At Polvu we still don't know Bikepaking well, we don't want to deceive anyone, but we did know empty mountains. MV has become a benchmark, which transcends the adventurous concept. Once we have searched for information, the interest it has generated has not stopped growing.
Ernesto Pastor is the alma mater of this project. Its sensitivity makes this honest, humble project visible in the best way and embraces those who want to explore and experience an enormous experience. One thing we admire about Ernesto is his sincere activism in #SlowBikepacking. There is a growing interest in this type of philosophies, leaving aside the ultracycling of the more brutal (and faster) the better, seeking to make the experiences more open and inclusive, and with greater environmental and cultural sensitivity towards the places we visit.
"Bikepacking as a trip, as an interaction with the territory, as learning, as an empathetic and almost symbiotic experience with the places we pedal."
Tim Wellens and Thomas De Gendt chose the route to offer their friendship and their love for pedaling, and they were a speaker to discover to many of us a territory without pedigree (we are not in the Alps or the Pyrenees), but with portentous qualities.
But MV is a demanding route, stages of approximately 150 km and +2500 on average, and which can be interpreted in many ways, but which represent a major challenge.
We have gotten lost on the web and we have tried to summarize everything that Ernesto explains by illustrating it with his magnificent drawings. The articles in the section are very interesting Journal, and if the desire to know more invades you, in the section media You will be able to find information that will just give you long teeth. If you are alive, you cannot help but consider doing the route.
We leave the official website here so you can enjoy all the detailed information emptymontanas.com.
Ernesto is restless and among his facets, he makes these marvelous images that accompany the article
In Spain there is an area twice that of all of Belgium, with a population density similar to that of Lapland or the Scottish Highlands, only 6.99 inhabitants/km². It is Spanish Lapland.
This is how the Celtibérica Mountains are known, which includes territories belonging to 10 provinces (Teruel, Guadalajara, Cuenca, Soria, Zaragoza, Burgos, La Rioja, Segovia, Castellón and Valencia) and which represents 13% of the total area of Spain.
The heart or "ground zero" of this territory are the Universal Mountains. It includes territories of the Sierra de Albarracín in Teruel, the Serranía de Cuenca and the Alto Tajo de Guadalajara and has an area similar to the island of Mallorca. Typically, less than one person per square kilometer (0.98 inhabitants/km²) lives there. An area with less than 10 inhabitants/km² is considered a "demographic desert."
The main objective of Montañas Vacías is to make Spanish Lapland known through an Off-road Bikepacking route, taking Teruel as a starting and finishing point. Along the route you will be able to see various places that will delight you, in addition to a sky practically free of light pollution. We will see places such as the Sierra de Albarracin, the source of El Tajo, the Serrania de Cuenca, the Javalambre mountain range or the Gudar mountain range.
Empty Mountains can be considered a free route, without a specific date. You choose the distance you want to do. The route has several connecting sections or shortcuts so that you can design the route that you most want, between 150 and 700 km. Later we leave you the sections and links.
The CAT700 and the Torino-Nice Rally are the two main references, since they have the same essence: the search for the challenge between man and machine.
It is not strictly a route designed for gravel bikes, but it is not a mountain bike route in a pure sense either. Choosing the right bike and material is part of the game.
We leave you here the PDF Guide so you can consult it. We are in a hot-blooded country, Ernesto himself confesses to having looked at his first experiences with these lenses that most of us carry, of seeing every event as a "competition", perhaps limiting ourselves from feeling that the experience we are living could be more complete. You will see, when you look at the sections, that the numbers are from Aupa!
