European Divide - Spain

Im thinking about doing the Spanish part of the European divide (offroad and bikepacking)
Did anyone do this? I have about 3,5 weeks. Im not sure what would be the best place to start and finish and how to get there.

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The easiest would be to do a loop and fly there and store the box somewhere.

I'd need to have a look where the Europe Divide goes (https://europeandividetrail.com/)

https://www.komoot.com/collection/1070173/7-600-km-across-the-continent-european-divide-trail

There's some other "Spanish divide" routes I've been eyeballing...

https://iberica-traversa.com/ whch goes SE from Irun to Tarifa

https://montanasvacias.com/spanishdivide/ which goes from Delta d'Ebro to

do a loop

That would be massive though - starts in Catalunya and heads down to Portugal.

If you deffo wanted to do the Divide you'd need to fly in with cardboard box and get another one to fly out at the finsh or you'd have to fly/train/drive back to the start which seems kinda silly.

MV has a tonne of loop routes you could do if you weren't dead set on a "divide". We did Maestrazgo Loop over Xmas but there's bigger ones like Montanas Vacias.

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https://montanasvacias.com/spanishdivide­/ which goes from Delta d'Ebro to

That one looks great. And has the benefit you could get the train out to Tortosa near the start, buy a gravel bike from the Decathlon there to ride it and get the ferry back from Bilbao, meaning no air travel required.

I wonder what's worse though: a bum on a couple of flights or the production and distribution of a gravel bike and use of a ferry?

We looked into the train in the past, it's expensive but doable and not too slow (think it was overnight from Paris to Barca) but then Eurostar sorry, Brexitstar, fucked that idea.

My missus has used the ferry from Bilbao in the past. I've never done it. Think it's pretty slow (24hr) and you only end up in Portsmouth or something so then you still have to train back to civilisation.

Yeah, annoyingly the Eurostar no fully assembled bikes thing has made it annoyingly impractical to train it all the way there and back. I guess you could box it up, though. Given you're going to be dismantling at least some of the bike to get it on a plane, it's kinda the same thing.

But it is considerably more expensive and I haven't even looked at getting the train back from Bilbao to Paris (though it must be possible).

I think there are better routes. (judging the EDT by the areas I know it passes though and what others have said in response to riding it) That's not to say you wouldn't have an amazing time.

I took slow trains over to Bilbao for Transiberica and Ulrich bagged his bike and took fast trains, so it's possible but my way took like 12hrs or something. I think I rode from LogroNo to Bilbao, maybe 120k but trained the rest.

I found a note: Eurostar £149ea, E144ea Paris 2 Barca

Considering I've just booked a ticket from London to Barca for another event for £2 and some Avios points, you can see why even the greenest individuals might have second thoughts about the train option.

Yeah, the cost differential is quite something. Less so if you haven't got any Avios points. Does that include flying a bike box over too?

I reckon I'd be looking at well north of £150 one way to fly with a bike. But the Paris - Barcelona on top of that (although I get a third off with my Carte Avantage) is quite a hefty 'green tax'.

Yeah, that's with 2x23kg which in our case will be 2 x bike boxes since we're both riding.

My missus made the booking so I've no idea what it would cost with real money but you could check pretty quick on BA's site.

My view these days is that me skipping a flight and adding hours/days onto my journey isn't worth worrying about. Every little bit helps is bullshit when we have military operations ongoing and commerce give zero fucks about greening their activities. Also, no car, no kids so my new hobby is burning plastic shopping bags.

Yeah, I don't have a car either and have been vegetarian for almost 50 years, so I can probably fly wherever I like.

Flight back from Bilbao is a fairly reasonable 87 euros with a bike. Can't be much more from London to Reus either, which makes it about the same price as getting to Paris and back with a bike on Eurostar. And a fucktonne quicker.

about the same price as getting to Paris and back with a bike on Eurostar. And a fucktonne quicker.

and there's the rub... make trains faster and cheaper and more frequent and stick bike cabins on the bastards and embrace multi-modal travel OR just keep pumping out cheap flights and cars so that people don't even think about trains as an option.

Annoyingly, it was kinda cheaper/more convenient 10+ years ago. You could take your bike on Eurostar in a big bag as luggage or whack it in the bike cabin fully built up for a nominal fee. We've gone backwards since.

I know. I used it for Londres-Paris, PBP, got trains over to Race Around the Netherlands, both times I went to watch the Tour... and then Bexit happened and it fucked the service.

The annoying thing is, I have it on reasonably good authority Eurostar are running one carriage below capacity because they don't have the time to process sufficient passenger numbers (thanks to the additional Brexit passport checks) to fill an entire train. So they could in theory run a bike cabin instead.

It's fucked now. A mate and I went over to Amsterdam last year and we were there nice and early, only to be herded into the overstuffed waiting area and then made to wait while late fuckwits for the earlier train were pushed past us in the queue. Total shitshow. I fucking hate airports but Eurostar now feels on par with the shittiest of them.

They need to take a couple of retail units out from the main concourse, expand the Eurostar departure area and fill it with extra passport booths/x-ray machines/waiting area. But £££.

I'm sure there are options, like not leaving the EU was the obvious one, but are they going to actually do anything about it? I presume the companies have leased those spots and it's a good captive audience of sardines they get to sell to every day.

My last flight I went through the business class checkin (I'm not business class but they were quiet and told me to do so), straight to the large luggage scales, smashed through security and wandered around the large airside area until my flight (which did leave late but is still half a day quicker than trains).

I think if I could ride up to the station, get on the train with the bike fully assembled, ride across Paris, get on the sleeper train, wake up in Barcelona and ride off into the distance, I'd do it - even if it was £100+ more expensive. But given I can't, flying does look the better option.

Yep, it was a banging option. Loved telling people I could just ride from home to Paris and back in a day if I wanted. I paid extra to avoid flying, but they broke the system.

I'm definitely not set on this exact route! So I really appreciate the input! I cycled Zaragoza-Valentia- Alicante- Granada - Málaga 10 years ago but stayed on the tarmac the whole trip.
But what I'm looking for now is wild landscapes and wild camping.

The Spanish Divide of the picture looks very interesting! I'll have a look into it cheers:)

I can highly recommend a browse through https://montanasvacias.com/mas/ then. Ernesto has made and collected some great routes.

We wanted to do https://bikepacking.com/routes/montanas-vacias/ over xmas but didn't have enough time so rode https://bikepacking.com/routes/maestrazgo-loop/ instead.

Actually, bikepacking.com has a collection of Spanish offroad routes too. There's a few southern ones I've been researching:
https://bikepacking.com/routes/altravesur-bikepacking-route/
https://www.transandalus.org/#!/ https://ridewithgps.com/routes/42473236

https://bikepacking.com/routes/bikepacking-transnevada-southern-spain/

Thanks Hippy, great advice