EDC On/Off Road, Jaca,Arguis,Huesca (Aragon) Spain: Free trails to download.

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WIBO
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EDC On/Off Road, Jaca,Arguis,Huesca (Aragon) Spain: Free trails to download.

Post by WIBO »

If this is article is read with Firefox or Chrome browser and you have an installed extension to ' allow to see Photobucket Images ' then all images will be seen.





In true last minute fashion I receive a text from another dopey goat asking if we should ride to Spain in search of a short bridge at a gorge,which is shown on the Spanish tourism website for the Huesca region. There's even two motos shown crossing the bridge.


http://turismo.hoyadehuesca.es/fr/el-re ... e-escalete



We'll road ride out of France to arrive at Arguis for Day 1 and Day 2 will see us arriving at Jaca for lunch then on home.



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We'll head off on a Sunday morning at 0930hrs and scout trails to find it, marking waypoints as we go. We'll wild camp one night whilst we're at it and arrive back for 1730hrs beer o'clock, which occurs every Monday, with French friends.

If any one finds themselves holidaying in the Jaca or Huesca Aragon region these routes make an ideal day ride out.

If you've to arrive in Huesca or Jaca from the French side and as it's not that long of a ride .....you could even get to each destination by a mix of trails/road in time for dinner.

The trails are for one up only and depending on the riders ability, a bigger moto other than a single cylinder, could do it.

Day 1 moving average is 15-20kph and Day 2 at 20-25kph both with a fluid ride and without tramping on. It had been raining so we hit puddles and stretches of slippy damp mud but come the summer, and if dry, this will all be hard pack.



Day 1

The going is loose shale and rock to start with on a zig zag trail to gain altitude...(if you're not confident with zig zag climbs a snatch stall will occur and you'll roll to one side...you might even get a good photo with your moto upside down on its handlebar if you're lucky; :) )

The going opens out to normal dirt trails with a mix of loose boulder climbs here and there which necessitates forward thinking and plenty of clutch work here and there to keep every thing together. The long descents are much of the same..tight zig zagging down on loose stone and small boulders with plenty of washout trenches going in the same direction to parallel and avoid. All the good stuff one looks for on a trail.


Day 2

The going starts with climbing but with not as tight zig zagging but all on more solid rock steps and angles....to more wider, flowing gravel dirt trails towards the end, hence the faster moving average speeds.

There'll be a link later to the uploaded trails to www.wikiloc.com with the routes to download, if any one wishes to.

I'll list co-ordinates of the start and finish of each trail so any late comers can join at certain points by arriving via tarmac. (These should ping up once the you download the trail anyway.)

I'm more than happy to share, and if anyone has any questions on the ride out by all means ask.











No breakages but a couple of low speed, slippy clay drops...and goofy wobbling whilst riding across a wide river.

The old girl looks tired.


[URL=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/CorpCli ... 1.jpg.html]Image




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More pics to come..........






:)







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Last edited by WIBO on Wed Oct 18, 2017 8:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: EDC On/Off Road, Jaca,Arguis,Huesca (Aragon) Spain: Free trails to download.

Post by WIBO »

We head off towards Spain via Col de Marie Blanque and an enjoyable sunny ride over into Spain via the Somport Tunnel.

Upon dropping down along the N330 we turn off just after Villanua and ride along twisties in the direction of Aratorés on the HU 212 until you arrive at a roundabout on high. You ride around the small roundabout and come off at the barriers for the trail at about 11 o'clock .

Day 1 Trail Start of the first trail is marked as D1TS1.... D1TE1 is Day 1 Trail End 1, D1TS2.... D1TE2 for the second trail and so on.

Each trail ends on tarmac unless otherwise stated.



D1TS1

N 42 39 028
W 000 34 424

You immediately start to climb on hard pack and stone wash out. In fact any climb here will have washout trenches as the flash rains rinse soil off same.



Once climbing has finished they'll usually level out until the next climb.

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We drop back down the mountainside to join the N330 again at

D1TE1

N 42 37 579
W 000 32 914


A short ride towards Jaca and we take a left turn at a barrier at,

D1TS2

N 42 35 609
W000 32 586

This starts off steep with rock and shale technical,with lots of zig zag riding to gain altitude quickly. You need to keep momentum for the zig zags.. a snatch stall will be tedious after.










Here you can see an hotel on the next peak and Jaca in the distance below. This climb was technical enough here and there on stretches of shale and loose stone here and there before levelling out again.

