A good weekend with two separate trails

Madrid has a number of really great spots for mountainbiking, of which many are really close to the city. Yesterday we decided to do a trail in El Pardo, a large nature reserve of which part is open to the public.

It is just north west of the city, and surrounds the village of El Pardo. This is partly known for the palace of El Pardo, which during the Franco years was the private residence of Franco himself. In below picture you can see Frans posing in front of this palace.

The MTB trails in El Pardo are great, but there is a lot of loose beach-like sand, so cutting corners here and there proved to be rather tricky. Only one minor crash though.



Today another trail in the Casa de Campo, and it is amazing how many hidden trails this gigantic city forest still has for me. Today I discovered a number of trails I had never been on before. I also descended the dreaded hill where I crashed the other day... this time I made it down OK. Casa de Campo is real popular with Madridś MTBers, and the restaurants at Lago usually serve as the watering hole for after a descent work-out.



We have started planning our next Camino, for 2010, and are considering doing the Camino del Norte. Essentially along the coast from San Sebastian in the Basque country, to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. Among other great sights this will take us over the Picos de Europa. Cannot wait, we are condidering anywhere between March and June. We will be training through the winter, wanna make sure I'll be fit for this one. More on our plans in upcoming posts.

Hasta la próxima
Douwe