CYCLING IN SPAIN ! 🇪🇸 Vias Verdes | Tajuña

CYCLING IN SPAIN ! 🇪🇸 Vias Verdes | Tajuña

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Well hi and welcome back to my Channel today we’ll be taking a bicycle ride on the vs vades um it’s a railto tril network project in Spain uh and this route is outside Madrid from arand Del re to ambite Trail actually goes a little bit further but I did the first

47 each way uh for a 94k ride the subway will get you out there from Madrid um and that’s what I did on this day a beautiful day in October the ride profile is shown here um it’s got two long but not very steep climbs uh one in

The beginning for the first 5 miles and then one near the end as you’re coming back towards aronda Del Rey uh if you like this video on the other ones on my Channel please do like subscribe and hit that notification Bell so you can see it’s a classic Trail here um and it’s

Also part of the network of the Cino Santiago Trails um the Cino that goes out to Santiago de compostella pilgrimage Cathedral out in the northwest of Spain so it’s interesting that these two to overlap um we’re about 6.8 mi in now um just slogging along up

This uh gentle incline uh a little bit wobbly um in the handlebars because I’ve got that GoPro mounted on there um I really like that red clay baked in uh that you see most of most of the trail up here so what are the VSS bees they

Are uh a network of trails I think they’re up to about 3,500 km so just over oh 2200 m all over Spain um this one is just outside Madrid the ones outside Valencia are the longest um and it looks like what you see by the arrow there that

They’ll be trying to connect uh from Valencia up past zaragosa and all the way up to Sant andere which would be almost 5 or 600 miles um yeah so this network is is a great uh collection of projects that they’ve been working on for almost 20 years now um and it’s it’s

Just great to see um that much effort being put into cycling and Hiking Trails um I did see some uh cyclists out here today it just wasn’t that busy um which is nice I mean it was a a really warm day um in early October um you get to go through all

Kinds of of areas zones here farming Olive plantations or Olive Groves um and here we’re coming up to the crest to that long initial um climb again not steep but just keeps going and and then what we’re going to do is we’re going to get over to um the downhill that takes

Us into the first town um yeah like I said a brilliant October weather uh fairly typical for early October in in Spain 28 SE 82 Fahrenheit um and now we get to cruise uh so yeah like I said uh not a busy Trail but every couple

Minutes I saw a person or a small group of people uh going by um and that’s great um never want the trails to be too crowded but always good to see people um so 10K in um and now it’s going to be basically 10k of downhill um all the way

To that first town of Morada um and as we pass through more of these Olive Groves um we ended up on this long uh downhill with a beautiful view off to the right here of that Valley that’s about 500 ft below um and it’s just

Great to to be able to cruise like this you there’s pretty good signage all along the trail uh this one about Animal Crossings it’s mostly uh goats that we’re looking out for um and then the other thing you do need to pay attention to is the ballards um there are

Crossings along here for some local roads and uh doing 30 mph down a hill and you know you only have a few inches on each side of your bike when you go through those um so now we’re about 10 mil or 9 or 10 mies in 15K and just

Still just cruising down this this long downhill and being a Classic Rail to Trail project you do get to see uh these Cuts constantly where where they went through to build you know the the flatter um terrain for the train to go through um so a lot of these little

Chasms as you going through uh some interesting things later on we’ll see about caves uh along here um a couple of bridges uh but not too much this is one of the old Rail stations uh has not been renovated um some of them are uh but it

Does come with a nice picnic area with a view um over that Hillside that we went by before um as we were looking over to the right there um so yeah um oh finally a jogger there were only two or three people the whole day uh on foot on the

Main trail uh when we went into uh ambite at the end of the day um that’s more of a town and you’ll see uh that there are a lot more people people there so uh more ballards um and like I said you just got to be careful with those so

Here we are Morata de tahuna it’s the first town that we passed through um the signage here wasn’t as great um but basically the the trail comes in on one street and stays on that street and goes right through and out the other side and

