Basaburua MTB, as a project, was born in 2021, but its origins date back to 2019. I was 22 years old at the time, and had only been mountain biking for a couple of years. I would leave home with my bike, and most of the time I would repeat the route: go up to Ireber, take the GR12 and go down to Otxola and back home. Although there are many trails in our valley, most of them were neglected due to disuse, and I didn’t have many other options.
I live 2 km from the village of Beruete, and every time I wanted to go down to the village I had to do it by road. One day I started to explore a little bit the mountain next to my house, and in the lower part I found a trail that reached almost to the entrance of the village. I cleared that trail and continued clearing as I climbed up the beech forest, until I reached the highest point. This is how the trail was born
Baxurde
trail was born in 2019, and since then I think 95% of the time I have gone down that way to the village.
Since then, I cleared and opened a couple more trails closer to home during 2019 and 2020, which allowed me to also train on days when I was short on time. My mentality at the time was that, to clear trails for my enjoyment.
At the end of 2020 I got to know the project
Hirumuga Park
in Lekunberri, a bike park open to everyone, and this changed my vision. I could go on clearing trails for my enjoyment, but also for the enjoyment of others.
I talked to a couple of friends in town who also liked mountain biking, and we proposed to the town council to build a trail on the Seanbe de Beruete mountain, since it was in disuse and full of weeds. They thought it was a good idea, and after receiving the necessary permits, we started to build it. After many hours, several stories and countless strokes of the hoe, in May 2021 we inaugurated the trail.
Akerbeltz
. We cleared a couple more trails and we had our first route, that route that we repeated over and over again and that we loved.
It was time to publicize the route through the different platforms, promoting the route. The following week the town square was full of people with bikes. During the following weeks different groups arrive, which allows me to meet a lot of people and get to know their opinion about the route, the environment, etc.
After compiling all the information, it is clear to me what the path is: to continue clearing more trails, linking them, etc. in order to be able to do different routes. Thus, in 2021, we began to implement the method throughout the country. Basaburua valleyFrom the clearing of old trails used by our ancestors for coal, smuggling, moving livestock, etc. to the design and construction of new trails in different areas of the valley, built conscientiously to have a whole network of well linked trails.
And so to this day, in which we continue to work on that network of trails that we dreamed of only two days ago. We continue with the same enthusiasm and desire as the first day, to turn our valley into an ideal destination for mountain biking!
