The south-east of Spain is home to two semi-deserts - Gorafe and Tabernas. In both areas, the soft clay, chalk and sandstone soils have been heavily eroded by rain in places, leading to the formation of stunning rock formations, often called Badlands. This region of Spain offers some of Europe’s best gravel riding, but you need some decent local knowledge to get the best out a trip here. We chat with local expert Dan Hirst from the cycling tour operator Saddle Skedaddle to find out more about this amazing destination and what to expect on their guided gravel trip.

“When we were putting the trip together, we took the essence of the Badlands bikepacking event but made it a holiday.” 

We’re chatting with Dan Hirst, head honcho at Skedaddle Espana (one of the three companies that make up the Saddle Skedaddle family) and we’ve asked him to try and sum up Skedaddle’s Badlands of Andalucia gravel trip in a few sentences. After a short pause where he considers how to sum it up eloquently, he comes up with this “It’s an adventurous trip through dramatic landscapes and offers riders an amazing sense of achievement when they get to the end of the trip, but we’ve made the days manageable. It took a lot of research to finesse the route and I think it offers the perfect combination of terrain with mountains, desert and coastal riding. Our route takes the riders through incredible scenery and there is a feeling of otherworldliness. Many of the amazing landscapes our trip passes through have been used as film sets. I´m certain that if you listen carefully, you can hear the music of Ennio Morricone when riding through the ramblas of the Tabernas desert for example."

We asked Dan to explain how Skedaddle's Badlands trip differed from the bikepacking event which inspired it? "Our version keeps the essence of this iconic gravel event - riding the same terrain, passing through the same landscapes, starting in the ancient city of Granada, but it finishes at the coast in the dramatic Cabo de Gata Natural Park. In a nut shell, we have organised an eight day package that is true to the spirit of the Badlands event but is delivered in the Skedaddle way, with fantastic guides, vehicle support, great quality accommodation and good food provided during each ride."

Dan started his life on two wheels as mountain biker, but his early adventures had a lot of similarities with the gravel riding experience we know and love today. “I got into cycling in the 1990s and started off with an MTB. I grew up living high up on the moors in Yorkshire and had singletrack trails right from the door. Riding a bike was really just an extension of my love of being outside in the hills. I used to love heading off on my bike with some minimal touring kit. Initially it would be fairly local – riding to the Lake District to do some mountain biking with friends, but later I started riding more and more overseas.” Dan continues with his story “In the mid 90s I lived in Central America and helped set up a bike hire shop which offered guiding to our customers. We spent our free time pushing the limits of our bikes on the local trails.”

Dan and his partner Sal moved to Spain 25 years ago and he uses his accumulated knowledge, insight and expertise to help create and manage the wide range of cycling trips that Skedaddle run in Spain each year. Despite being the boss, Dan tries to escape from the office as often as possible and was instrumental in setting up the trip. “I first explored this region back in about 1996” he told us. “I flew out to Malaga with my hardtail mountain bike. I didn’t have a lot of money back then, so I had to carry my bike packed into a cardboard bike box nearly two miles to get to the airport in the UK before I could check in. I had all my stuff loaded into panniers and my plan was to find a route around Sierra Nevada. The first night I wild camped in the hills above Granada and as it was February it was super cold. This was before the days of internet and no-one had a GPS, so I headed into Granada and bought a paper map and a printed book of the 'Sierra Nevada by bike' route. Back then everyone rode a rigid bike with cantilever brakes and no suspension, so it wasn’t that different to gravel riding now! Many of the trails from the guide book are more suited to enduro mountain bike riding, but the access tracks used to get to the MTB trails gave me the inspiration for setting up our gravel trip.”

We asked Dan what goes into finding the perfect route for one of their holidays? “The initial inspiration quite often comes from somewhere that I’ve ridden before, even if it was on a road bike or an MTB, but then there’s lots of time looking at maps and doing desk research. Then we go out and ride the trails, talk to local people and physically look at what the options are. It’s not just about the trails themselves though – we need to think about the location of accommodation and the practicalities like where we can find potable water [not easy in a semi-desert region] and decide on the points where the support vehicle can meet the riders. It’s also critical that the route has the right amount of flow – if there are too many sections where there are obstacles, or you have to get off and push it affects how the day feels” he told us.

