This fall I completed the Iberica Traversa bikepacking event. The route traverses 1075 miles down the length of Spain, from Irun south to Tarifa and has an overall elevation gain of 98425 feet. Based on my previous experiences of this sort of distance on the Divide and LEJOG I had initially hoped to ride 75 miles a day for a two week completion. The reality after two days was that I certainly did not ride as fast as I possibly could. Importantly I also chose to stop when places, people or how I felt took my fancy over 18 days of riding. For this event I had decided to travel to and from Spain only using public transport, or lifts from friends. There is no doubt that this was much harder work than flying and in the end much more expensive. However this was an incredibly useful exercise and one that I am glad to have tried but there were times when this method of travel caused me much more stress than any of the tougher sections of the route.
For this route I chose my Lapierre 29er hardtail with 100mm forks and a 1 x 11 SRAM transmission with an 11-50 cassette. I thought that it would be better suited to the rockier and steeper sections. The gearing was chosen to help me climb the hills, I did not care about spinning out on descents, or on the flat. My bike luggage was a Six Moon Designs drybag as my bar roll, a Restrap frame bag that I had used on my Lands End to John O Groats ride in 2022 and on the back a Tailfin Aeropack filled with three Six Moon Designs packing pods.
I will tell the story of my ride here using the notes that I wrote in my journal so let’s get started!
16/9/25 & 17/9/25 Home to London Euston train station
Thanks to me being slightly distracted I prepared/didn’t prepare a rather disorganised dinner with my wife before leaving. Not ‘the clean plate’ I had hoped for but she is a kind and patient partner! It was raining at night so our friend Karen kindly agreed to take me and my ridiculously heavy Lapierre hardtail to Aviemore train station. I was there with plenty of time to spare and was amusing myself by riding around and around the deserted platform when one of my other friends appeared! Ann wasted no time in taking a photo of me and sharing it to announce my departure which was fun.
The Sleeper that was just a seat was, as predicted, very uncomfortable, despite a couple of rums after my dinner. At least I had my new fleece blanket and wifi for a little luxury. In the morning when we arrived in London a fellow passenger was super helpful with directions for me getting across London to Victoria train station. He also reassured me that rush hour would be finished so I could just chill and not get stressed about commuter hold ups. When I started to roll my bike off the bike and up the platform it was clear that my QR axles had shaken loose a bit on the journey so I found a quiet spot in the station to sort them. Two people came over to help me. One was a complete stranger and the other was an old mountaineering colleague who I had not seen in years!
The ride across London was great fun and quite exciting for me with the noise, the volume of traffic and all of the famous landmarks. At one point a bus driver stopped for me and motioned me forward because I had not spotted him in time. A friendly railway worker called Yousaf at Victoria train station looked after my bike to allow me to use the bathroom without the hassle of locking my bike. Once on the train to Southampton I even received a personalized announcement about which platform to go to in order to change trains. So much for people in big cities not being kind. Almost everyone I had met today had looked out for me - Thanks.
Sadly this vibe faded rather quickly as I approached my planned overnight accommodation in Southampton. The area just felt wrong. Sketchy. Lots of to and fro by the same folk up the street as I sat in a cafe to have some lunch. In the end I asked a postman if I should be here and would I still have a bike in the morning. Thankfully he gave me an honest answer about a neighbour having had bikes stolen by thieves who would not stop at anything. This was enough to confirm my gut-feeling and I headed to the sanctuary of a commercial motel nearer the university. Over the next three weeks this gut-feeling kept me safe, on course and happy - trust it folks!
18/9/25 & 19/9/25 Southampton to Bilbao
After catching up with my sleep I went back to Southampton train station to meet my friend and guiding colleague Si. Our ride to the ferry terminal was fairly uneventful except for Si bursting a chainlink which we replaced without too much fuss. We got speaking to other riders while we waited in line to board our ferry. The excitement was steadily building for all of us as we shared plans of our routes, or explained a little about the Iberica Traversa.
Si and I had a very comfortable and spacious cabin where we shared ideas about the route and wrote up our cue notes. The food and drink on the crossing was first class. We even had a free presentation from the ORCA organisation about the unique marine environment in the Bay of Biscay.
