La Conquista Bikepacking

La Conquista retraces the ride of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, El Cid, from the cathedral square in Burgos to the sand of Las Arenas beach in Valencia. There is a start time but no finish deadline in the usual sense: riders follow their own GPS track, decide where and how long to sleep, and nobody is ranked. Gold, silver and bronze medals reward finishing times instead, and riders can go solo, as a pair or small team, or split the route as a relay.

Most of the way is on dirt, linking the abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos, the Cañón del Río Lobos, the hilltop town of Medinaceli, Molina de Aragón and walled Albarracín before Teruel and the Sierra Calderona lead down to the Mediterranean. Checkpoints with round-the-clock food and places to rest break up the crossing, so it sits somewhere between a pure self-supported ultra and a supported tour.

The event was set up by Apolo Esperanza as a tribute to El Cid and to Juan Barrachina, who began exploring the Camino del Cid by bike in the early 1990s. Part of the aim is to bring visitors back to the depopulated provinces the route crosses, from Soria and Guadalajara to Teruel and Castellón.