Basque Bikepacking
September-October 2025

They invited me because I speak Spanish.

Little did they (or I) know that we were actually heading to Basque Country, where an entirely different language is spoken (as well as Spanish, of course). I said, “I’m still coming.”

Aidan and Joey had already planned this bikepacking trip as an addition to their previous week of downhill riding in the Alps. After they’d planned it, they invited me. I really appreciated that, because I felt very overdue for an adventure having had my spring ski expedition cancelled when my partner (ROBIN!) got injured.

The largely dirt, clockwise loop took us from San Sebastián (Basque Country, Spain) south to Urbasa National Park, west to Vitoria-Gasteiz, North to Gorbea and eventually back to the coast at Bilbao. From there, we rode the coast back to San Sebastián and added an additional day of riding to pedal all the way back to Aidan’s parents in Hossegur, France.

This was my first time in southern France and Spain, let alone Basque Country. The route involved some wonderful bike paths, gravel roads, double track mountain roads, and single track through the forest. The camping was great. The trip, in general, was one of the soggiest, most humid, muggiest, grossest trips I’ve taken. The humidity was disgusting. Or was it us? Though it rarely rained, our clothes never dried. And we each only had the clothes on our backs. For eight days.

Such tranquil countryside, such wonderful food, and such fantastic, fit, and well-traveled friends. I consider myself lucky to have enjoyed such a stress-free, pre-planned, easy way to try hard.

This was my first time bikepacking with suspension, and I’m very happy to have built up a hardtail mountain bike to keep up with these very fast guys on their downhill full suspension bikes. While I’m chronically underbiked on my bikepacking trips, it was fun being appropriately-biked for the toughest sections of the route (which was actually one that we borrowed from bikepacking.com called the Vuelta de Vasco).

Oh, and we stopped at the Guggenheim, because we were biking past it, and it felt insane not to. It was awesome.