Long distance rides through Spain.

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A new site subscriber, Davisonstuff, has kindly shared with me his proposed route, top to bottom and back again, stating and finishing at Santander. I plan on laying it over RiDE magazine’s suggest route around Spain, from an article in the magazine. The slight snag is that the RiDE route has a segment missing out of it, ie day 16 is missing entirely.

That in itself is not a disaster but it I’d like to see it in there, if possible.

Be patient and I’ll see what I can magic up.

Richard.
 
is it the Spain circular you are wanting Richard
 

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Hi Lee, thanks for your help. I think I might have created it by hand by looking at RiDE’s day 16 in their Google map version.

It’s the segment in magenta in this picture:

5f6625a0b623f49b17a0c6d77f510461.jpg


As you can see, the red route, which I lifted off the RiDE website, differed from yours a bit, as it goes into Portugal. I think what you have very kindly shown me is a different, shorter route, that Ride also published.
 
I believe I may have that very route. If you wish I will have a look later on my other machine
 
I have now put Davisonstuff‘s suggested route for his holiday, coloured cyan, onto the Ride suggested (longer route) coloured red with a bit in cyan. You can see it all in the post above.

In parallel, Lee has kindly shown a third version, which is great, as the three of them show that there is no one ‘perfect way’ to circumnavigate a big country like Spain. More that anything else, the RiDE suggested route takes 19 days, with no stops (days off) anywhere along the way.

Here’s the Drobox link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/opwqk0qiib3cvjq/Grand tour of Spain.GPX?dl=0

I have checked that it opens up OK in non-Garmin software, in this example, Pocket Earth, using nothing more than my iPad:

c6e4d875631384e57c4a6403a2fa2cac.png


My advice, for what it’s worth would be to look at lots of sources for roads to ride and buy a few maps. Though this thread should give everyone a head start.

PS The bright green bit at the top is the ADAC route along the Pyrenees and back again. It shows how things can be joined up from various sources:

a87a59491e17311888ff5d9a0dfd88f4.png
 
I believe I may have that very route. If you wish I will have a look later on my other machine



High again, Lee. It woukd be great if you could, please.

I wonder if you might be as kind as to share the route file for the route you kindly put up in post #2, please. I would then drop it onto the other routes, probably colouring it blue. That would just about give all the shapes in all the sizes, as the excellent Maureen Lipman used to say in the old BT advert.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/O3pEsJyk6Uw" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
Thanks indeed to you all! I'm getting hungry for another epic trip next year ...

Meanwhile I'll try to add any special bits that I know of, memory banks on overdrive :)

Regs

Simon
 
Than you, Simon

I am happy, providing people give me accurate road numbers and the towns the directions start from / end / pass through to add them in. I have got some already from the parallel Pyrenees post and thread. I would propose to colour them separately (yellow, perhaps) and label them appropriately, crediting the person who kindly submitted them. By the end UKGSer will have a fantastic database for Spain, Portugal and the Pyrenees. We can see in post #8 how we have a lot of the country covered already. Mix in some other ideas from other posts and it would all be there.

I guess most punters on this site would prefer to avoid pure off-road tracks, so if people could avoid submitting those, that would be great. There are other sections which can deal with real off-road riding really well. I don’t mind riding surfaces that are not virgin smooth on my 1600 but would very much prefer not to find myself up a two foot wide goat track in the middle of nowhere. In short, if people could submit roads that they’d be happy to ride on a FireBlade, a GS, a 1600 or an FS1E, that would be great. In other words, use a bit of common sense, please.

Richard
 
Moving on from the pick’n’mix theme, bods could add in the routes suggested in this thread: https://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php/450657-Spain-50-routes-Portugal-7-routes-Complete

Here they are, blended in in purple:

d6b2cab5922654d21ad49cd60434ed92.png


All the data is out there (or in UKGSer) somewhere. Play away, you can’t break it and it’s free. If I can do it in an app on an iPad, anyone can do it on their PC but do buy a map, too.


Excellent stuff, so many routes to choose from.
Just curious - is that 9081 mile figure the total for all the routes shown?
 
I guess it’s the total mileage of routes, yes. Though it might be just for the active routes, as I think the whole lot would be further?
 
Anything of any use here, just point it out.
 

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With more than a little help from the excellent Ride Guide to Europe I've worked out an east to west route that crosses Spain just south of Madrid that links the Alicante region in the east with the excellent N-502 at Herrera del Duque in the east. I've done this in case I run out of time and need to bail from the original summer tour plan of heading as far south as Almeria and Ronda. To get to the good stuff at Villarejo (point 2) it's about an hour and a half's slog which isn't too bad in itself. From Villarejo it looks like a really fun ride across a section of country that seems 'relatively' sparse in terms of great roads.

https://www.myrouteapp.com/en/social/route/4054800?mode=share Let me know if you have trouble opening and I'll do it another way.

If anyone has any ideas between points 1 and 2 I'd be grateful. Also, I'm toying with the idea of riding back through France rather than enduring a return voyage on the ferry (particularly as I just read that journey time from Portsmouth looks like it's increasing to 32 hours - surely not). If anyone has ideas on a route from Avila (or thereabouts) to Pamplona-ish then that would be great.

Ride Guide to Europe (see the Spanish section) - https://www.ride.co.uk/routes-1/ride-guide-to-europe-third-edition
I've used the European guide as the Spain and Portugal one's link to the actual numbered routes takes me to the Italian list :confused:
 
Te section through the Valdepeñas region is very flat and boring. I don't know the region well but my instinct would take be south along the road you can see there, roughly from Elche to Almaden and I'd be very tempted to continue to Mérida, which was one of two Roman capital cities back in the day - I have a home in the other one, Tarragona, and have always wanted to make the pair!

This summer I had a great back-road ride up to the Pyrenees from a friends house north-west of Madrid on the CM-1001 which continues east from the M-102/CM-1002 from Torrelaguna. If you aim to get there from the west you ride through the Sierra de Gradarrama region, where you canpt go wr9mg for scenery/roads ...
 


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