At one point a little further up here I came to an intersection I wasn’t entirely sure but then I saw a bunch of cyclists um coming across the intersection right up here there we go and I said well if they’re coming out of there I’m going in there um all these

Signs on here and and none of them were obvious to me that they indicated um that the trail went that way uh one of the few places where it wasn’t so clear I I really do love these railto Trail projects I mean the grade is just

Fantastic um uh I was riding my giant enoad 2 for this uh fantastic bike um drop bars um since then I’ve I’ve also added a uh Marin dsx1 with the flat flat bar gravel um and I’ve been doing most of my riding on on that lately so when

You see some of my other videos cycling videos um especially over here uh in Vienna Austria up in the Alps uh you’ll see me riding dsx1 um so yeah a little tricky through here um I did see at the end that little bicycle painted on the ground but before

That there was no sign indicating right or left but again uh quite rare uh that the the signage and and the markings weren’t clear on where to go yeah here’s another one of those Classic Rail cuts through the hillside There was uh one more Rise um in this Trail coming up here uh as we made our way towards U parales tahuna um another sleepy little village and we’re going to get there in a little minute but yeah just had to push a little bit harder um but feeling pretty

Good at at this point we’re probably not even uh 20K or 12 m in and uh it was getting warmer though um so now we had this fast descent I think my highest speed uh was recorded in this section it was probably about 54 55 km an hour

Maybe 30 33 M an hour something like that so nothing crazy um but always good fun helps cool you off a little um on a warm Day you can see the the town of Paralis coming up in the the distance and you know when I look on on Wikipedia and stuff to see just how how big these towns are uh some of them are are not big at all it might be a th000 or 2,000

5,000 I think M at the end is only 700 people um so really sleepy little Villages and I I think you know what you notice is that um like most places when a major link of public transportation uh stop serving an area then um Jobs go away people move into the big

City uh here we’re actually Crossing the the Rio Rio tahuna uh so kilm 24 mile marker 15 of the ride um and yeah another remnant of an older Factory here that um has seen its its Heyday probably some some decades behind with those uh trees growing up inside it already uh

Quite large um so as I was saying it’s just it’s tough for these uh small villages that used to be on a line where you could get to Madrid in you know in an hour um that you know they they just stopped growing um I did not see a lot

Of new construction around here um and it was just you know an area that’s just not not well represented um there are a couple of these small uh Ranch areas a little bit cat cattle ranch um but again there were only two or three of these and pretty small um so

There are some folks still trying to make it out here the smaller businesses uh and that’s always good to see um there is a the A3 Motorway um coming up not too far you can see the bridge in the background and it’s really amazing that just you know

20 mi outside Madrid um with 6 and2 million people uh you can find these places that are just so sleepy and quiet um hey there was this one place where I had to uh get on a small uh local Highway not not a Motorway or anything

Like that but it only lasted for a few hundred meters um and then I was able to break left and head right back onto the trail um so that was really the only section uh in both directions where um I was on a a real Road um this area here is already back

Into you know just empty shells of old factories or businesses um it just never made it so it was interesting yeah to to see early October and corn still hadn’t been uh picked it was still on the stock um another turn and again the the signage here was was really good again

Um there were a bunch of turns through this section and just um had no problem at all finding my way uh later on I noticed that I actually did um one section on two different roads on the way out and way back maybe for a half a mile or so which

Led me to see some other things and and you’ll see that a little later uh in the video yeah here’s another one of these old stations that’s been fully renovated um and a beautiful picnic area rest area with lots of sh lots of shade trees around absolutely fantastic I was

Feeling pretty fresh at this point so I decided not to stay um I thought let’s get down to ambite at the end uh going into someplace and and get something to to eat and drink um yeah uh fruit I’m not sure if that was grapes or or apples that I was

Seeing there and then right back into the corn you know the whole Center of Spain is this High Plateau um and in the summer it can be brutally hot with temperatures up to 110 or more um here we have another of the old stations uh nicely restored

