We saw the low temp warning light in the car for the first time yesterday. Once the sun was out it climbed to 15° and was clear as a bell. Last week we walked up the more modest 1,000m mountain which is the highest point of the range in front of our house. It was nice to go straight from the house, a round trip of 20km.
On your recommendation Tony, we are going to do B&B next year, we've applied for a tourist licence and should find out next week. We're picking up a couple of smaller sized bikes when we are back in the UK at Christmas so will be able to offer hire of a full range of decent road or mountainbikes. I will also be doing guiding, both for our visitors and a local Casa Rural which has been a yoga retreat for the last 15 years. [url= http://www.yogaholidayspain.com ]Yoga holiday co link.[/url]
Hope the building work goes well.
Great to hear Duncan. Will be watching with interest.
Funnily enough we've had some developments here recently that are opening up opportunities for us in the Guiding/Up Lift/Holiday Planning side of things. Will let you know how we progress via Trish on FB.
Keep well mate.
How's the temperature? It was snowing all morning here today!
No snow here since the little we had on Friday morning. Temp is dropping below zero at night and not quite making double figures during the day. Sunny enough but if the wind gets up its razor sharp!
Last year I remember working outside and managing to wear shorts until a week before Christmas. I was very happy about that because, compared to when I'd lived in the UK, winter here seemed pretty manageable.
This year however, I folded early, much to my disappointment. I assumed it was because the apartment we were in last winter was warmer than the farm house we're in this year, which allowed me to start the day "warm" before leaving to come to Guaso in the car to work in the sunshine . . .
Talking to the locals though, it seems that November and December so far this year have been much colder than in previous years - so last year actually was "warmer until later". Equally, June this year was much hotter than it has been in previous years.
Let's hope the trends return to normal next year!
2018 is just around the corner and with it a new season of the Enduro World Series - which returns to Zone Zero, Ainsa in Spain next September . . .
Can't wait! 🙂
The first two walls holding up the bottom terrace are finished 🙂
We had some help at the start from Ben & Corina (from the next village) and in the middle from our friends from the Isle of Skye.
Before and After Pics . . . . .
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Good work. Now you need som big pieces of wood for holding up roofs and floors and so on. Put out more feelers...
Some more "work" photos . . .
Mrs Spekkie clearing away the undergrowth for the next stage of the retaining wall. It's longer than it looks!
And me - you need a big spirit level for a big wall 🙂
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😀
Although it was sunny and warm yesterday, "Storm Ana" gave us heavy rain for the last 36 hrs days - and in winter when it rains down here - it snows up there!
The first snows on our own local Pena Montañesa . . . . we won't be going back up there again until Spring now 🙂
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"36 hrs days" . . . Cheers for that IPad 🙂
Last Spanish lesson this afternoon until after Christmas.
We go every Monday at 5pm for 2 hrs. It's free, provided by the local council and the classes are very small - no more than 7 people per teacher.
In our class we have a couple from Australia, a girl from Brazil, a woman from Holland and a chap from Ireland. Spanish with an Irish or Australian accent sounds very funny - but they probably think the same about our accent.
The teacher speaks no English. She's the Mayoress of a local town and she enjoys teaching us - which makes it nice
🙂
"Shortest Day" of the Year in the Northern Hemisphere today.
Here in Ainsa/Guaso we have Sunrise at 8:25:36 and Sunset at 17:29:59 . . . that's 9hrs 4mins 23 Secs of Daylight.
From tomorrow onward things can only get better . . .
🙂
There may not be much of it but at least the quality of daylight is better, we've been in the UK for 2 days now and not seen the slightest hint of sunshine. Ticking off the hours until we're back on the ferry.
Hope the New Year brings your plans to fruition.
The sun is 9° higher in the sky here than in the English Midlands, maybe another degree where you are Spekkie. The sun still felt warm swimming in an outdoor pool a few minutes ago. It's three years since my last trip to the UK, I'll wait till it's hot here before venturing north.
Crisp start this morning, but the sun is shining now and it's warm out of the shade. I'm working outside on our garden walls and not complaining.
Edit: I wouldn't be swimming outside if we had a pool though!
"Rutas Carretera de Zona Zero" (The Road Routes of Zona Zero)
Zona Zero has released details of the "Road Bike Cycling Routes" that I talked about on here a little while ago.
