Nua Terra Pinion and Roure Rohloff on Montañas Vacías, Spain; drivetrain comparison
Nua Terra Pinion and Roure Rohloff on the Montanas Vacias – BIKEPACKING.com
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Nua Terra Pinion and Roure Rohloff on the Montanas Vacias
Part route report from Spain’s Montañas Vacías, part two-in-one review of the titanium Terra Pinion and Roure Rohloff from Nua Bikes in Barcelona, this unique piece from friends Bengt Stiller and Jona Riechmann blends travel writing, exceptional photography, and an analytical approach to pedaling. Read their thoughts on both bikes and the storied 700-kilometer track here…
Additional input by Jona Riechmann
It was chance, more than any carefully laid plan, that put a pair of titanium bikes from Barcelona-based Nua Bikes beneath Jona and me. We’d been trading ideas for our next bikepacking trip for some time, but we’d yet to settle on where it might take us. Then, a message from Spain landed in Jona’s inbox. Would we be interested in testing two very different NUA bikes?
Suddenly, the destination seemed obvious. If we wanted to understand these bikes, it made sense to ride them on their home ground, through terrain that felt true to their purpose. The plan was simple enough: collect them in Barcelona, load them with our bags, and make our way inland to Teruel by public transport. From there, we would set out on the Montañas Vacías , an expansive bikepacking route through a sparsely populated region.
Spain, however, was still largely uncharted territory for both of us. Jona had ridden one of the early editions of Badlands, and I had crossed the country in early 2020, following a near-straight line from Madrid to Tarifa to catch the ferry to Morocco, destined for the Atlas Mountain Race. Those journeys had offered us fleeting glimpses of the country but little sense of Spain as a whole. The Montañas Vacías route is hardly unknown. Ernesto Pastor’s route has been chronicled in many stories on these pages, yet for us it remained a blank on the map. On paper, it also looked like an ideal proving ground for the bikes NUA founder Roberto Aznar created. It didn’t take long for one thing to become clear: our all-too-brief time on the route wouldn’t be enough.
Before leaving Barcelona, we collected the packed bikes from Roberto’s friend David at Explora Cicles. Nua was in the middle of relocating its workshop from the Montseny Mountains to Barcelona proper, a recent move intended to make the company easier to visit, particularly for customers travelling from farther afield. Along with handing over the bikes, David gave us a much-needed introduction to their unfamiliar drivetrains: a Rohloff hub on one, a Pinion gearbox on the other, and Gates belt drives on both. Neither of us had previous experience with either system, and our curiosity was quickly piqued.
Then came the less glamorous part: getting the bikes and all our gear to Teruel by public transport. Travelling with two bikes packed into soft cases was cumbersome enough; hauling everything we needed for a week on the route along with them made each change that much harder. The farther inland we travelled, the hotter it became, hinting at the temperatures this region must endure at the height of summer. By the time we reached our hotel, we were relieved to put everything down.
Teruel makes a striking starting point. Its picturesque buildings, narrow and often remarkably steep streets, tapas bars, cafes, and ice cream shops speak to a city shaped over centuries and endowed with enough charm to draw a steady stream of visitors. Back inside, our hotel room was rapidly turning into a bikepacking workshop. Two titanium adventure bikes, a mountain of bags, and even more loose equipment covered every available surface. Faced with so many options—and without having had the bikes and bags together beforehand—I briefly felt as though I was assembling a bikepacking setup for the very first time.
I had also overlooked one detail that mattered more to me than most: keeping my camera equipment within reach. Sometimes, your head is elsewhere. Thankfully, it wasn’t a disaster. When it is time to roll, you find a way to make things work. A little later, two complete setups stood before us, ready to go.
THE ROUTE THROUGH ERNESTO’S EYES
Before we left Teruel, we were fortunate enough to meet Ernesto Pastor , the creator of the Montañas Vacías. Over a table laden with the region’s famous ham, eggs, vegetables from his garden, and incredible olives, he welcomed us into his home and shared what made the route and the surrounding landscape so meaningful to him. His quiet way of speaking and moving seemed to mirror the stillness we would soon encounter along the route. The glint in his eyes suggested someone who had found not only his place but something close to a calling. We left his home grateful for the encounter and even more eager to begin.
Over the following days, I often felt as though I was seeing the track and its surroundings partly through Ernesto’s eyes, trying to understand what he’d discovered here and why it mattered so deeply to him. That perspective became an essential part of the journey and of testing the bikes in this particular place. The landscape changed at an almost overwhelming pace. Immense open plateaus gave way to dense forests; fast-flowing rivers shimmered emerald green before the track tilted sharply upward again. The days seemed to disappear amid these constant transitions, all of them unfolding in near-total silence.
