BLACK HILLS 🇫🇷
A (NOT) COLOURFUL RIDE
As you probably already noticed we not only love to ride but also to create amazing content to share our point of view of our adventures. It is also true that we always try to go to unknown places and discover new trails and landscapes. However, for this summer enduro adventure we already knew what we would find. We have already been to Bardenas Reales (left picture) with these yellowish colours and to Tremp (right picture) with these orange tones, and we wanted to ride the famous grey and black ones from France.
Black hills, or “terres noires” in French, is a well known area for enduro and mtb riders in southern France, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, where there are some areas with a lunar landscape. This is formed by clay-limestone sediments deposited in the Jurassic period. They are also called bad lands, where vegetation is almost absent, hence the name, only a few short grasses are able to survive in these compact and impermeable rocks.
This landscape and the fun and flow trails created by the riders made a perfect location for us to have some fun while riding and shooting. So, Ernest, Andreu and I packed everything into the van and after driving 6 hours we reach the camping we booked for a couple of nights.
There are a lot of routes you around the area, and almost of all them go through the black hills areas. We followed a friends route and we have to say it was not what we expected, pretty different from what we are used to ride. We started climbing through a trail that felt we were going on the wrong direction, lots of times we had to push the bike, it was not rideable at all.
There are a lot of routes you around the area, and almost of all them go through the black hills areas. We followed a friends route and we have to say it was not what we expected, pretty different from what we are used to ride. We started climbing through a trail that felt we were going on the wrong direction, lots of times we had to push the bike, it was not rideable at all.
After that a short but fun trail downhill, we started to see some grey and rocky areas until we reached a road, we followed for a couple of kms and started the real climb of the day, 8km nonstop climbing. It was all normal till the last 2km, just a normal track going up. Then the track ends and you start riding through a crazy steep singletrack with S curves. The last part it looks like a hiking trail and there is no way to ride it up with the enduro bike, I think it would be difficult at some points even with my trials bike…
Anyway we made a couple of stops to rest and eat something and enjoy the views from the trail. It is a bit dangerous at certain points and the fall would be fatal. You feel you are climbing through the wall of a cliff. We didn’t event take the camera out. We realised how much we climbed when we saw we climbed 850m of elevation in 8km and we spent more than one hour and a half.
At the top of the trail, we rode a singletrack on an open hillside, a bit rocky and tricky but fun nonetheless. After that, we followed a couple of trails into the forest, with some fast parts, some tricky ones, and a bit of chill climbing and back to downhill again. Riding through dry trails with lots of different sections, open areas, flow parts, steep sections, closed turns, rock gardens, ups and downs, and some roots, until finally, we reach the part we were looking for: the black hills.
You arrive from the top and you can see it untill the end and its like someone shaved the trees from the area. You see an open black-greyish area with a few and alone dark green trees spread around. And you see the singletrack that goes up and down, left and right, sorting the slopes and the shapes to find the most fun line.
We spend all the afternoon there, shooting and doing that singletrack a thousand times. The first runs we were a little scared since there was a couple of sections with a big fall on the sides. After we get used it was fun and we enjoyed the sunset that dyed all the landscape in oranges and yellows colours.
We spend all the afternoon there, shooting and doing that singletrack a thousand times. The first runs we were a little scared since there was a couple of sections with a big fall on the sides. After we get used it was fun and we enjoyed the sunset that dyed all the landscape in oranges and yellows.
A few minutes after the sun hid behind the horizon and the warm colours vanished. As always, we took advantage of the sunset’s nice light and it got dark pretty fast, we didn’t expect to spend that much time there and none of us had brought a light which made the back to the van mor difficult. It was tricky not to fall while riding in the dark night.
Somehow we managed to make it without crashing to the van and another adventure was in the books.
It is always good to jump on an adventure with bikes, friends and new trails and areas to explore. I think it’s impossible to not have fun and good memories if you have those three things on a trip. Now a little break to rest and prepare the next adventures, it is going to be a busy ending of 2022!
PRODUCTION:
ApperStudio
RIDERS:
Pol Tarrés
Ernest Adalid
Andreu Miró