Bicycles to bring some life back to empty Spain
A digital project invites us to pedal through one of the largest demographic deserts in Europe, Empty Mountains is the new paradise for bikepackers from all over the world.
The epicenter of this route are the Universal Mountains, that stretch across the Sierra de Albarracín in Teruel, the Serranía de Cuenca and the Alto Tajo de Guadalajara. A territory similar in size to the island of Mallorca, but with a population density less than one inhabitant per square kilometer (below ten inhabitants is technically called “a demographic desert”). Just for comparison, on the aforementioned island of Mallorca the population density is more than 240 inhabitants per square kilometer.
Empty Mountains is the new paradise for bikepackers from all over the world
GETTING TO KNOW BIKEPACKING
Bikepacking is a type of long-distance cycling who shies away from competition. It is practiced with mountain bikes or gravel bikes (mixed mountain/asphalt) and is characterized by having light luggage in panniers.
The most frequent destinations of these athletes are remote places: the Balkans, Patagonia or the foothills of the Himalayas.
In the United States, it constitutes an increasingly powerful movement, which has turned uninhabited places in the interior of the country in perfect destinations for the practice of this sport. Former mining or industrial areas have been converted into places frequented by bikepackers, assuming an interesting engine of rural development.
THE ALLURE OF EMPTY MOUNTAINS
The Empty Mountains project proposes a circular route of about 700 kilometers starting and arriving in the small city of Teruel (36,000 inhabitants), traveling through forest tracks the Universal Mountains, the Sierra de Gúdar and Javalambre.
The network of trails and trails that make up this route creates a setting away from large cities, without asphalt or traffic. Are places of silence, of wild nature, little traveled. They are also found at high altitude: much of the route is more than 1,500 meters above sea level and Significant gaps are saved. Wooded areas and moors are crossed.
The track is downloaded to an electronic device that can be consulted at any time
The weather is especially severe in winter, It is not for nothing that there are two ski resorts on the route. The landscape adjusts for all this to this remote image that attracts these cyclists so much.
Small towns dot the route, some of them tiny and aged, many of them on the list of the highest in Spain. in some, the cyclist will find a bar or a rural multiservice where to stock up while night shelter is sought in a shelter or camping in authorized places.
TECHNOLOGY IS KEY
Physical signs are not necessary. A route marked with paint or wooden posts is not followed. There is no chance of getting lost by missing a prompt or because the direction of an arrow on the road has moved.
Montañas Vacías makes available to the cyclist a track that is downloaded to an electronic device that can be consulted at any time, because GPS technology is universal and is available even in the most isolated places, where mobile phones do not have coverage.
BIKEPACKING IS THE NEW GOLF
So far, the uninitiated in the world of bicycles may think that this route only welcomes adventurers, backpackers and nomadic travelers without conventional jobs. However, it is surprising to find that They are not the typical profile of this sport, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Company directors, commercial teams and executives strengthen ties with their colleagues and clients in these introspective journeys of controlled adventure. “Bikepacking is the new golf” is a common phrase in these circles.
Montañas Vacías has brought awareness to this remote landscape, filled shelters and brought some life back to forgotten trails.
ZERO COST
Behind the Empty Mountains project there is no public or tourist institution. Nor is there a profit motive on the part of its creator, Ernest Shepherd, well all the information is available on the web and the tracks of the route can be downloaded freely and at no cost. It is only the materialization of a cluster of hobbies: bicycle, maps, languages and photography of a person from this “Empty Spain” who has wanted to contribute his grain of sand to the harsh situation that its inhabitants are experiencing.
Your altruistic project In its three years of travel, it has made known to more than a thousand bikepackers from all over the world the beauty of this remote landscape, it has filled shelters and brought some life back to forgotten trails.
Swedish, Korean or North American cyclists have already done the tour. What Ernesto Pastor has achieved with his project is much more than adding a grain of sand: it is a milestone.