The dryness was ever-present, as was the sense of heat gathering across a region that lives with it for much of the year. Water gradually became the question that shaped our days. We found it at fountains in eerily deserted villages or in small supermercados, if they happened to be open. Google Maps opening hours were little more than statements of intent out here. Ernesto’s advice proved invaluable: whenever the route offers something, take it. You have to work with what is there. It was as simple as that.
Our nights offered the full range of possibilities. We stayed in the route’s well-documented refugios—traditional stone shelters scattered across the landscape—slept in our tents, and occasionally found a bed and wonder traditional hospitality in nearby villages. Encounters with locals and fellow travellers offered a welcome contrast to the long stretches of silence. What will stay with me most are the deserted villages, some of them resembling abandoned Western film sets. The dozens of vultures circling overhead for hours at a time only strengthened that impression.
When we turned back towards Teruel, one conclusion had already settled in: I had been riding exactly the right kind of bike for this route. What remained was to understand why.
Nua TERRA PINION AND ROURE ROHLOFF
The two bikes Nua supplied for our trip occupy neighbouring but distinct places in the small company’s range. The Terra is their drop-bar monster gravel platform, combining gravel-bike ergonomics with the tyre clearance and carrying capacity of an ATB. The flat-bar Roure sits closer to a traditional expedition bike, with an emphasis on stability, simplicity, and long-distance travel. Riding them side by side let us compare two approaches to the same terrain.
The quality of both bikes was apparent the moment we unpacked them. The Roure’s hand-brushed Grade 9 Ti-3Al-2.5V titanium frame and the Terra’s sandblasted finish were spotless, with remarkably clean and consistent welds. The same attention to detail was evident across Nua’s titanium forks and finishing components.
Before the trip, we had assumed the frames were produced locally in Barcelona. The fuller story is more nuanced. After spending around three years equipping its workshop, developing its own tooling, and learning the production process, Nua had already built a handful of frames in-house, and originally intended for our test frames to be made there as well. Staffing changes interrupted that project, and all Nua frames and forks are currently produced by a small specialist titanium workshop in China. That distinction is worth making, but not as a qualification: the execution of both test bikes was outstanding. Roberto intends to reintroduce Barcelona-made frames as an additional, higher-priced option while continuing to work with the production partner overseas.
Both frames accommodate either 27.5 x 3.0-inch or 29 x 2.4-inch tyres. Belt ports and sliding dropouts let you install and tension the Gates Carbon Drive, and internal routing keeps brake, lighting, and shifter cables largely out of sight. Both also feature mounts for mudguards, rear racks, three bottle cages, and top-tube bags. Jona’s Roure added three-pack mounts on the seatstays and internal dropper routing.
The bikes shared Nua’s segmented Type B titanium fork, with a 435mm axle-to-crown measurement and clearance matching the frames. Three-pack mounts on both blades, mudguard compatibility, and internal routing for brake and dynamo wiring make it a purpose-built option for loaded travel. Together with the titanium frames, it gave both bikes a fully titanium foundation.
The main differences were in their drivetrains, cockpits, and wheel formats. My Terra was built around a 12-speed Pinion C1.12 gearbox with a 600 percent range, connected to a Hope rear hub by a Gates CDX belt. Modified SRAM Force levers and a Hibox conversion system allowed the gearbox to be shifted from the drop-bar cockpit. It rolled on 29-inch wheels with 2.25-inch René Herse Fleecer Ridge Endurance tyres.
Jona’s Roure used a 14-speed Rohloff Speedhub with a 526 percent range, again paired with a Gates CDX belt. Its flat-bar cockpit featured a 760mm NUA titanium riser bar, while 27.5-inch wheels with 2.8-inch Schwalbe G-One Allround tyres were set up tubeless. Nua titanium components, including the stem and seatpost, continued the material theme beyond the frameset.
Despite their differening builds, the underlying frame angles were remarkably similar. Both bikes sport a 69-degree head tube angle, a 74-degree seat tube angle, and 455mm chainstays. The drop-bar Terra has a shorter 397mm reach and a 1,101mm wheelbase, while the flat-bar Roure has a longer 422mm reach and a 1,134mm wheelbase.
Both builds also featured complete SON dynamo lighting systems and CinQ USB chargers. Although designated as size medium, neither was a standard off-the-shelf build. For its first decade, Nua worked exclusively with f