Looking for a bit of advice guys. I’ve been given the task of organising next years road trip which will be Spain. Normally we do the NC500 and the TT but the TT has been ruined by the speed limits that’s been imposed lately and we’re sick of the sight of rain on the NC500. It’s almost certain that we’ll be getting the ferry to Santander and be heading down to my house on the east coast near Murcia. We’ve got from the Friday to the following Sunday to do what we want. So far the only plan is to put the bikes in a van(S) and drive from Glasgow to Portsmouth for the ferry to Santander. No point doing Calais and battering it down through France when we can chill out and get a few beers on the ferry instead. Looking for some recommendations on routes/roads that we should definitely do and then see if I can come up with a route to link them up. Cheers
How many miles per day are you happy to do? Are you prepared to do some motorways or do you avoid like the plague? What time of year? Do you want to blast to Murcia and then play, or do you want to play on the journey there and back?
Idea was to enjoy the twisties on the way down. I’m more looking for road suggestions and from that I can make a route myself and link them up. We’re going to be going early May time. Hopefully 2 days at the house chilling and back up the road. I’m not looking for anyone to plan the whole route for me, just what roads between Santander and Murcia folk have personal experience of and would recommend
Quite a bit experience of touring in Spain and using the Santander ferry . We usually pick up the N623 in Santander and head to Burgos.Its a great road and gets you warmed up.The ferry we use gets in at noon ish and I think Burgos is around 85 miles away.Burgos is a nice place for a first stop. From there in your general direction I would head for Segovia just north of Madrid.There are good roads down to Segovia and it’s a must see place in my opinion.After that my own personal experience of roads in your direction would be the mountain range inland from Alicante. Touring in Spain is fantastic.Lots of empty newly surfaced roads,nice people ,available accommodation,great food.May is a good time to go too. Enjoy and if you find any good roads spread the word please.Good luck.
Here’s my suggestion... East of Madrid: Molina de Aragon south through Serrania de Cuenca, via Tragacete to Canete.
Leave Albacete and head towards Ubeda. The section between Balazote and Alcaraz is rather good. Lots of other good stuff in the north end of the Sierra de Cazorla.
Been looking at a website called best biking roads bestbikingroads.com Seems quite a few ideas on there
Something I should have mentioned .If you get the Michelin individual maps for Spain,or anywhere else for that matter,look out for the green line next to the normal road colour.Invariably these will be great roads.I think the green line indicates scenic route but I have rarely been disappointed .The maps are numbered ,a few of those would stand you in good stead. Plus bike magazine is a good resource with their best biking roads articles.
Whilst I do tend to buy the Michelin maps (orange regional ones are a decent scale), they're good for an overview. I plan in MyRouteApp that can display the Michelin maps with those green lines. You can also drop into Google Street View for a proper gander. If you're using a sat nav then it's worth using. I use the paid for version, £25/yr sub ISTR, the bog standard version may lack the Michelin Maps option.
The free version of MyRoute does have Michelin maps! It doesn't include Google maps or the link into Google Street View. Apart from the very basic "standard" map" and Michelin maps, the free version of MyRoute only includes OpenStreetMap which isn't bad as a replacement for Google Maps. Regarding Michelin maps, there is always ViaMichelin however I'm not sure if it's possible to export routes to a sat nav. The other option for routing planning using Michelin Maps is ITN Converter which is free route conversion tool (Windows based application) which has a good route view and edit facility. Numerous maps are available, including French IGN maps (equivalent to British OS maps), contour maps and satellite maps.