And yeah you know it’s really fun to imagine the old trains steaming along this uh back in the day this is a picture from the vsp’s website and you saw that old old steam coal driven engine so great stuff There so now we’re about 25 miles or 40K into the ride and got the first of of two really nice looking uh Stone Arch Bridges uh this is the one that there’s actually still a road on it leads to Arco de tahuna um a lot of graffiti that’s one thing you see in Europe now as much as you ever did in the states back in the day is tons of graffiti on every every surface

Imaginable and here we’re coming to uh that second bridge beautiful Stone Arch Bridge and this one I think doesn’t actually go anywhere I think you can still walk across it um but I don’t think it’s big enough or I don’t think there’s a road anywhere so you know Bridge to Nowhere

Anybody from Southern California will know that reference um so yeah as we’re hitting mile marker 28 kilm 46 um It’s the final stretch down to the turnaround in the little town of ambite and it was a really welcome thing here uh to come into this small uh cluster of trees uh very welcome

Shade uh starting to really cook now was up to 32 C which is 90 Fahrenheit and yeah you’re starting to see a lot more people like I said even though this is a very small town of only 700 people uh I probably saw 40 or 50 people just along

This last stretch you know a couple of kids before now a couple of adults with a kid and down further on we get see some more people with their uh with their dogs baby carriages kids playing soccer always got a really slow down for the pups love dogs and every time I see

Them or moms with baby carriages or kids close by you really got to slow it down and make sure to keep them safe um too many times you’ll see a a dog or a kid just bolt sideways and you’ve got to be ready for that um you

Know the number one sport in Spain remains soccer and every place you go you’ll see the kids out playing um so yeah um the train station here in amb we’re now arriving it has a working Cafe um I got myself a nice cold beer a badilla which is a sandwich basically a

Small baguette with usually with ham uh and a bunch olives and that really hit the spot so 47 km 29 Mi the trail does go further it extends for about another um 18 or 19 km to the east um but I did not have the time that day to

To go out and do that so there’s a lot less footage of the way back as you might imagine because you’re kind of doing the same thing in Reverse um but this is part of that section where I me mentioned earlier that I had taken a

Wrong turn and ended up doing a little bit different way uh back and you can see there that those two trails and it was nice because I did get to see this which I didn’t see on the way out which was this picnic area you know if you’re

Going to stop multiple times There Are Places now up here uh I mentioned the caves earlier you can see them behind um the graphic there apparently um I did stop at one point and looked at the sign it said that um during the Frank era uh

When there was a civil war going on in in Spain um that some of the fighters would actually be hiding out in these caves and uh there’s still bullet holes and things like that so now we’re up that Long Hill again um towards the end of the ride uh that Overlook from before

That was on the right is now on the left and just heading right up that hill my watch was telling me it was up to 93 fah 34 C and I was already getting kind of sluggish here um you know approaching probably 83 84 km 50 Mi for the day and

Yeah these last 5 miles were an absolute relief um cruising down here up to 30 m an hour um for good 5 miles it was just fantastic um hot wind in your face but still wind um and and just nice to to think you’ve almost made it yep like I

Said more more refreshments and air conditioned subway cars uh in my immediate future here so uh it was an absolutely wonderful ride um it was just under 4 hours for the 94 km so or 96 994 so yeah ended up being close to 24

Uh kilm an hour I think I was at 351 so yeah pretty much spot on 24 km an hour or 15 M an hour um there was this one little bump of a hill um right at the end here before uh the last push into

The trail head so you know the next time you’re in Spain um and you want to cycle uh do consider the vs fares um I’ll put all the descriptions uh links in the description below um here’s the actual trail head now so I know I’m done but

Yeah look for the links in the description below about the vs veres and and all the other places that you can cycle in Spain because it’s absolutely fantastic well thanks for watching and don’t forget to like share subscribe click that notification Bell thanks and we’ll see you next time