There are 13 Routes in all - 10 are in Spain and 3 are in France, in the district that adjoins Zona Zero to the north and with which Zona Zero is collaborating for this special project.
On the website "https://bttpirineo.com/es/road" each route has a description summary, a map, a hill profile and guide notes.
The routes are all circuits and you are able to join them at any point and "do a lap". You can also combine routes to make routes to suit yourself.
The shortest route, ZR-06, is 45km long with 1300m of climbing.
The longest route is a variation of route ZR-01 which is 189km long and has 3900m of climbing.
I'm looking forward to going out and testing them all in Spring!
🙂
Those do look good - although I still reckon they need to sort out the URL!
I'm sure it's in "the plan" mogrim.
We're planning on making this a "Big Year!". . . .
We have buildings to build, trails to ride, mountains to climb, work to find, a language to learn, gardens to plant, fiestas to attend, rivers to swim in, caminos to walk and Casa Vino to drink.
Looking forward to it all . . . Happy New Year everybody!
Spekkie & Mrs Spekkie
Every year at Christmas time, Angel from Zona Zero and his dogs unveil a new route that he's put together as a Gift to everyone.
This year the Route is ZZ046 which starts and finishes in Tierrantona and goes up to the Muro de Roda church. It's in the same area as ZZ04 Light but takes some different paths.
In Angels own words (via Google Translate!) . . .
"Merry Christmas. Papa Noël has left us all a gift - a new route! It will be called ZZ046 and it is the first route of the new future for Zona Zero.
It is totally signed with arrows from Tierrantona, although you can leave from Charo or Aluján too and complete the circle. 23 km long, 875 m Climbing and 60% is on the trail"
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Awesome. We had a great time out there a few years ago, before it was on the EWS circuit. Makes me want to go back.
I am so calling you next Christmas about 2019 oab family holidays in that area...
🙂
It gets better and better here. Angel and the other volunteers are doing a cracking job and I help out when and where I can. There aren't enough days in the week!
For a month now every evening during supper we watch the News & Weather and they predict rain and/or snow for the following day - so I plan to skip a day of wall building and gardening to catch up with emails & paperwork instead
Spain has had snow all over in the last few weeks - bringing chaos to some roads and cutting off villages in the mountains - but for some reason Guaso is different. They call our village “The Caribbean of Sobrabe” because 99 times out of 100 the bad weather misses us and it’s clear and sunny.
So we get to work outside and our paperwork is left for Mañana …
This picture taken from Guaso shows the mist in the valley bellow us and covering the towns of Ainsa and Boltaña.
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Reasons to visit the town of Ainsa, in the region of Sobrabe, Aragon, Spain . . . .
Ten minutes drive from our village of Guaso, lies the beautiful Medieval Town of Ainsa, with its "Old Town" perched up the hill overlooking the "New Town" below it . . .
"The Middle Ages, with all its recollection and rawness, suddenly emerges on reaching Aínsa, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Sobrarbe. A Medieval aftertaste extends from the imposing castle of Aínsa to the streets that in their day were attached to the wall that surrounded the town"
"The high degree of conservation and the spectacularity of the constructions that were created between the XI and XV centuries motivated that as early as 1965 its old town was declared an Artistic Historic Site.
This Artistic Historic Site is a pleasant journey into the past where each step leads to a unique moment."
"The fortress retains all its power, you can see the pit that made it difficult to assault. The only way to
save it was through a drawbridge that led directly to a huge courtyard in which the troops oncentrated and organized their functions."
We're having some spectacular clear sunny days here at Zona Zero and around Guaso generally. There can occasionally be a sharp wind but nothing like the weather a north west Spain is currently suffering!
Apparently next week will be colder, but they often say that and it doesn't materialize. We will see I guess . . .
🙂
But did you wake up to 20cm off fresh powder? Bad weather doesn't always mean suffering.
We were trail finding around you Tony a few days ago and did a big mountain route. 1800m high in short sleeves 🙂 Plenty of snow on the ground but all perfect for biking!
Spekkie, (or Doug), I may have asked this already so forgive me if so, but are any of these ZZ trails doable on a CX bike? Even if it means a bit of shouldering the bike.
Currently chatting to a mate who lives in Girona and we're going to meet up about half-way between us for a week's camping in Semana Santa - which would mean somewhere around Ainsa. He's got an MTB but I haven't, so thinking of some doing some fun but lightweight trails, neither of us are gnarlords.
