He May 6, 2025 will be an indelible date for the Navarrese Jon Pablo Montoya Galar, 47, and Iñaki Mujika, 39. Both have managed to reach Maadid today, point of arrival of the Titan Desert, A mountain bike stages race through the Atlas Desert (Morocco) that is considered the toughest test in the world. The peculiarity is that Jon Pablo and Iñaki suffer spinal damage and have covered the more than 500 kilometers in six stages, with more than 4,000 meters of slope mounted in handbikesbikes adapted for people with this type of injuries and who draw thanks to the force exerted with the arms.
Jon Pablo Montoya and Iñaki Mujika embarked on this adventure Through the Guttmann Institute, a Cerebral Health and Neurorrehabilitation Institute located in Barcelona that in 2025 celebrates its 60th anniversary. For this reason they decided to launch the challenge of doing the Titan Desert in Handbike. Montoya and Mujika have been supported by a team of nine people from the institute who have accompanied them by bike during the experience.
The two Titan
For Montoya and Mujika, the Titan has been an adventure in full sense, since to the hardness of the career itself (600 kilometers per dunes, stony terrain and very high temperatures) It should be added that everything that surrounds the test (the participants brought in camps in full desert and slept in Jaimas) Logically they were not adapted for people who in civil life move and handle in wheelchairs.
“For me it is as if we had done two Titan, because after the stages came what coexistence in the camp was the most normal things. From the entire part of the hygiene, when moving through the camp, which has the ground with carpets, to sleep …”, said this Tarade Montoya from Morocco. “But the Guttmann team has behaved very well with us and has helped us in everything.”
-Sports, Titan Desert has been A proof of a maximum demand for the two Navarrese. They began preparing the test in autumn, to reach the Titan in the best conditions. The two have had to Make the race with two handbikes that weigh 50 kilos, and have had the small help of the electric motor of an e-bike and a drag system.
“It has been hard because it is a very demanding proof, especially for spending the dunes, because of the issue of being walking with the pressures, because of the heat … but it has been an incredible experience, because we have done all the titan together and it has been an experience,” says Montoya.
But Above the sports experience, of having finished the challenge of shooting for six days in competition for the Moroccan desert, there is the vital experience. Being able to feel somehow again. “Before suffering the spinal injury I was a very active person, I loved to play sports, go through the mountain … And one thinks that after this you are condemned to be in a chair and not be able to do anything,” he explains. “Discovering handbike and throwing myself to this adventure has meant a super intense experience. Being able to return to places where I thought I was not going to be able to return to my life, but otherwise and with another philosophy. It has been like feeling again … I don’t know how to explain it.”
The full team of the Guttmann Institute
Montoya and Mujika have not been alone in the Titan Desert. There have been nine people who have accompanied them in this adventure. In the order in which they appear in the image are: José Antonio Bugarin, Buga; Mikel Sarrió, Physio; Jesús Benito, doctor; Roger Rifá, Physio; Alfonso Rubio, nursing assistant; Montserrat Bernabéu, Assistance Director of Guttmann; Montserrat Caldés, financial director of Guttmann; Christian Casals and Álex del Arco, traumatologist.
