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En Pangea Routes shortly after being born, we learned about a project called Empty Mountains, a new proposal of 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 Serranía de Cuenca, the Alto Tajo de Guadalajara and the Sierras de Gúdar and Javalambre. A territory that 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 discovered it when we approached Teruel and 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. The love and care that Ernesto has put into the design of the itineraries, the website, the entire project in short, is noticeable.
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 she was the winner of the platform's 'COMPACT ROUTE' award. bikepacking.com very shortly after seeing the light. and she continues to reap successes and mentions. 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.
We will be settled in Albarracín, a beautiful town, hidden inside a canyon and protected by an extensive wall. Its walls also have many stories to tell you.
