More technical challenges off the side of a mountain awaited us today. As always Courtney and Mitchell would lead the way, swathing a path down incredibly steep terrain, around tight switchbacks, over big rocks, rutted paths and rooty trails.

We began our adventures today at Col d'Aldino sitting at approximately 1980m above sea level. We followed a trail called OCD, which took in as many technical features as you could imagine in a natural trail, which is essentially what this sort of riding is about. The benefit of having a guide like Martin who knows the local area intimately, is that trails which would otherwise be impossible to find are not only available, but along the way he is able to warn the group about things that are likely to cause trouble. A bit like someone showing you around their local track, it's just that Martin's local tracks stretch for as far as the eye can see and then some. His backyard is the size of Andorra.

At the bottom of OCD which also included a few creek crossings and technical hop ups on to bridges which troubled all in the group bar Courtney and Mitchell, we had some climbing to do.

At this point Wendy was happy to head back into La Massana and have a well-deserved rest, whilst the remainder of the group split into two, one group doing Hugo's Hump, leaving Courtney, Mitchell, Mike, Will and I to do a pretty brutal minute climb in the baking midday sun on a steep fire road with very little shelter.

Making it to the top, we met up with the 'Hugo Hump' riders and embarked on what is currently known as 'b****** Climb'. The name says it all, with the majority of it unrideable. All of it incredibly steep, we trekked our heavy bikes up, up and up for what seemed like hours, but was probably no more than 30 minutes.

It culminated with a view to die for and if you happened to step a little too close to the edge of the cliff, death would have eventuated. The cliff oversaw the town of Sornas and a little further beyond La Massana.

A beautiful, highly technical descent awaited, and as always, it was over too quickly.

Returning to La Massana by 1pm, we enjoyed our lunch at Don Piacere and were then back in the van by a bit after 2pm as we headed back up to Col d'Aldino once again.

Unbeknownst to me as I mustn't have been listening, we were confronted with some steep, rooty climbing, that took at least an hour to churn through, some of it again unrideable. We reached the turn off point in a pine forest and while waiting for a few of the slower riders, the Snowballs had time to cool down and soak in the serenity. Eventually we were joined by the other riders, Hugo minus his gloves. As we waited another 20 or so minutes for him to retrieve them back down the trail (most of us would have left them behind but 19 year old Hugo was on a very tight budget and new gloves weren't factored into the equation). Upon his return, it was all about the glove.

"Oh what a glovely ride!"

"Glove, glove, me do….."

"Do you need a hand with that?"

The ride then took in some pretty epic descending, firstly with a track called 'Locals Only', followed then by a track built by the Commencal family who are famous in Andorra, with their bike brand now known worldwide. Their track was really steep and dusty with quite a few tight switchbacks.

We finished the ride with what was probably our favourite section of trail for the week. Aptly named 'Hero Maker', it was the type of track that allowed you to release the brakes and just float down the trail, jumping things you might not normally jump, skipping over technical sections and building the type of confidence that makes you think you are bullet proof.

Our group of 'heroes' finished the ride off with some photos outside an old church up on the hill overlooking La Massana before rolling down into town and settling down for dinner.