When it's all over, we sit on Octavio Cidre's terrace, exhausted, exhausted and full of happy hormones. Our host's stone house is located in a secluded mountain village high above the Rioja vineyards. A place of deep relaxation. The rocky slopes all around are just silhouettes against the night sky. Silence reigns in the mountain forest above - and rutting season: every now and then, the restlessly roaming deer roar their hearts out. An enticing aroma wafts from Octavio's barbecue, a dozen lamb chops sizzle on the grill over dried vine wood, a Rioja speciality. Octavio uncorks a bottle of red wine: "So?" he wants to know: "How was it?"
Instead of an answer, we should actually show him the scratched shins. The calluses on his palms. The bruises. And the bruised ankles. The obvious traces of our five-day ride through the rugged mountains of the Sierra de la Demanda, which lies in the very south of the Spanish wine region of Rioja. But you would have to push up your trouser legs or even take off your shoes - far too strenuous after a total of 270 kilometres and 7500 metres of altitude difference over ancient shepherd's paths, wild trails and steep tracks.
We prefer to let another sip of Crianza red wine melt on our tongues as it slowly trickles down our throats, leaving a cosy warmth in its wake: "Do you want to know the truth?" asks Sven, teasing Octavio a little: "It was gigantically good!" And then adds: "We never expected that." At least not from a wine-growing region.
There are vineyards in Rioja right up to the horizon. But this is bordered by rugged, karstic mountain ranges. For most of our tour, we saw the undulating vineyards and fields of Rioja from high above: a colour mosaic of green and ochre tones. "People from outside the region come mainly for the wines," explains Octavio. Few people know that the smallest autonomous community in Spain is surrounded by peaks up to 2,300 metres high, which enclose the fertile, 40-kilometre-wide and 100-kilometre-long strip of land on both sides of the Río Ebro like a protective ring. "And the fact that you can go biking here is hardly known, even in Spain."
Atlantic rain clouds cling to the mountain ranges, providing an ideal climate for winegrowing in the valley. And promising terrain for biking. The Sierra de la Demanda and the Cameros in particular seem to be made for an extended bike adventure: remote, lonely and criss-crossed by a centuries-old network of paths that were once used by travelling shepherds with their flocks. "You only see sheep, cows and not much else for days on end. People like that and so do I," enthuses Octavio.
Three years ago, he therefore launched a circular mountain bike tour that leads in a wide arc through this mountain world and follows the traces of the almost lost culture of transhumance. Octavio sips his red wine thoughtfully: "Spain has always been a country of shepherds," he explains, "trashumancia", or transhumance, is the Spanish term for transhumance, where the flocks spent the winter in the warm Extremadura and travelled north in the spring. The wool trade was an important economic sector, and flocks of sheep were already travelling through Rioja long before the first vines were planted there. "It's not just a bike tour. It's a journey to get to know the other side of Rioja." Octavio calls his tour "Ruedas de Lana", a play on words that means something like Wheels made of wool, but also spinning wheels. It is the first bike tour in Spain that follows the ancient routes of travelling shepherds. 124,000 kilometres of drift paths still exist throughout the country today, 15 times more than all Spanish railway lines put together. "Today, the sheep are transported south by lorry. But in the past, shepherds travelled alone through the countryside for weeks on end.
Our idea was not only to create a good bike route, but also to trace this attitude to life." We spend the night in hostels and guesthouses. We follow the route using GPS and Octavio transports our luggage. This allows us to concentrate fully on the route - and it's better that way. Because our two-wheeled shepherd's roll is a real challenge. Even if it all started quite harmlessly.
Octavio had called this steep section "Rompepiernas". Translated, this means something like "breaking your legs".
Flashback, four days earlier in Ezcaray: we roll down the valley. On tarmac. "It starts really well," jokes Börje. But then the road climbs, the surface crumbles and the jokes get stuck in our throats. Behind a small, lonely hamlet, the tarmac turns to gravel and the harmless ascent becomes a steep ramp. Octavio had previously announced this section as "Rompepiernas". Translated, this means something like: "Break your legs." The first stage was actually intended to be a roll-in: 35 kilometres and 900 metres in altitude - a piece of cake! However, we set off far too late. So suddenly we have to hurry to reach our destination for the day before sunset. The piste comes in handy. As the last rays of the evening sun are already pouring over the stubble-short pastures, we finally turn off onto a hiking trail behind a pasture gate and hurtle down a fine, winding trail over pastures and stream beds.
With empty stomachs and fat legs from sprinting down the piste, we stroll through the secluded village of Bereo in the evening, which, according to a plaque in the village square, is the cradle of the Spanish language. A monk named Gonzalo de Berceo wrote the first surviving words in Castilian over 700 years ago in the nearby monastery of San Millàn de la Cogolla. But we are only aware of all this in passing. There are only two questions on our minds: When will there be food? And: Is the route more varied the next day?
Question number one is answered at nine in the evening in the village bar in Berceo, where a simple, but damn tasty Riojan country menu is served over the counter. First beans with meat and potatoes, then salchichas a la Riojana, temptingly flavoursome sausages with a sauce of peppers and onions. It was high time!
Between boulders and purple flowering heather lie cleanly gnawed sheep and horse bones - a kite circles in the sky.