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We mark our waypoints with notes if applicable to share on ABR and on my French forum.


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Jaca...these trails make an ideal day ride if one is staying in Jaca. If you're riding towards Sabiñánigo along the autoroute and look to your left, these trails will be on the skyline and running parallel.


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We ride on, on hard pack easy trails with the odd short rocky climb to get altitude.


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We drop down to tarmac at

D1TE2

N 42 35 083
W 000 30 590




We ride down in the direction of Guasa and join the autoroute scooting along it briefly to come off at a roundabout and pick trail up a short trail again. We come back on ourselves right parallel to the autoroute, to hunt out and explore the next trail at

D1TS3

N 42 33 076
W 000 25 814

The usual slow speed daydream drop on a 50 mm layer of damp mud on hardpack :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:



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..then huff and then pick up..ho hum...


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Come back off and turn right at...

D1TE3

N 42 33 483
W 000 28 346



A short tarmac ride up into the mountains where we pick up the same kind of going...zig zags,mud and rock. This trail is always climbing....just keeps going on...it'll join another main forest trail which crosses just at the top at



D1TS4

N 42 35 217
W 000 27 813


Junction as mentioned

N 42 36 028
W 000 27 864

Take a pause and enjoy the view....Turn right and ride on....



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This trail opens out with the odd wide 20m trail with 4X4 tracks on it....there'll be loose rock climbs and when we rode it greasy muddy puddles. Summer time will be hard pack.

Slow moto drop due to sticky clay/grass build up under the front mudguard, thus locking the wheel.


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After laughing...tools out to remove guard..I hose myself at the tool tin lid depicting King Henri 4th from Pau, frolicking with two up.

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Off we go...


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D1 TE4

N 42 34 446
W 000 23 413



The blue XT picks up fuel at a Repsol on the N260 that we use ...we have a snack there too and shoot the breeze.


We ride in the direction of Col du Pouralet and pick up the trail after turning right and riding through Senegue at

D1TS5

N 42 32 831
W 000 20 704

We arrive at a wide shallow river crossing...only about 15-30cms deep here and there with nice slippy round rocks underfoot at

N 42 31 535
W 000 20 908


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I ride on knowing that theres a camera at the ready to record any failings...thanks for that Christophe.....he probably has it on a speed setting and is also filming with his Go Pro no doubt....of course in the same position..I'd do exactly the same!!

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I know he's watching......


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Of course I asked for a camera to take a few snaps of the blue XT in case it fell over.


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We ride out of the river and terminate a short distance at


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D1TE5

N 42 31 454
W 000 21 000


We skip through Sabiñánigo and as we're running late we go directly to Arguis by road and find a viewpoint for a rest, to dry our boots and socks off and to think where we'll wild camp.



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We decide we'll just stay where we were and we can cook soon and I have wine in my €79.99 Touratwat Decathlon alloy bottle. Essential.


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At 1317m it'll be cold enough.

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Cuppa soup on the boil


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We enjoy the wine and chat about the days ride.


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Re: EDC On/Off Road, Jaca,Arguis,Huesca (Aragon) Spain: Free trails to download.

Post by bikenav »

Goats doing the business again good report and nice pics, you Euro livers really do seem to have it sorted will record details and have a visit down that way again sometime, Thanks for the report.
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Re: EDC On/Off Road, Jaca,Arguis,Huesca (Aragon) Spain: Free trails to download.

Post by WIBO »

We get up next morning and have breakfast before heading down to Arguis to dump our rubbish and pick up the trail.



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The trail will start at the end of the dam....you've to ride along a gangway which is on top of the dam. We stop to enable a couple of snaps and look at the fish.

We'll shuffle the motos back and forward at the end of the gangway as there's a 90° turn to allow our panniers to pass by. Th going is hard rock with angles and loose stone here and there. The TS is actually the dam itself.

D2TS1

N 42 18 240
W 000 25 784

Lake at Arguis.


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Trail opens out to be easier going.


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Still patches of mud here and there.


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Ride on until the trails ends at


D2TE1

N 42 15 779
W 000 32 993





A short ride to

D2TS2

N 42 15 888
W 000 33 153


Short easy connecting trail to finish at a village called Aniés for bar coffee and a laze about.

