I’m thinking of doing a weeks riding there has anyone been biking in this area? If so is it worth going over say the alps or Lake Garda which I’m also considering. Both Saddle Skedaddle and Cycleactive seem to do good trips to Spain and Italy. Might do both! 🙂

Often go there on family holidays, taken the bikes 3 out of 5 times now. When we went we found there to be a lot of great trails, only problem was actually finding them, and once you have found them, you could be going along fine, then all of a sudden the path would end. Which did get quite annoying at times. We found the bikes very useful for just going around the lanes to the beach, shops etc… I know there is some amazing trails, but it is just finding them, going with Saddle Skedaddle would make it very worth while. I’d do that!

Don’t know how you were going over, but we took the ferry and car, from Plymouth to Santandair. That proved to be very sucessfull!

Been several times. There’s plenty of trails in the area. Don’t know how it compares with Alps but I’ll tell you when I get back from Chamonix in a month’s time.

Here’s a link to a Spanish website in English with lots of trails in that neck of the woods, including a couple of long ‘uns in the Picos….

http://cantabriaenbici.es/index-en.html

Fantastic area, I loved it there in general. The biking is low-ish on singletrack compared with the Alps, I went with Skedaddle. They really look after you, great accomodation and food. The riding is a little on the tame side to be honest but, overall one of the best trips I’ve been on – depends what you want I guess. I did the trans-picos trip btw.

Have done the skedaddle trip staying in a farmhouse near Potes for a week – like wooodsman said the riding was not extreme (esp compared to somewhere like Morzine)but a good mix including some climbing but I enjoyed the holiday more – accomodation, guides and food were great and fantastic scenery – much more unspoilt than the Alps, and very relaxing.
Riding may have changed a bit as its about 6 years since I went.
We added a week at the coast on the end of our trip which was really nice too.

we are going without bikes in june/july,
try the link
http://www.cantabriaenbici.es/index-en.html#Introduccion
which we looked at, looks good

Years ago when a bike was a bike we went through touring

We did a monster day ride right across the midde. Not technical but brilliant day.

A few days later my mate and I went for an evening road ride. We ended up getting the cable car to the top, my only ever up lift. The descent we did was just a track (but very hard work in those days of rigid forks) but its all very beautiful. I can’t imagine that a guiding company wouldn’t have found some great stuff

Climate wise I would say its cooler than Italy, its close to the Atlantic. A good bet mid summer if you don’t like it too hot

A good mate from here has just returned from the Picos. He said it was great and the trails were fantastic. They were guided by a local while they were there. He rides and likes the harder stuff that we have here which is full-on tricky singletrack e.g. so I guess he’s been riding similar stuff there, I haven’t spoken to him in depth about it yet. He won’t have routes or anything but if you want I could ask him for some general info about what the riding’s like, mail me if you want.

I’m probably leaning more towards the Picos especially as its a relatively unspoilt area compared to Lake Garda. The Saddle Skedaddle Trans Picos trip is what I’m considering although I don’t want the riding to be too tame..ish! I guess I’ll give Saddle a call for more info. Doug those pics in the link are stunning 🙂 Thanks all for your info.