A fixed-gear in the middle of the desert. Tracklopacking in the Bardenas Reales.
Summer is here again and for most of us, it’s also time to take some time off and ride to new places. Fortunately for us, a good friend of Ella and I had the perfect destination in mind and we took the opportunity to ride our bikes and go shred some dust.
The destination this time was the Bardenas Reales in northern Spain, between Pamplona and Saragossa. Dreaming of beautiful scenery, I got busy and prepared the Mash for some “track bike-bikepacking-gravel” action and my gears for some desert “middle of nowhere” camp. So, is “Tracklopacking” a thing now?
Eager to start riding our bikes and discover new places, we arrived at the Spanish border to the pleasing sight of heavy rainfall showing no sign of stopping any time soon. We endured five minutes of this wet welcome before deciding to take a convenient train and cross the border to take us to our original destination, Saint-Sébastien. It’s the first “real” city in Spain when you cross the border on the Atlantic coast and I was surprised that most people were asking me to talk to them in French rather than English or in my broken Spanish.
To continue with transportation, you should know that Spain's bus network is well developed and you can get pretty much anywhere for a reasonable price. So we got three tickets, loaded the bikes on the bus, and made the journey from San Sebastián (The Spanish name) to Pamplona in just over an hour. I did not think twice about taking the bus as it allowed us to avoid crossing a full mountain range and I was really not down for that with my 48x18 ratio and additional nine kilos of gear with me. I had to let out a big sigh of relief when we finally arrived in Pamplona after being on two trains, one bus, and having listened to way too many podcasts along the way.
It was time! Time to put it all back together and clip in for good. Getting out of Pamplona is quite easy since it is not a big city, and I felt like our trip was starting for good, reaching landscapes made of dry fields, small villages, and...trucks? Yes, trucks, so many of them! The main route we took from Pamplona to the desert of Bardenas was full of them. Luckily for us (and maybe you), this road is pretty large and we were happily surprised to see that most of the traffic was giving us nice and wide safe distances while passing.
This being said, you can still do our route only on gravel paths if you’re okay with making a bunch of detours and riding around eighty to a hundred kilometers to arrive at the Bardenas desert. Talking about the desert, why not finally get into it?
It’s not that big of an area but it’s enough to make you believe you’re in the middle of Utah or fighting your way out of the Death Valley. You can’t camp here but it’s pretty easy to find a nice camping spot just outside the desert to spend the night. Don’t fool yourself like we did tho. To save some space and weight I didn’t take the flysheet of our tent. I mean, we’re going to a Desert. It's not like it’s gonna rain right? ...Right? Little did we know… It rained that first night and I ended up covering the tent with a bunch of plastic bags in the middle of the night. Not that much of a problem for me, but I understand if you don’t want to get completely soaked while sleeping.
Let’s talk about food for a second. First, know that the north of Spain is empty, like dead empty. On our way, we passed countless little villages, either completely lifeless or with close to not a single soul living there. It creates kind of a creepy vibe for sure but you’re not stopping there, so it doesn’t really matter. Back to the topic, to find food you’re gonna have to grab supplies as soon as it is available and not count on the “yeah, there are probably more later along the way” technique. A lot of Spanish grocery stores close quite early and we almost ended up without dinner after a full day of riding because everything was closed at eight in the evening. If you think restaurants are your way out, you’re wrong since most of them don’t serve “real” food for dinner. It’s more like a bunch of tapas that are not gonna replace the thousands of calories you burnt earlier.
One more thing we had to think ahead of was water. Going into a hot place like this and not knowing when and where we would be able to refill was a question that had us take extra precautions. I was personally carrying two isothermal bidons of 750ml each, along with a two-liter hydration pack on me even though I ended up not using it. It’s a small thing that you can roll up when you don’t need it and fill it for the night or when you know you’re not gonna have access to water for a while.
The desert itself is a beautiful place filled with life and amazing landscapes. There are a lot of paths to go across it by avoiding the military base placed in its center. With my 35c tires, I was perfectly able to ride everywhere without any difficulties. But, if you decide to trackpack there, definitely be careful of your total pack weight and gear ratio. This is not a flat place and you’re gonna go up and down a lot. Even if you find elevation and gravel roads easily manageable, you’re also gonna have to face the wind most of the time.
When we got here we had a tailwind and everything was so simple. We thought we were thinking too much about it and in the end “crossing the desert” can’t be that hard. But when we were on our way back to Pamplona, the wind was facing us, and the dust flying everywhere made for quite the challenge.
Let’s talk about the bike and how I geared up for this trip. You can see in the picture below, I had my full Outer Shell combo, two bidons as I mentioned earlier, and a keg to store all my tools. Since we were sleeping in a place where trees were hard to come by and I was with my girlfriend Ella, I went for the tent option this time. Tent, mattress, and sleeping bag combined, my whole sleeping system was under 2.5kg which is acceptable for a two-person “free-standing” tent. You reading this article and looking at a bunch of pictures, means that I obviously took my Nikon F100 that weighs a hefty 1.1kg with a bunch of extra rolls because why not, right? On the bike, I didn’t change much apart from an extra 18T cog on the other side of my hub and a new pair of tires. Let's pause and talk tires, and let me tell you, those babies roll! I was riding on Continental’s Terraspeed 35c and I couldn’t be happier with my choice. Not a single flat along the way, and the perfect ratio between fast rolling and grippy on gravel surfaces. They are also quite light and not that expensive at less than 40 euros a tire. The big tradeoff you’re gonna have here is durability. The Continental “Black Chili Compound '' is known for being really good but a few skids will transform them into semi-slick in no time.
The Bardenas desert was also the theatre of a number of “Western Spaghetti” movies during the ’90s and also features some interesting rock formations. You might as well take a little detour to see the “Castildetierra” before it disappears due to natural erosion. Or even some of the surrounding sheds (some purposely built for movies).
If you decide to take your chances and go between March and September, you’ll probably enjoy the fresh weather with some light rain here and there even if it’s not forecasted. The desert has its own micro-weather and you never know what’s gonna happen in the next few days or even hours.
On this adventure, we were three, one steel gravel bike, one carbon road bike equipped with 35c tires, and finally, a track bike. It’s a perfectly doable thing with any tracklocross setup and some bags. Don’t be afraid to take your track bike out of the city and go wild! Even if you’re a bunch of various categories (gravel/road/track), things should be smooth as long as your patient and know who you’re riding and camping with. Personally, I loved this trip and would be down to do the same but in the big wild west this time. But that’s another story I’m gonna have to plan for.
A big thank you and bravo to @ellaellad and @sportivresse for preparing and riding along on this trip, you guys are awesome.