Of course if it's still snowing up there at the end of March then sod it, we'll be off to the Med coast 😉
Hey Bob, when we are there we are probably riding the more technical stuff. Very few bits would be fun on a CX BIKE. Doable, yes but you would be riding to protect your wheels. A few short routes could be fun but it’s about 5% of the area.
The weather will be perfect!
Hmm well in that case Doug I'll think about putting my SS bike back together (if I can remember where it is!). The route Spekkie mentioned is 875m which I'm happy enough to do SS.
Edukator - We got NOTHING! 🙁
Doug - It has been a very nice couple of weeks. Sunny almost every day. If I wasn't busy building I'd be riding!
Bob - if you're happy to shoulder the bike occasionally and you don't mind climbing, there's tons to do around here on a CX bike.
Just don't try and follow Doug and the lads!
One of the things we'd like to be able to do once our B&B is up and running is help our cycling guests to find their way around the trails, roads and caminos of the area and of Zona Zero in particular, safely and competently.
We'd like people visiting here to make the most of their time, on and off the bike. There is so much to see and do.
With that in mind I'm looking at getting myself a Guiding Certification with European approval . . .
Will post my progress through the in's and out's of Spanish bureaucracy and red tape as I go . . . . .
Wish me luck 🙂
Bureaucracy no doubt helped along with who you know as well as what you know.😀
Not at all Ming, I don't think it works like that here. They're desperate for more cycling tourism and there is a very clear path laid out. Spekkie, hopefully our last conversation helped and if things move beyond that give me a shout. Good luck! Well be back in a couple o weeks and then fairly regularly, as always, after that. As we talked about I think you're setting out on the right road to doing it all properly and it should be perfect when you're all set up. You'll get our backing and we will definitely try to help you by passing over the plenty of people who don't fit into our more "gnarly" trips.
It did help Doug - cheers for that. Will keep you posted as we go.
Talk soon.
Lurking on this thread for some time. Amazing to see what you guys have achieved. Inspiring stuff!
MTB club annual meeting next week. We'll be discussing a weekend in Ainsa amongst other ideas. The plan is to ride the northern part of Zona this time.
Keep it up OP. Very impressive wall.
Part of the world I would love to visit....with a bike and family in tow.
So far, I'm pitching it to the missus as a "retreat" with art ,tapas and a "bit" of cycling thrown in...Ha.
Fortunately,Ainsa looks right up her street .
Edukator / senor - look forward to meeting up some time!
senor - if you need info/help on anything locally, just fire away and I'll help if I can.
Will be out that way in the camper for the EWS round, hope to get some riding in. Whats the campsites like.
There's a campervan parking spot right in the old town by the castle which we stayed in when we visited Tony last summer, they charge €5 or so for the day and it's free after 6 in the evening. I guess it will be very busy when the EWS is in town. Alternatively there's a large site with hookups and pool etc about 3km north of Ainsa, Camping Peña Montañesa http://www.penamontanesa.com which has a restaurant and stuff.
Hi Tracey - there are actually 4 campsites in and around Ainsa and they are all good.
"Camping Ainsa" is in Ainsa itself, on the outskirts of the east side of town.
Camping Boltana and Camping Le Gorga are both in Boltana - which is 5 mins drive west of Ainsa.
Camping Montenesa is in Labuerda, which is 4 mins drive north of Ainsa
Campers are also allowed to park in the car park up in the Old Town, but it's not a campsite. This may or may not be open whilst the EWS is on.
Thanks for that, need to be as near to the race village as posible so that we dont have to move the van. We can then go and do some riding whilst Abigale practices.
The castle camping was 50% team spaces, ie mechanics etc, last EWS and the rest was absolutely jam packed. There were people camping there though. And us with our vans as I remember, we had a space there. More people were camping in the main parking down by the river, off the roundabout.
Thanks spekkie.
Campsite info handy too.:-)
Thanks for the pointers, have booked on Camping Ainsa for the EWS week
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I’m so happy to see my friend Angel Cheliz get this award. He has been one of the main driving forces responsible for creating from scratch the hundreds of km’s long collection of MTB/Enduro trails that we now know as “Zona Zero”.
“On Sunday February 4 in Boltaña, Ángel Chéliz received the "Cruz de Sobrarbe” (The Sobrabe Cross).
