Our First Bikepacking Trip Through the Pyrenees: Four Days, 180 Kilometres and a Lot of Climbing. From brutal climbs and misty mountain roads to Pottok ponies, endless descents and pizza in the valley: this is what our first bikepacking adventure through the Basque Pyrenees was really like.
Hey, we’re Pauli & Seabass. :) Six months ago, neither of us had ever ridden a gravel bike. Now, somehow, we were about to spend four days riding through the Basque Country, carrying everything we needed on our bikes and sleeping at campsites along the way. Our plan was simple: find out whether we actually like bikepacking.
The route? Around 180 kilometres and 4,510 metres of climbing through the Basque Pyrenees. Four days on the bikes, three nights in the tent, and absolutely no idea how our legs would handle it. Spoiler: it was harder than we expected. But also much, much better.
Our Bikepacking Route Through the Basque Pyrenees
We started and finished our trip in Mauléon, riding a four-day loop through Tardets, Iraty and Larrau.
Day 1: Mauléon to Tardets
40 km | 900 m elevation gain
Day 2: Tardets to Iraty
31.8 km | 1,330 m elevation gain
Day 3: Iraty to Larrau
61.5 km | 1,260 m elevation gain
Day 4: Larrau to Mauléon
46.4 km | 1,010 m elevation gain
Looking at those numbers now, we probably should have paid a little more attention to the elevation rather than just the kilometres. We were about to learn that the hard way.
Day 1: The Climbing Begins
After a few training rides and an overnighter to put our full bikepacking setup to the test, we finally felt ready to go. Bags packed, bikes loaded, the Pyrenees were waiting. And so were the climbs.
The first proper climbs completely destroyed us. There’s no nicer way to put it. Riding uphill on a loaded gravel bike feels very different from looking at an elevation profile on your phone. At first, we kept looking up at the road ahead and wondering how on earth we were supposed to make it all the way to the top.
Eventually, we found a better strategy: stop looking at the whole mountain. Eyes on the road. Breathe. Keep pedalling. One turn at a time. At some point, you actually start to find a rhythm. And once you reach the top, the views, snacks and long descents somehow make you forget just how much you hated the climb. At least that was the case for Pauli. Seabass was pretty destroyed and, at certain points, openly questioning why we had decided to do this in the first place.
What surprised us most wasn’t necessarily the riding itself. It was how much there was to see along the way. Instead of traffic, we shared the roads with Pottok ponies, cows, sheep, donkeys and chickens. Wild mint grew alongside the road. We passed chestnut, hazelnut and walnut trees, with flowers seemingly everywhere.
Pottoks in particular became a familiar sight. These small, hardy ponies are native to the Basque Country and still live semi-wild in the western Pyrenees. Their name comes from the Basque word for “little horse”.
And then there were the people. On our first evening, a family at the campsite gave us their leftover pasta and sauce. “You cyclists need carbs!” They weren’t wrong. Again and again, people greeted us, asked where we were heading and wanted to hear about our trip. During one lunch break, an older Basque man even offered us red wine. We politely declined. We still had quite a lot of climbing ahead of us.
Day 2: The Reality Check
If day one was our introduction to climbing, day two was the full lesson. We spent what felt like most of the day in first gear. The road just kept going up. And up. And up.
Low cloud and fog hung over the mountains, the views disappeared and at some point we genuinely started wondering whether we should abandon the trip. This wasn’t exactly the dreamy version of bikepacking we’d imagined. But we kept going. And we’re very glad we did.
Day 3: This Is What We Came For
Day three changed everything. Finally, the sun came out. The landscape kept changing, we found little restaurants where we could stop for breaks and suddenly those huge mountain views we’d been hoping for were everywhere.
It finally felt exactly like the bikepacking trip we had pictured before setting off. Ride. Stop somewhere for food. Keep going. Look around. Take photos. Ride some more.
And then came the reward we’d been waiting for: 12 kilometres of descending in one go. After spending so much time crawling uphill, suddenly we were flying. By the bottom, our brakes were hot, our hands were tired, and there was a pizza truck waiting in the valley. Honestly, bikepacking doesn’t get much better than that.
4 Days Later: Are We Bikepackers Now?
And just like that, our first bikepacking trip through the Pyrenees was over. So what were we left with? Apart from sore bums, tired legs and slightly numb palms, quite a lot. Views that made every painful climb worth it. Snacks that somehow tasted like Michelin-starred meals after hours on the bike. Long descents that left us grinning the entire way down.
And that very specific kind of tiredness you get from spending the whole day outside, crawling into your tent completely exhausted and somehow already looking forward to doing it all again the next morning.
What We Learned on Our First Bikepacking Trip
Four days was more than enough time to learn a few things. Bring more snacks than you think you need, and make them varied. Eating the same bar for the fifth time gets old surprisingly quickly. Electrolytes also gave us a noticeable boost on long, hot and hilly days.
Don’t rely on finding food everywhere. We learned that shops and restaurants aren’t guaranteed, especially in more remote areas. Carrying one extra meal is worth the additional weight. Going to bed after a full day of riding without dinner? Not ideal.
Bring coffee. A tiny coffee setup makes mornings at the campsite infinitely better. And Seabass isn’t really available for conversation before his first coffee anyway.
Don’t underestimate elevation gain. A thousand metres of climbing on a loaded gravel bike hits very differently from a road ride. If you’re new to bikepacking, choosing a slightly easier route gives you more time and energy to actually enjoy where you are.
Because that might be our biggest takeaway from the whole trip: you don’t have to make every day as hard as possible. Leave enough time to stop, explore, eat something good and take in the views.
So, Would We Do It Again?
Definitely. Our original goal was simply to find out whether bikepacking was for us. Now we know. There’s something incredibly satisfying about carrying everything you need on your bike, spending the entire day outside and slowly moving through a landscape under your own power.
Sure, there were moments when our legs hurt, the climbing felt endless and quitting sounded surprisingly appealing. But those moments are already starting to fade.
What we remember instead are the Pottoks, the mountain views, the people we met, the never-ending snacks, that 12-kilometre descent and the feeling of waking up knowing that the only thing we had to do that day was ride our bikes.
So yes, there will be another bikepacking trip. But first: a few nights in our own bed and a proper coffee from the espresso machine. :)