Dan gave us an overview of what the trails are like that riders will encounter during the trip "One of the highlights of riding in this area is that you will experience forever changing surfaces - there are jeep tracks of all types and surfaces. The riding is pretty adventurous in places and some of the trails are rocky and loose. For singletrack aficionados, we've included some brilliant sections near the coast, including some which are sandy. We try and time our scheduled departures to ensure good weather, so the trails will be mainly be dry, but there is occasional rain in the region, in which case the trails can become a bit trickier!"

The Badlands bikepacking event is generally held at the end of August and every year competitors talk about their experience of scorching temperatures and the difficulty finding water. That sounded sub-optimal when thinking about the region as a holiday destination, but Dan had an answer for this “We run our trips either in March, when you should get blue sky, snow on the mountains and almond blossom in the trees, or in November which generally means temperatures in the low twenties Centigrade and really stable, crisp weather.”

“The guides take the stress out of the trip and let you relax and just enjoy the riding."

As we chat with Dan, he’s in the office and members of the Spanish guide team occasionally wander through, including Ludo Franco who juggles guiding responsibilities with working as a photographer and who shot the majority of the images in this story. We ask Dan what the benefit is of booking on a guided trip rather than just doing it yourself? “There’s a mix of practical and mental benefits to a guided trip” he tells us “The guides take the stress out of the trip and let you relax and just enjoy the riding. They do everything from showing you the best trails to preparing delicious lunches to fixing any mechanical problems that might crop up. On this trip in particular, finding sources of clean water to drink can be quite a challenge at points and they have the local knowledge to make this work. Guided trips always have a support vehicle which carries the riders’ luggage and meets them at different points during the day. The guides are often happy to give customers some tips and advice for getting the most out of their riding. And of course, they’re generally a good source of terrible jokes too which help keep everyone entertained.” Having experienced some of Dan’s “dad jokes” first hand, we ‘re not convinced this is necessarily a selling point for the trip, but don't let that put you off!

We talked next about bikes. Dan told us that because the trip is quite adventurous (it’s graded 3-4 on Skedaddle’s grading system, which goes from 1, entry level, to 5, expert) that a high proportion of customers choose to bring their own bikes from home. On the Badlands departures that they’ve run so far customers have brought a mix of gravel bikes and XC MTBs, so we chatted briefly about the relative merits of each. “I think as long as they have the right tyres fitted [big volume, lightweight, minimally treaded], then an XC MTB works perfectly well.” said Dan. He continued “All of our gravel trips contain some tarmac linking sections though, so there will be sections where the lighter and faster rolling nature of a gravel bike make it much more appropriate.” We asked about Skedaddle’s own fleet of hire bikes. “We use lightweight Giant Revolt bikes, set up with tubeless tyres. They are ideal for this trip and available for customers who don’t want to bring their own bike with them.”

If you were bikepacking through the Badlands region you might well camp or look for a suitable bivvy spot, but riders who choose to book on a guided trip are probably after a slightly higher level of luxury than sleeping in a ditch, so Dan gave us a bit of an overview of what they could expect “This area is pretty sparsely populated and particularly in the shoulder season [when the Skedaddle trips run] there isn’t always lots of choice. Luckily, because we’re taking smaller groups not coach tours, we can make use of the smaller, family hotels and B&Bs that can be found here. We use the best available accommodation in each area and for a couple of nights on the Badlands trip that means a staying in places with a Balneario – a thermal bath. These aren’t five-star luxury, but they have fantastic character and give customers a good chance to relax in the thermally heated water.“

"I think this trip would appeal to adventurous riders. It’s probably more suited to experienced riders than someone new to gravel riding."

To finish off our conversation with Dan, we asked him to describe what type of rider he thought the Badlands trip would be most suited for “I think this trip would appeal to adventurous riders. The trip has a wide variety of terrain with lots of different types of trails surfaces, so it would suit someone with decent fitness and good bike handling skills. It’s probably more suited to experienced riders than someone new to gravel riding. For anyone who does sign up, they can look forward to some amazing riding through incredible and wild landscapes.”

Hopefully Dan’s insight has whetted your appetite for gravel riding in the Badlands region with Skedaddle. If you would like to find out more about their trip, there’s lots of additional information available on their website. 

 Images courtesy of Ludo Franco except where credited.