For us, the prize awarded to Angel Cheliz is very special. A visionary, a child in an adults body that never stops dreaming, to see beyond what their eyes reach. Surely we are not the only ones to be grateful to him and his “comrades in battle” at the Pyrenees MTB Center, Zone Zero. For the passion he has instilled in much of this territory and its future. THANK YOU.“
There goes our little tribute.
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Angel is a star! I’ve got very fond memories of riding with him, and the rest of the guys who made ZZ happen, over the years. I clearly remember the first route we did, back when ZZ didn’t exist and they had a test gathering to test out the concept. I ended up bonking just at your house and they had to give me chocholate to manage the last bit back home. 🙂 Back then I was super skint and was riding in hand-me-down clothes and bald threw other people had donated to me!! I’ll see if I have any photos, funny times.
Guiding in Spain - the basic requirements:
I mentioned before that I was looking into getting myself a Guiding Certificate so that we could show visitors around "Safely & Legally". This Is what I've found out so far:
1) You need a Guiding Qualification with "European Approval".
2) You need a current "Outdoor First Aid Certificate"
3) You need Public Liability Insurance.
I'll be posting about what each of these involves over the next few mornings 🙂
Halfway through February and yesterday I spent the morning working outside with Ramon the Farmer. We were stacking firewood for next year and I was in shorts and a T-Shirt!
Is this Spring here to visit or here to stay? The next few days will tell
🙂
Early last week I dropped off my CV to the 4 local campsites we have around Ainsa, in the hope of picking up some work over the summer.
A day later one of the sites messaged me to say they want to talk to me some more and the day after that my friend Angel, who I help maintain the local Zona Zero MTB trails with and whom I put down as a character reference, messaged me to say that the same campsite had rung him for a reference 🙂
Going to see them this eve for a chat and we'll see what happens . . .
So, starting work tomorrow then .... They want me work until the end of the month to see if I like it and if I do they'll give me a 7 month contract through the summer.
Phew 
Ace. 🙂
👍
Ca c'est chouette.
if it's Pena Montanesa there's a good chance we''ll meet.
C'est 🙂
Shame man, I think we broke Ramon the Farmers heart yesterday.
He's been keeping an eye on our progress of building walls and terracing our sloping back garden. He's always very encouraging and is amazed with what we've been able to do with what has always been a rather awkward bit of land.
So, yesterday we showed him that the first terrace was finished and the second one was well on its way. He was suitably impressed and asked us "what we were going to plant there?". I told him "Grass" - but he didn't understand - in fact he thought I was using the wrong Spanish word to describe the crop we were going to plant. So I explained in detail "Grass, so we can put out a garden table & chairs and sit with our friends drinking wine & beer and enjoying the view"
As a farmer, he doesn't get that we would do all that work, just to "sit" . . . . what about growing food, to eat???
Maybe once he and Rosa have sat and enjoyed a drink with us it will make more sense to him.
Come to Spain they said, sit out on the pavement drinking cold drinks in the sunshine they said …
Drinks will definitely be cold!
Finally stopped snowing this evening after nearly 40cm of snow had fallen in around 15 hours.
We are officially snowed in - no way to get the cars out until the snow melts or is cleared. As it happens, Ramon has a tractor so he can clear the road from home to the main road if we need to go anywhere.
Looks like another day at home tomorrow . . . .
Couldn't get to work yesterday and couldn't work on our walls & garden . . . nothing left to do but to build a Snowman!
It rained all last night and so today the snow has cleared a bit.
Ramon cleared the road from our houses to out of the village this morning so that we could get out in the car.
We went and had a look around - the big roads are all clear. The local council must have worked flat out to get it all done. I know they are used to bit of snow, but hats off to them for effort.
Good to know that when an Atlantic Snowstorm hits us, we're only stuck for a day 🙂
My son is over from the UK for a few days and thankfully the snow and rain we had last week have gone away.
Today we walked some of the trails I'm busy building on Ramon the Farmers land. Did a bit of cleaning up and cleared some of my drainage ditches. It's looking ok, despite the fact that I haven't given it much attention since we started building our garden walls and terracing our sloping back garden.
It's good news for me that I can ignore my trails for weeks or even months if necessary and they don't fall apart while my back is turned!
After a week of working flat out at one of our local campsites, bad weather stopped play for a few days. Then my son was over from the UK for a week.
