We are toying with an Autumn trip to Southern Spain rather than the usual Summer Alps trip.

How does the riding compare to say Verbier, Les Arcs etc. We dont mind climbing too much, but like plenty of uplifts as well!

Looked at Ciclo Montana, Freeride Spain, Switchbacks and Ride Sierra Nevada.

Any opinions?

Thanks

seasonally unadjusted is brilliant too.

You wouldn’t like it. 😈

joyriders mtb are excellent too. decent cross country riding with testing ( for me ) technical sections. i stretched myself every day. usually uplifted to a start point and then rode back close to ( or all the way ) to the accomodation via a bar for tapas and beer.
the main exception to this was an ‘uplift day’ which was 4 or so ( depending upon speed/stamina ) goes at the same downhill, though there was another option to finish on if you were feeling brave after that. the main one took about half hour or 40mins for a 4km downhill. ace riding. technical almost all the way.

oh – and the beer’s free. 🙂

here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adr_w_OKKrA

i’m going back again anyway. 🙂

FreerideSpain have always been excellent, I’ve been out there a few times.

Steve “toying”….

Do Freeride Spain use uplifts?

Do Freeride Spain use uplifts?

They’ll do whatever you want. We quite often drove up to the high point then rode back but we also did rides where we were climbing all morning and descending all afternoon. 🙂

We got an van ride up every other day from Freeride Spain.

Even then there was a lot of climbing though.

We rode for a week in March last year with Switchbacks out of Bubion (As oposed to their DH stuff at Malaga). I would highly recommend it.

No chair-lifts, a fair bit of uplift, but also quite a lot of (pretty easy )pedalling. Each day was guided which I wasn’t sure about to begin with but it worked out well. New route every day. Guides (which Mike (the owner) is one) were a good laugh and they were all pretty rapid riders themselves.

Terrain is pretty technical with, as the name suggests, plenty of switchbacks. Despite how good you think you may be, there are a few which inevitably catch you out. There is no north shore or too much of the other formulaic stuff (jumps, wall rides etc.) you find at TCs or in the alps. Just good, rough, rocky single-track

Riding in the sun at that time of year really helped kick-start the summer riding season for me.

Only been once with Ciclo Montana, so can’t comment on comparisons with locations you mention, but it’s a great venue to go riding. Typical Spanish terrain really. Very rocky and technical – too technical for my ability/fear level a lot of the time, but there’s no pressure to ride stuff beyond your limits.
Van lifts to different locations everyday, but still lots of climbing.
Great food, accommodation, friendly people…..not sure what more you could want.
We have booked to go back this yr, which I guess is as good a recommendation as you need.

good experience here with switch backs. though not tried any of the others.

Thanks for all your comments. 😀