Through the village to pick up the easy gravel trail

D2TS3

N 42 18 333
W 000 34 810

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We ride on until we see the castle at Loare at

N 42 19 339
W 000 36 359


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Re: EDC On/Off Road, Jaca,Arguis,Huesca (Aragon) Spain: Free trails to download.

Post by Lulo »

.
Great Report with stunning Photos of my Homeland. :woohoo: :side: :silly: ;)
Thank you for sharing (thumbs)
- LULO -
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Re: EDC On/Off Road, Jaca,Arguis,Huesca (Aragon) Spain: Free trails to download.

Post by WIBO »

Riding on the trail is cut by the tarmac road to the castle. An ideal point to turn off right and ride a short distance to visit the castle and then rejoin the trail after.

Cross over point is at

N 42 19 479
W 000 37 110

Easy wider trails now to arrive at a viewpoint that a looks down at the climbing village of Riglos.

If you visit Riglos you'll look up at the free climbers' rock chimneys and the with rest of the relief,you'll think is just a high inaccessible wall of cliffs. This waypoint is for the viewpoint where you can look down on the vultures riding the thermals that bounce of the cliff faces.


Viewpoint,really not to be missed,via trail road at

N 42 20 166
W 000 42 399



You know you're close to it when you see these ruins...

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Riding along you can see the top if the climbing at Riglos centre of pic.

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Before you get here you arrive at a junction at

N 42 19 453
W 000 40 880

You'll take a left turn here to the viewpoint and the way back down you'll also take a left turn here to head to the elusive small bridge.

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Re: EDC On/Off Road, Jaca,Arguis,Huesca (Aragon) Spain: Free trails to download.

Post by WIBO »

After turning left at the junction the trail stays easy going....upon dropping down towards the bridge theres a couple of stretches of loose rock for 15-20m.

You'll know you're close when you see the gap in the rock wall...the bridge is there.




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If you peep over the edge you see a river way way down below .....don't throw a wobble on the gravel as there's no barriers.


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The bridge is at

N 42 22 406
W 000 41 942




We ride over and pick up tarmac to ride home.

D2TE3

N 42 22 705
W 000 42 729


The moto camping at Anzanigo is only a few kms away ( looked shut down ..don't know if opens come the summer)

Camping at

N 42 24 400
W 000 39 002


The good thing about this bridge is that you don't have to ride all the trails to get at it. You can ride by tarmac along the A 1205, come off at La Pena Estacion and ride over to the end of the trail......you could even ride on up to the bridge on a normal moto as the going is like a farm lane.



Route will be uploaded to wikiloc soon.


:)





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Re: EDC On/Off Road, Jaca,Arguis,Huesca (Aragon) Spain: Free trails to download.

Post by WIBO »

Trail update.....
For those wishing to ride/explore this summer in the North West Region of Spain ...sorry for any delay, but I'm still waiting on the trails to be uploaded for the Aragon region. ........ my GPS is zapped 'a bit' relative to routes ....and I have to rely on my friends GPS instead to ping me same via bluetooth...we'll have a beer o'clock soon and do just that :)
We've put a lot of work into same i.e. a waypoints list showing turn offs and viewpoints etc ....to show that you can ride these trails for free and enjoy.......all in the Aragon region and at your leisure......so bear with me.
If you've any questions on our ride outs by all means just ask.
Also if you have a trail idea, send it and if we've nothing else on, we can scout it and confirm if it's a current real time.....'go' .......... for you for free.....
After all ....this is what this forum's all about.....sharing trails for free...or should be IMO.
(It also gives us a reason to tell our wives that we've an objective and the best thing is, we can apportion blame on you lol )
:)
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Re: EDC On/Off Road, Jaca,Arguis,Huesca (Aragon) Spain: Free trails to download.

Post by Paul-S »

Great stuff
We crossed that bridge in the opposite direction when we did RB10. On the run up from the station at Santa Maria was a steep rocky shaley climb and as it rounded the corner hey presto, the short bridge.
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Re: EDC On/Off Road, Jaca,Arguis,Huesca (Aragon) Spain: Free trails to download.

Post by djskinner »

Thanks for the detailed write up, advice and reference data. It looks incredible. I'll be including these routes on my Spanish trans-Pyrenees trip this September. Those zig-zag climbs sound like they'd be pretty challenging on the GS.
Do you have any advice on wild camping in the region? I know the rules in Spain vary from region to region but it seems to be generally discouraged so I was interested to see your choice of camp site by the side of the road.
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