Puerto del Sol

Route

The Puerto del Sol is a wonderful climb and quite possibly one of the prettiest and most spectacular in the region. Towering at 1080 meters above sea level, you see the Axarquia in all its glory, including the impressive La Maroma, the manmade lake of Viñuela, the hilltop village of Comares. On a particularly clear day, you can even see glimpses of Africa.

 

It’s also one of the quietest climbs. The road eventually takes you to the sleepy town of Alfarnate, which can also be accessed via the more car-friendly A-4152. The road is rather narrow and is littered with steep hairpin corners. It is not for the faint-hearted, although by bicycle it’s perfectly doable and the road is in a great shape, despite being rarely used by motorists. Let’s hope it can stay that way, it’s already a shame that the Montes de Málaga is flooded with speed freaks during the weekends.

 

There’s only one road leading up to the Puerto del Sol, but it can be reached in two ways: via Periana (as depicted in the graph below) or via the road connecting Riogordo to Periana. This route opts for the latter and the climb profile converges somewhere between kilometer 7 and 8. As you see in the profile, there’s a fair bit of climbing to be done just to get there. If you’re feeling lazy, you can take the car and start from a place like Vélez-Málaga, for example.

 

However, before reaching this point, there’s some climbing to be done first, or what did you expect? The route essentially makes a beeline for the start of the Puerto del Sol, and that means the climb of Puerto del León in both directions.

Puerto del León (part 1)

The first climb of the Puerto del León by itself is a challenge, for this route it is a good warmup climb. When you reach the summit, keep going straight until you enter the capital of the Montes de Málaga, Colmenar. A coffee break in the popular Balcon de los Montes wouldn’t be the worst idea as there’s still plenty of riding and climbing to go.

A fantastic descent to Riogordo is next on the menu. It’s a fast descent but there’s little (if any) traffic, the road is perfect, and the corners in general aren’t treacherous. In Riogordo, there are more cafeterías and even a small supermarket on the square. Except for one bar on route, this is the last place you can stock up on provisions for quite a while.

 

You leave Riogordo and take the road to Periana for about 15 kilometer. It’s mostly uphill until you reach the summit of the Puerto del Sol, apart from a few short sections downhill. The road surface isn’t great and the undulating route is annoying, but the views absolutely make up for it.

 

It goes on like this for a little while until you reach the crossroad that takes you to either Periana or Puerto del Sol. Go sharp left and prepare yourself to tackle the second big climb of the day.

Puerto del Sol

A few kilometers on a narrow road take you further away from civilization, there’s only a small settlement named Guaro nearby. Otherwise you’re entering a quiet area that makes this climb to serene and peaceful, despite the suffer fest.

 

When you reach a bridge, cross it and you’ll be on your way to start the climb.

It’s not hard to miss the start of the climb as the gradient immediately kicks up and never really goes below 7%, apart from 1 easy kilometer at the 2/3 mark. The gradients mercifully remain steady so you can get into a rythm. Some hairpin corners (there are about 20 of them), as they do, get really steep, and you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some corners kick up to 14%.

 

The higher you go, the more spectacular the views get, and you’ll be swinging from hairpin to hairpin towards the top. Besides a sign and a small monument, there’s nothing here at the top, and after a quick selfie with the sign with the elevation of this pass, you’ll be going downhill quick to end up on a plateau. It feels lonely here and maybe even eerie, and the feeling doesn’t ebb away when you near the sleepy village of Alfarnate. This used to be bandit country, proof of which is still visible in the Venta de Alfarnate at the outskirts of the village, where you can still see the jail. There are some bars and a small supermarket to buy provisions in this town.

 

Out of Alfarnate, you’ll be on a spectacular road from the Granada province towards Colmenar. Some of the best views of the entire province can be find on this road. And as always, the road is undulating with four short climbs worth talking about. It wouldn’t be unsurprising that the legs start to hurt. There’s no shame in that, after almost 2000m of climbing.

Puerto del León (part 2)

A slightly technical and fast descent will bring you back to Colmenar, and you’ll be taking the same road back to Málaga. As you are already at an altitude of almost 700 meter, there’s less to climb from this side of the Puerto del León.

There are two short descents but other than that, it’s almost 15 kilometer of riding uphill. It may feel like an eternity until you finally reach the summit, and can start to relax with 20 kilometers of downhill. Back in Málaga, a refreshing caña is more dan well-deserved after this epic ride.

Alternative routes

When you’ve finished the loop and arrive in Colmenar, you could take a right and go back to Málaga via Casabermeja. You’ll add 20km and another 400 meters of elevation to your trip.

Tips

This route is for the experienced rider. You could easily skip the climb of the Puerto del León and start in Colmenar, or have a taxi take you to the summit of Puerto del León and begin your ride from there.

 

It’s a difficult route and you are going to a relatively remote area where it might be difficult to get a taxi pick you up when you’ve bonked out.
Needless to say, make sure to fill up your bottles and bring your repair kit.