335 Days of Sun Mean 335 Days of Mountain Biking in Málaga | RideAble Places, Ep. 3

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Having a place to escape the winter is key for any serious mountain biker. As far as warm-weather retreats are concerned it’s hard to find a better one that Málaga, on the southern coast of Spain. Among other reasons, it gets 335 sunny days a year.

Canadian Michael Saunders saw the riding potential of Málaga 13 years ago and moved into the area with only his bike and a tent. It took him a minute, but he eventually established Switchbacks, a plush trail park with its own luxury villa for accommodation. Spread your wings, snowbirds, Málaga awaits!

Director: Domenico Galizia
Video Producer: Domenico Galizia
Athletes: Mario Lenzen, Michael Saunders
Sports: Mountain Biking

335 Days of Sun Mean 335 Days of Mountain Biking in Málaga | RideAble Places, Ep. 3

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[Music] [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] my name is uh Michael Saunders I’m from Canada but I have been living in Europe now for 20 years and 13 of those have been here um in Spain I came to Spain to set up switchbacks I arrived with a tent um a mobile and my bicycle and very little money and I C out in the woods up in the sier Nevadas and uh from there I went out searching the trails in my first year I had six customers that kind of sucked actually and then um in the second year not that much more and uh but over the 13 years the business has grown a lot and now I think I probably have uh more than 400 customers a year [Music] since I opened switchbacks DH 8 years ago uh it’s been fantastic to see the whole Community here grow around it I think probably the first Superstars that we had here were Steve Pete uh Josh bryland and um they came out here and they were testing the rock shock boxer on the back of that we’ve named one of the trails after them called the swam test track and that’s one of the most popular Trails here it’s absolutely got everything down through the woods it’s got lots of nice tight Corners Dr jumps drops [Music] so it’s fantastic winter winter location go to train but also to have to have fun so if you are a group of mates and you arrive at malag airport we’ll collect you bring you back to the Villa if you’re a couple or if you have young families then you’ll get your own your own on Suite bedrooms and um it’s a wonderful place there’s a there’s a huge Villa where with um this pool here there’s Gardens there’s a sauna there’s ping pong tables there’s a small football pitch so if you did want to come here even with your family for a long weekend that’s also possible because then the wife and kids can stay by the pool or the husband for that matter and um your partner can go out riding and um and if you don’t want to be at the Villa all day well then the beach is literally a 10-minute walk down the hill or you can go into the village here which is 10-minute walk up the hill uh it’s a wonderful location and with 335 days of Sun every year chances are you’re going to come here in the middle of winter and it’s going to be sunny might not be Beach warm weather like that but it’s certainly going to be a lot nicer than where you’ve come [Music] from The Villa has got um its own fenced in parameters so you can feel sure that your bike is going to be safe here uh it’s got um indoor storage and it has an outdoor Workshop so you can be working on your bike by the pool or at the barbecue area wrenching it having a cold beer watching the sun go down over the Mediterranean the um bill is also got for refrigerators it sleeps up to 24 people four different Vans Mercedes sprinters which we use to shuttle you we’ll collect you at the the bottom of every Trail and we’ll shut you right back up to every [Music] track so one of the best things that we um offer I think at switchbacks or what SE separates us apart from a normal holiday company is that we do a lot of skills development and by that I mean that we we help Riders get better on their bikes I mean frankly when you think about it there’s a lot of and no disrespect but there’s a lot of people who who uh they learn to ride a bike when they’re five and so they can ride a bicycle but that doesn’t necessarily equip them to be able to ride switchbacks uh down steep Rock Gardens uh do jumps uh ride BMS properly uh you know even the best Co the best riders in the world have often got coaches you know so we um we try to help Riders get better and um better Riders equals safer Riders because they’re more confident so they’re more relax relaxed [Music] Etc so we have an excellent um shuttle facility which means that depending on the length of the trail so the shortest Trail here being about 1 and 1/2 minutes the longest one perhaps being about 15 to 20 minutes [Music]