders will find plenty on offer from Superbagneres, the top of the Port de Bales and the summit of the Col de Mente. To get the best from Superbagneres, consider visiting in July and August when the cable-cars to the summit run every day of the week. The cable car also runs in June and September, but usually on weekends only.