A little less like an hour by train you can easily reach this nice village and the famous cloister of El Escorial (world heritage) and similar to the area of Cercedilla the mountains offer a nice variety of trails and difficulties.
The trail we rode starts right at the cloister and you can basically climb the mountain following the road which further converts into a country road with gravel.

View in a larger map

Curves of the trail @ El Escorial

Once you reached the top having followed the road you can pass a gate (although it says “private property” or something) and you’ll get until the point where the panoramic view – further down in this post – was taken. If you want to avoid the trail we chose and which was impossible to ride just stay on the road which is pretty simple in terms of the single trail difficulty/level.

Downhill we decided to go off-road which was great fun but it’s a 3-4 trail level so you should be experienced to really enjoy it. Lots of stones and rocks, no way to relax or loose concentration. We’ll post a video soon so you can get the feel of it.

You better go downhill!

City and cloister of El Escorial

The cloister of El Escorial at the bottom of the mountain and the view almost to the capital Madrid on the horizon.

Quick stop while climbing the mountains...

Our metal horses enjoying the view as well...

Once you're on the hill you can see what's on the other side of El Escorial...

We thought it would be a cool idea to climb the mountain on this trail... it was just impossible :)

Panoramic view on the top.

On the very top and on the very bottom: the cloister

The downhill trails look like this... and are fun.