We get answer number two the next morning when Octavio loads our rucksacks into his bus and startles us with a statistic: the total route consists of 76 per cent dirt road, 15 per cent tarmac and nine per cent trails. Fortunately, the calculation doesn't quite add up. On the way, we quickly realise that the Riojan dual carriageways are surprisingly varied. Deep erosion gullies turn many a track into a two-lane trail, and we often roll for kilometres on softly padded, grassy drift paths, the "cañadas reales", which have been protected by royal decree since the 13th century. These 75 metre wide tracks lead through forests and over hilltops and are designed for huge flocks of sheep. After all, sheep need pasture and not roads. Nevertheless, these grass tracks are sometimes easy to recognise and sometimes less so - we can live with this mix of paths.
The dirt road winds steeply up the first ascent of the day and finally leads into a forest path that meanders between moss-covered rocks and beech trees. In the shade, it smells intensely of damp earth. On the other side of the crest, the contrasting programme begins: clumps of thyme and sharp-edged stones prick the tyres between bone-dry holm oaks. As the path becomes increasingly rocky and drops into a ravine, we lower the saddles to be on the safe side. The 60 metre high sandstone cliffs, the Peñas Tobía, tower over the scenery like organ pipes. The trail winds down the gorge and ends in the centre of the sleepy village of Tobía. Two cheerful old men enjoying the morning in the shade next to the village fountain confirm that bikers obviously only rarely come through here. "I'm Amador, this is my brother Angél," crows one of them cheerfully, baring two patchy rows of crooked yellow teeth. Finally, he looks at our cycling gear and the bikes that we are leaning against the fountain: "You didn't really come down there on your bikes, did you?" he wants to know. He used to work up there in a mine that no longer exists. They used horses to bring the minerals down from there. Before we set off again, he gives us a tip with a grin: "A glass of wine a day makes you happy. And a good sausage." A sentence that sticks in the mind, especially as shortly afterwards we find ourselves on a 20-kilometre-long monster climb with almost 1000 metres of elevation gain in the shimmering heat. A feeling of happiness nevertheless sets in, but only in the last hairpin bends, when the distant view from the karstic ridge of the Cumbres del Serradero comes into our field of vision. "I would never have thought that Rioja would be so rugged," says Börje, deeply impressed by the panorama of the deserted, barren peaks all around and the wide Ebro valley deep below us.
Our route now takes us further and further into the historic heartland of transhumance. We pass majadas, i.e. fenced-in resting places for the herds, roll over grass that has been eaten to a millimetre, past cattle troughs and round-coned, stone shepherds' huts, known as chozos. A red kite circles in the sky in search of prey, which the bird of prey obviously finds in abundance here: Between boulders and purple flowering heather lie faded, cleanly gnawed sheep and horse bones.
Any last doubts about the trail quality of our circular tour vanish on the third day: early in the morning, we peel our weary bodies out of bed. Ana, a good friend of Octavio's, is already waiting outside our hotel. Today she will accompany us the 60 kilometres to Venta de Piqueras. This former cattle market is now a restaurant and hostel, situated at a lofty height on the border with the province of Castilia y Leon. Shepherds used to meet here with their flocks in autumn to continue their migration to Extremadura.
Scenically, the day starts with a bang: an old Roman road winds its way for ten kilometres between Torrecilla and Pradillo. Ana sets an ambitious pace; the road doesn't seem to have been seriously maintained since the fall of the Roman Empire. We enjoy ourselves between melon-sized cobblestones, wooden footbridges, medieval arched bridges and technically tricky climbs. As the trail clings to a steep slope, the Río Iregua rushes deep below us, while our handlebars almost scrape against a wall on the other side that bears the ominous name "Peñas Malas", or bad rocks. The entire scenery of the Sierra de la Demanda is reminiscent of a western backdrop - so it's no surprise that some scenes from the Italian western "Two Glorious Scoundrels" were actually filmed here.
Our next steep descent is called "la escalera", the staircase. This is probably one of the most impressive legacies of transhumance - and consists of wide steps paved with fist-sized stones and sheep dumplings that plunge downhill in narrow loops. Some of the steps are already very high and circle rather tightly around the hairpin bends - the only thing separating us from the abyss here is a crumbling stone wall on which someone has placed the skull of a faded ram. If a couple of bounty hunters came galloping round the corner, we wouldn't be surprised. Our ride ends in Brieva de Cameros, once the centre of sheep shearing, at the counter of the village bar. As we enter, quite exhausted, the young landlord grins at our dusty faces and says caringly: "OK, you need something cold."
BIKE-INFO NORTHERN SPAIN: RIOJA
The La Rioja region is located in northern Spain and is the smallest autonomous community on the Spanish mainland. The famous Rioja wines thrive in the fertile Ebro Valley, which is surrounded by rugged, karstic mountain ranges that keep rain and cold air away from the region. The secluded mountains reach an altitude of 2300 metres and are criss-crossed by a network of old shepherd's paths that are ideal for biking. You can also get your money's worth beyond the saddle: wine culture is firmly anchored in Rioja, as is a love of good food: This is available in Rioja from simple to star level. The prices are affordable.
Organiser Ruedas de Lana offers a harmonious bike tour through the region. Starting and finishing in the mountain town of Ezcaray, the round trip is 270 kilometres long (7500 metres in altitude) and can be divided into four to six stages. The package includes accommodation and meals in simple, authentic accommodation, luggage transport, stage maps, GPS data and a nice jersey. Price including half board from 460 per person (from two people). Info and bookings: Octavio Cidre, www.ruedasdelana.com
Journey It is 1700 kilometres to Escaray by car (from Munich). By plane to Bilbao and from there by hire car (140 km).
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