From Madrid: Small-Group Guided E-Bike Tour to El Escorial

Ride the mountains west of Madrid on an e-bike that flattens the climbs. Small groups of four, an English-speaking guide, and El Escorial's monastery at your feet from Felipe II's Chair.
Meet your guide in Fresnedillas de la Oliva, in the Sierra Oeste de Madrid, and get fitted with your e-bike and helmet. After a short briefing on how to use the electric assistance and gears, set off on a circular 30-40 km route with 449 m of elevation gain.

Ride out from the base into open dehesa pastureland along the Cañada Real, an ancient drovers' road, and on to the village of Zarzalejo. From there, a gentle climb takes you into La Herrería Forest, a National Heritage site protected as a Special Protection Area for Birds within the Natura 2000 network.

Stop at Felipe II's Chair, a viewpoint carved into the granite where the king is said to have watched his monastery being built. From here, admire the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial at your feet and the whole Sierra de Guadarrama in front of you.

Continue along the Ecological Path through oak and chestnut woods before dropping back down to Zarzalejo, where there is time to stop for a drink if the group feels like it. The way home crosses cattle farms and open woodland along the Camino de San Martín.

Along the way you also pass the Fuente de los Dos Hermanos, an old stone spring hidden in the forest, and cross a granite bridge on an old mill road that once carried grain down from the mountains.

La Herrería was the royal hunting ground below the monastery, and it still feels like one: holm oaks, ash trees and chestnut woods, with birds of prey often circling above the valley. In spring the pastureland is green and full of wildflowers. In autumn the chestnut woods turn copper and the light on the granite is at its best. The route runs all year, and in summer we start early to stay ahead of the midday heat.

The Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, built by Philip II in the sixteenth century, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the great royal complexes in Europe. This tour does not go inside it. What you get instead is the landscape around it, seen from the hillsides the monastery was built to look out over, which is the part almost no visitor reaches.

What makes this different: we run it for a maximum of four people, so the guide sets the pace around you and not around a crowd. The electric assistance means riders of very different fitness levels can stay together, which makes it work for couples, friends and families. This is not a city tour. It is 95% nature, on trails and forest tracks, in a corner of Madrid that most visitors never reach, and we have been guiding these trails since 2018.

To guarantee availability book as soon as possible. Early booking is worth consideration especially if you planning the trip during high season like public holidays or weekends.

This excursion you can cancel with no cost up to 24 hours before the start of the trip. If you cancel it after 24 hours or not show up on the excursion you will still be charged the full price of the activity. Being late on pick-up or departure will be considered as not showing up.