As with all rides in this region of Collserola, you can choose to either pedal up the pavement or ride to the top in the funicular. The route mapped here begins from the top of the funicular, near el Tibidabo. Another public transportation option that some riders utilize is to return from the town of Sant Cugat del Valles via the train. Since Barcelona’s metro system extends all the way to this neighboring town, the cost for the long ride back to Barcelona is exactly the same as doing a quick one-stop hop in downtown: 1 Euro, if you buy the 10-ride ticket.

The route mapped here rides Sol i Aire as a point-to-point utilizing the funicular to reach the top of the mountain and the metro to return from Sant Cugat del Valles. While that adds up to a lot of riding around in trains for a relatively short mountain bike ride, this route map illustrates one of many options available to you in this region. You can, of course, choose to pedal back up the mountain from the bottom of Sol i Aire and then descend the front side back into Barcelona. Or, if you begin in Sant Cugat del Valles instead of in Barcelona, you can easily create a logical loop with this delightful singletrack descent.

However you choose to create your route, the singletrack on Sol i Aire is truly sublime! The track begins fast and flowy, with low, naturally-formed berms in the dirt corners. The trail is relatively straight, which allows you to let off the brakes and let ‘er rip down the mountain!

The trail has eroded down to the bedrock in places, with the trail tread switching to slabs of exposed rock for hundreds of feet. Ripping down lengthy stretches of flowy rock while simultaneously weaving through dense undergrowth is an absolute riot!

As with all trails in Collserola, expect a couple of techy ledge drop features and unexpected washed-out trenches in the trail tread. With that caveat in mind, Sol i Aire is actually one of the least-technical singletrack descents in the region. It still pegs at an upper-intermediate difficulty level, but compared to some of the expert-only descents on the next ridge over, Sol i Aire is downright mellow.

But “mellow” can sometimes be a hell of a lot of fun!