En Pangea Routes A little over a year ago we learned about a project called Empty Mountains, a new proposal was born bicycle route in an area that we have always loved, the Universal Mountains. The route includes territories of the Sierra de Albarracín in Teruel, the Serrania de Cuenca and the Alto Tajo de Guadalajara. This entire territory has an area similar to the island of Mallorca. Our Ruta del Cid, our tours through the Sierras de Albarracín or the Alto Tajo had already shown us the possibilities of these territories. But there was something different, we were in Teruel and we met Ernesto Pastor, the creator of the project, we were able to interview him to Traveling Slowly. We leave you the first podcast in which Ernesto participated, you can listen to him, from minute 5.
On their website we can read: “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. It runs through the Montes Universales, the Javalambre mountain range and the Gúdar mountain range, mostly along forest tracks in good condition.”
That Spain that we have been able to read about in "The last" by Paco Cerdá or “Empty Spain” by Sergio del Molino, also excellently reflected in perhaps lesser-known titles such as “The Wind Destroyed” by Alejandro López Andrada or “Lives in the open” by Marc Badal.
That Spain of the Universal Mountains, where we find some of the towns located at the highest altitude in all of Spain, where some of our great rivers are born: the Tajo, the Turia or the Júcar, with extensive forests, moors and valleys.
Ernesto has managed to make those routes that were there, those roads, many of them historic, communication routes for ranchers, foresters, mule drivers and hunters, take on new life, he has changed their image, he has packaged them as gifts, he has made to tell a story, something that none of us can resist, a good story. He has turned it into that place where we want to go to travel by bike.
So much so that it has been the winner of the platform's 'COMPACT ROUTE' award. bikepacking.com. This category rewards people or routes that contribute to expanding the community, they are routes that can be traveled on a vacation and that the members of the group bikepacking.com have been considered inspiring, original and well-documented, both for the proposed route and for the care of its creators.
We are going to Empty Mountains on May Long Weekend, to comfort ourselves in those wild and lonely landscapes. Let's enjoy that Rural Spain, which despite everything, is still so alive and with so much desire to live and be lived. Montañas Vacías, it is also a solidarity project and we will also support its cause, on this trip 5% of the profits go to Autism Teruel, Here you can learn more about the proposal.
