Seeing as I knew nothing of the trails out there, and considering my tendency to fall off my bike in unusual and traumatic ways, I decided to hire guides for the rides where there was I high chance of me getting lost or traumatised.
Firstly was Cerro Otto, a pretty steep hill that rises straight up behind Bariloche. I went with Pepe from Dirty Bikes. On asking him whether we were going to take the funicular up to the top, he just scoffed at me derisively. So we began our slog up the access road from 700m to 1400m in the relentless summer heat. After the one hour climb you're rewarded with incredible views of the lakes and the mountains and some rip snorting downhills back to the city. Great afternoon ride, although watch out for the blinding dust if you're following someone else down the trails.
Next up was a bit of a cruisey day ride around the lakes around a circuit known as the Circuito Chico. If you do this ride, I wouldn't bother going down Peninsular San Pedro: its basically a dirt road for half an hour that ends at a private road at the end of the peninsular. Although some of the houses down there are spectacular. High point of this ride was discovering a beach on Lago Moreno Oeste. Compared to Nahuel Huapi the water was incredibly warm and just beautifully clear. The return trip along Moreno Este is very picturesque as well. You can't help but stop every 30 seconds to take another photo. Makes progress rather slow...The next ride for me was one I read about called Cerro Carbon. After riding south through the slums of Bariloche (feeling kinda uneasy and definitely like an ostentatious gringo with his $3000 mountain bike) I found the track to Challhuaco and started the slog up to the Carbon summit at 1500m (What is up with these climbs around here?). Luckily the track was fairly well graded but the climb to the top still took me about an hour and a half.
By the way when you start the descent, when the track description says to 'find the trail that veers to the right' it is typically a good idea to listen to those instructions. I found myself descending down a goat 'track' that I was certain was actually a track as I swore I could see other rider's skid marks. However it was just my mind playing tricks on me - I was not on a track at all. In fact I had descended 300m down the wrong ridgeline into the middle of nowhere. Not until I endo'd my bike landing on my jaw did I actually stop to take account of where I was. After much cursing and shaking my fist at the heavens did I start the scramble with bike on my shoulders back up to the point where I should have veered right. Once I rejoined the actual track (after wasting at least an hour) the descent is narrow, steep and seriously marginal. Big jumps and plenty of opportunities for carnage. Luckily (?) I was so exhausted by my detour that I didn't have the energy to take the downhill particularly fast. Again, here the key is to keep on veering right at the intersections.
The icing on the cake for my week of biking in Bariloche however was the two days I spent up at Villa Catedral, the township next to the ski resort at Cerro Catedral. This was only the second season where they have allowed bikes on the chairlifts, but you can see they're on to a winner here. I got in touch with a new guide company called Club Divertite. The owner, Fernando Lima has been designing biking gear for several years, but has now teamed up with a hotel owner at the village to provide full-service freeride trips. Both him, and my guide, Pite, are total demons on their bikes so it was great to be riding with someone so far beyond my skill level.The tracks down the ski field were beyond comprehension. The slippery dust required a completely new set of skills to ensure you didn't come off your bike and onto the sharp rocks. Still didn't stop me though - in six descents I came off eight times. Next time, I'm buying armour.
I realised that true downhill is a totally different beast from cross-country, and one of the things that comes in handy is not having a morbid fear of death. Although by the end of the day I felt I was throwing my bike around the hairpins, riding the walls like spiderman, and flying down the dust chutes like I was riding a luge. Well, not quite, but at least my crash-rate had decreased.
After watching the video I made again and again, I realised I only really scraped the surface of what Catedral had to offer, and that I'm really not as extreme as how I felt. I'll just have to go back there again next time I'm in South America.
For others going to Bariloche, here are the details of some useful contacts:
Dirty Bikes
V. Alte. O'Conner 681
(02944) 42 5616
www.dirtybikes.com.ar
Bariloche Bikes
Moreno 520
(02944) 42 4657
Club Divertite
(02944) 4314 6008
(02944) 460 303 // 305 // 283
www.clubdivertite.com.ar
Also, there's a book you can pick up, both at Dirty Bikes or at the tourist information centre book store, called Bariloche en Mountain Bike which has a huge amount of rides in the region along with detailed maps, elevation charts and colour pics. Invaluable, if you can read Spanish. And make sure you follow the track descriptions (see Cerro Carbon, above).
Here's the short video of some of the riding I did down there, and some more pics are on my Picasa Web Album here:
