Touring in Spain?...any Spaniards here?

any tips on cycle touring in Spain ( specifically Andalucia?)

i was all set for a weeks freeride holiday in the Sierra Nevadas, but no, the lady has decided it would be nice if we went touring together...grrr....yes love...
finding it really hard to find any info online, other than this, which is MTB only by the look of it....nice mind....http://www.transandalus.org/ ....some of the trails look tourer friendly but most not

is there a Spanish equivalant of Sustrans/National cycle routes?..if so link please?

found this, but again, its not a whole lot of use.... http://www.ecf.com/87_1

also this...apperently its a bit out of date but ive ordered one anyway... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cycle-Touring-Spain-Detailed-International/dp/1852843810

any help/ideas/offers to stay in your hill-top Andalucian villa greatfully recieved..

"Viva La CNT! No passaran!"

bump

Mocker, I am andaluza from Málaga. Haven't really been touring around, just long distances rides for a day or so.
Yep, Andalucía is ideally mainly from MTB as there plenty of off roads, forest tracks.
Although there are loads of secondary roads too which connect all the white-villages, and it is not rare to see foreigners touring around. Get ready for progressive long climbing.
If you give me a bit of more info about your trip, as :

• when are going?
  
• how long for?
  
• which areas are you planning to cover, i.e central to east or central to west?
  
  

then I could do a bit of research for you and PM some useful links and tips.

If you avoid the coastal tourist areas, it will be a spectacular trip, fact.

Partial thread-jacking (sorry!): after being rained on a lot in Scotland, the mrs has decreed that next year we're going to tour in Spain. Current thought is to get the ferry to Bilbao/Santander and do a 400->500 mile loop, probably passing through in the Basque country. Any suggestions from anyone who's ridden in that neck of the woods?
Cheers

Just beware, weather in those parts can be as wet as here, even in the summer.

Wet as far N Highlands? It was pretty moist...

Yep and it's been a bad year over there. In the Basque country they have this rain that they call "sirimiri" and it's the main reason why the man wear a txapela.

That and that horrible wind.

Otherwise it's beautiful.

If you want to do some nice riding you can't really go wrong in Mallorca, great infrastructure and nice scenery, coupled with good wine and food you can't really go wrong.

If you want to do some nice riding you can't really go wrong in Mallorca, great infrastructure and nice scenery, coupled with good wine and food you can't really go wrong.

I'll vouch for that. I'm living this season on Mallorca and I have only just started cycling but, I can assure you that it's a great place to tour.
Now in August I find it too hot to do long rides with hard climbs so I just try to get some exersise with 40-50km rides near where I live (Port d'Alcudia)
Early in the temperatures are way better and make a longer ride more enjoyable but I tend to have hangovers alot so waking up early isnt in my book atm.

Though it's very hot now, the months Feb-Jun and halfway Sept-Nov are great times to cycle around the island, have some great climbs/descends, visit nice places and towns and have some great views during your trips.

As I already said before I havent been riding my racing bicycle for a long time so I dont know that much about it nor about specific places you should visit here on Mallorca, though I've been doing some research myself on routes I should ride in the near future and I found on a website 10 nice routes that are supposed to be very nice.
http://www.globalspokes.com/Mallorca/mallorca-routes.htm

Route 5 is actually the short route I spoke about earlier that I do nowdays.

Well I guess thats enough bragging about Mallorca

just came back from a tour to barcelona. even though we were only in spain for a few days it was really beautiful and very hot- highly recommended!

hi, from my side i can recommend Catalunya and BAsqu Country where i used to live .. ... cycling scene is quite busy.
fixed is very popular in bigger cities especially Barcelona.
if i were you i would go to Catalunya/Basque as Andalucia might be too hot now ....better to visit it in 2H of May or late sept....

Hi,

Me and my fellow bike enthusiast are looking to do a bike ride in the summer, Barcelona to Gibraltar averaging 80 miles a day. I've been to Spain before loved the country but only went to the typical holiday destinations. We want to ideally go along the coast. Do any of you have good recommendations for hostels to stay, places to visit?

Cheers

Daniel

Avoid main city when possible, do not go on the coast.

I repeat, do not go on the coast.

Camp sites are rare in Spain, we haven't encounter one for 3 days, however wild camping in Spain is legals with a catch - need to be at least 1km away from settlement, in national park, etc.

We didn't do the latters, as the Sierra Nevada was full of fucking olive field, still camp under olive trees thought.

Be very careful with mapping your route, as Spain have the 4th largest motorway network in the world, a large amount of road is illegal to ride on, hence my comment on avoiding big major cities are they're a pain to get in and out.

Go through as much national parks as you can, according to the maps you have quite a decent number of them from Serra del Montsant, Els Ports, Alto Tajo, Sierra de Castril, Sierra de Baza, Sierra Nevada and Sierra de Grazalema.

Recommendation base on my travel - Ronda, Teba, Sierra Subbeticas, Los Villares, Sierra Magina, Huesa, Castril, Cofrentes.

Those area are within your trip I think, some are nothing special more the area that make it so (Cofrentes an example).

I cannot stress this enough - do not ride on the coast, it's mind-numbling boring riding on the N-340 counting down the 10km signpost for the first 350km.

excellent recommendations Ed

Thanks you Ed, you are a knowledge bank! Why avoid the coast is it all boring? Do we not get lovely sea views and beautiful beaches along the way?

Cheers for the advice on the places, I will check them out now!

What is the terrain like down the east side of Spain?

Cheers
Dan

Do we not get lovely sea views and beautiful beaches along the way?

Very repetitive, it's flat, it's busy, everyone and their mum used it (hence the huge number of camp sites carter for the recreational vehicles), the food is expensive, etc. and prepare for the cost of the campsites, they're like €24 for two of us, even thought we have tiny tent, they gave us two huge RV spaces that wasn't necessary.

Eventually we lie that we're a flaming homosexuals by saying we have one big tent and a disapproval look from the Spaniard.

Save us a tidy €10 with a loss of dignities.

We have to stay on it to get to Valencia so we can buy another GoPro camera after our brokes when we arrived in Barcelona, after we go the GoPro, we sped away from the dreaded coast into the Sierra which is the greatest decision we've made ever.

This section however is the only one that we hugely enjoyed between Barcelona and Valencia;

http://goo.gl/maps/d6mbQ

Spain;

Ed, do you think you could list the road types they have in Spain, as in the UK we have Motorway, Dual Carriageway, A-road, B-road etc...?

cheers.

They're a tad complicated, even some (rarely) the National road (red) does not allowed cycling, but we rode it anyway, the yellow and green one are also fine to ride on.

Obviously the Autopista and Autovia are motorways, the latter are upgraded from old road that may be fine to ride on.

We discovered that after leaving Ripoll into the C-17 that is now a "motorways" where no bicycle allowed, needless to says we decided to go on it saving us 4-5 hours of backtracking into the mountain to go on a suitable road to Barcelona.

I can't find a good online guide, this one echoes what I was saying about riding in cities.