A legendary journey – Tour of the Sierra Nevada

Some journeys win you over. When you look back, you remember the adventures and anecdotes fondly, but also think about how you’d modify the route or fine-tune sections. After cycling these three intense stages myself, I can say with certainty that you’ll want to ride this route again and again.

The Sierra Nevada, in southern Spain, boasts a rich variety of landscapes, beautiful villages with friendly inhabitants, and quality trails, making the area popular with cyclists.

These three Tours accumulate quite a lot of elevation gain and you’ll need a good level of fitness to enjoy them. Due to the characteristics of the route, it’s not easy to divide the trip into more stages unless you include detours to nearby towns. In this case, the mileage and elevation gain would increase substantially. Another option – the most advisable – is to sleep under the stars.

Consider the altitude when adding extra layers of clothing to your luggage, as temperature changes can be severe and you’ll be cycling more than 3,000 metres (10,000 ft) above sea level. The best time to enjoy this Collection is in summer, when the days are long and there’s almost no snow at altitude. However, you should choose days when it’s not too hot.

On the first stage, you’ll pass through several villages where you can replenish your water and food. On stage 2, there are plenty of freshwater springs, but nowhere to buy food. On the third stage, you won't find any services until you reach Pradollano.

Both in the city of Granada – where I encourage you to spend at least one day at the beginning or end of this trip – and in La Calahorra and Trevélez, you’ll have no problem finding accommodation and places to sample the delicious local cuisine.

The ideal bike for this trip is a rigid MTB, or a gravel bike with fat, rolling tyres. Most of the route is on dirt tracks, but there are also several road sections and a few technical passes.

Granada is very well connected by road and rail, so transfers are easy to organise. There are bus and train connections from the main cities.

I hope you enjoy this amazing adventure as much as I did!