Now I'm back at work - preparing the campsite ready for opening time just before Easter.
The boss' daughter, who takes care of the admin and cleaning side of things, asked Mrs Spekkie if she'd be interested in helping out for a while too, so she's joined me there 🙂
We are both currently "employed" and earning Euros . . . . 🙂
Would love to get to Stage 6 of the " Volta Ciclista a Catalunya" on Saturday. It's going to pass here about 40km away.
Just depends on work & weather!
I like these updates spekkie -keeping the dream alive.
Cheers Matt!
If you live in Spain and you want to drive legally you need to have a Spanish driving license - so we've started the ball rolling for exchanging our UK licenses for Spanish licenses.
You can live here for a period of time before you need to change your license, but we're almost at the end of that period now.
Hopefully it will be a painless exercise. . . .
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2va0-0-0"><span data-offset-key="2va0-0-0">After 5 weeks of garden & building maintenance at the "Ainsa Camping" campsite, this week the site opened for Easter. (Holy Week - or Semana Santa as they call it). </span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="58iv1-0-0"><span data-offset-key="58iv1-0-0">Yesterday a few customers arrived, lots more today and by tomorrow night I believe they're going to be full.</span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5ekid-0-0"><span data-offset-key="5ekid-0-0">It's been fun - hard work, but good to be bringing in some Euros, and it looks like the owners are going to offer us both contracts for the summer season.</span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="e57ne-0-0"><span data-offset-key="e57ne-0-0">Going back to work now so that we can check all the outside lights and timers are set up correctly and working. . . . </span></div>
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I'd forgotten about the built in encryption that's applied to cut and paste text. Genius move . . .
"After 5 weeks of garden & building maintenance at the “Ainsa Camping” campsite, this week the site opened for Easter. (Holy Week – or Semana Santa as they call it).
Yesterday a few customers arrived, lots more today and by tomorrow night I believe they’re going to be full
It’s been fun – hard work, but good to be bringing in some Euros, and it looks like the owners are going to offer us both contracts for the summer season
Going back to work now so that we can check all the outside lights and timers are set up correctly and working. . . . "
Thanks to this ongoing thread and a brief visit to the area last year with out bikes, we are coming back out to Ainsa from the start of June for nearly a fortnight, do you fancy guiding a group of four (two on a tandem though) on some of the trails for a couple days (when you are not working).
Great! Keep me posted and we'll make a plan.
A couple of days off of work now at "Camping Ainsa" thanks to the rainy weather. Most of what we're doing is outside at the moment.
We did a big Prep of the site grounds and the 27 chalets for a month leading up to Easter ("Semana Santa" here in Spain) and then the site was open for a week or so over the Easter weekend. Now it's closed again until the begining of May and we're doing more prep work. Then it opens through until the end of September.
I'm enjoying the job and it's good to have some money coming in. Trying to improve my Spanish "as I go along". My boss, Juan (the owner), is using the famous English method of just repeating the same word over and over with increasing volume until I say "OK I understand" 
Mrs Spekkie helped prepare the chalets before Easter but won't be going back during the season. She's going to rather concentrate on trying to get done all the things we need to do to keep our project going while I'm at work - lots of paperwork, a new business plan, applying for Spanish Temporary Residence and then Permanent Residence, sorting Spanish Driving Licences and liasing with the builders once we get going. Plus she has to look after me, which is no easy job at the best of times!
Onwards and upwards . . . . 🙂
The weather here is driving us nuts at the moment!
We had a long almost entirely dry winter. It got colder much sooner at the end of last year than it did the year before. Winter came early - November was sunny but chilly 🙁
It was fine for riding though - just had to wrap up, and although it was cold, it wasn't wet and muddy. In fact it was so dry that the percentage levels of how full the various dams and lakes in Spain were, got down to the low teens.
Where we are living, "Spring" seems to be constantly flicking between two states - one day it's 20 degrees & sunny and we see people on bikes all over - the next day it's raining all day, the trails are wet and muddy and no one is to be seen anywhere!
In the last few weeks in other parts of Spain there has been so much rain that some of the major rivers are now flooding through towns and villages. Thankfully we're fine where we are, although we've had a fair bit of rain come down in the last two weeks ourselves.
Today it's sunny again, yesterday I worked in waterproof clothes because it rained hard all day long! Living in the foothills of the mountains certainly makes life interesting . . .
🙂