20/9/25 Bilbao to Irun
We docked in Bilbao as planned at 8:00am and without any delay Si and I started riding to the nearest train station. The cycle lanes helped us stay safe right the way into the centre where we found our first Spanish cafe/bar of the trip. Neither of us were ready for how long the train was going to take to get to Irun. At last Si and I found the location for the event registration on a cold, wet evening. There we collected our pack and then headed to our accommodation a few miles away. That night there was even more last minute kit reorganisation and talk about strategy for the route. Si revealed that he was going to be ‘on the clock’ for a return home in order to start some new college work. Mine was simply to complete the event. I was going to stick to a simple plan of taking it easy for the first week and not get drawn into riding too hard at the start.
21/9/25 Irun to Pamplona
We were nearly 5 minutes late for the pre-ride photos along with a few other riders. Andy the organiser was grumpy with us but in the end he did like my pose for the individual photo!
Early on a 2500 foot climb over 5 miles in the drizzle showed me that this was going to be a tough route. The death mud after lunch was an unforgettable experience where every 20 or 30 feet I had to repeatedly stop and scrape the concrete-like mud off of my wheels, tires and transmission. By the time I reached the top of this particular climb I had adopted a special stick for this job which stayed in my bar roll until it was needed again. CP 1 was at Castle San Cristobal, Pamplona at an old hilltop prison where I had to take a selfie to send in as proof. The fast, paved descent soon ended as the route traversed away onto a steep, loose and rocky singletrack which really, really was tough at the end of the day. As planned I found a bar for tapas and soda in the old town part of Pamplona. Fortunately my room was in the pension right next door. So day 1 was in the bag and as planned, I was happy except for the weight of my kit constantly loosening off my rear QR axle!
22/9/25 Pamplona to Carcastillo
My plan was to ride to Carcastillo. Resupply. Find somewhere to stay. I stuck to my plan.
23/9/25 Carcastillo to Borja
I woke early in the car park where I had pitched my Six Moon Designs Deschutes tarp. Breakfast consisted of a cold espresso and a couple of pastries eaten in between dressing, packing up my sleeping bag and gathering all my ride kit by the light of my phone as my headtorch was broken. Because of the hard ground in this spot I had to use nearby rocks to set up the guy lines for my shelter. This meant I also had to carry the rocks back to the waste ground in the dark at about 5:30 am. Leave No Trace and all that you know!
The Garmin purple line and blue arrow soon had me crunching along some dirt tracks towards Bardenas Reales in the starlight. It felt great to be making early progress towards the desert and CP2. I arrived at the entrance to the national park at exactly 8:00 am which I was pleased about as we had been told not to enter there before this time and be out by 5:00 pm. Bow that I had warmed up and the sun had made an appearance. I stopped at the open shelter by the entrance to have some more food and put away my insulated jacket. Two vehicles passed me: one was a park ranger who I would meet later and the other turned out to be a shepherd driving into this amazing landscape to tend to his flock.
As I rode through this incredible place the only sounds were the crunch of my tires on the track and the early morning song of the birds. All around me and in the distance were bizarrely shaped and brightly coloured rock formations. I was truly captivated and was so glad to have arrived here at this time of the day to watch it come alive, along with me it seemed. A few miles in I met the park ranger in his truck. We stopped to say hello to one another, both agreeing that this was a special place. I noticed a first aid kit, water and a backpack on the seat of his truck. No doubt needed for those visitors who were perhaps not as well prepared as they should be for this beautiful but lethal place.
The further south I rode the more activity I encountered. There was a construction gang repairing some washed sections of the track, I was passed by two or three 4 x 4 vehicles and a large 4 propeller military aircraft passed overhead a couple of times. Soon enough I reached the south entrance where I was able to ask a fellow traveler to take a photo of me at the distinctive rock pinnacle chosen for CP2.
The rest of the day blurred into dealing with a headwind, relocating in the middle of a confusing windfarm access road and finally being welcomed by a lovely group of young locals in the town of Borja. That evening I had a massive mixed salad with roast chicken and chips washed down by some beers. Apart from the park ranger this was the only interaction I had with people all day! Little did I know that this aspect of my ride was going to start to gnaw away at me by the end of the week.
Stay tuned for part 2 coming soon!
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