Saddle up for a Spain cycle route tour de force says Jonjo Maudsley
THE dirt road plunges through a thicketed stone canyon. Blind turns come one after the other and my bike almost slips out from under me as I shift my body to skid through a particularly acute turn, whipping up a cloud of dust which floats over the precipice and disappears into the dense forest below.
I steal a glance into the distance. The trees march towards Catalonia’s Topaz Coast, far off on the horizon and beyond the many hills I have left to tackle.
Ah, Spain. No wonder this is consistently ranked Europe’s healthiest country, for few other nations can boast that they invest so heavily in sporting infrastructure.
Cycle routes like this one may be just one part of that story, but they are undoubtedly the key chapter right now. Huge projects such as the Ruta Via de la Plata (the ‘Silver Road’, a new route connecting Seville with Gijon, via the Camino de Santiago) have firmly established 2022 as Spain’s Year of the Bike, while also opening up a whole new way to explore this rough-cut hunk of land.
But despite grand projects like these stealing the headlines, there is plenty going on at the grassroots level too.
In particular, it is the Vias Verdes (the Greenways; viasverdes.com) that are inviting a new breed of casual rider to experience Spain on two wheels.
Fashioned from old railway lines, the Greenways are long, straight and mostly flat, slicing through previously undiscovered tracts of Spanish countryside.
With 1,860 miles of track sprawled across the country, they offer a challenging yet accessible way to chart a new path through the rugged Spanish outback.
I know this first-hand, because I am here in Catalonia’s Costa Brava, tackling one of the most impressive routes, from Girona to