Best cycling destinations in Europe

The Balearic island of Mallorca has long been popular with road cyclists as a place to escape to.

It’s famed for the Tramuntana mountains that run along its northern side, with iconic climbs like Sa Calobra (the only road with a corkscrew you’ll ever want to ride up) and Puig Major, the highest road col on the island.

The Coll de Sóller is another popular ascent, and – unlike Sa Calobra which requires a long descent down to the sea to reach its start point – can be tackled from two sides.

Beyond the big beasts, Mallorca has also got some lesser-travelled roads on the rest of the island which are just as lovely, but much, much flatter.

The Santuari de Cura climb at Randa is much shorter and more manageable than its big brothers in the Tramuntana, and can be accessed by a network of quiet, gently undulating country lanes.

Mallorca’s longstanding status as the go-to location for year-round mild weather – albeit there’s still the odd rainstorm in winter and it can get very chilly near the peaks – is what really cemented its place in the cycling popular culture.

As a result, it’s incredibly well-served with places to get a good coffee, to refuel with a tasty lunch, or simply dip in and grab a refreshing Fanta Limon.

Girona has experienced an incredible boom in cycling and cyclists in the past two decades. This phenomenon has been driven mostly by the presence of many WorldTour professionals who use it as their base.

What began with a few American and Aussie riders in the 1990s, who needed to get easily to European races, slowly grew and grew.

Some of those riders retired from racing and stayed in Spain, opening coffee shops, bike rental businesses, and generally building the sense of a cycling city-within-a-city.

Over time, the community matured, and nowadays it’s the place to be if you’re an aspiring athlete.

But why do all these pros choose Girona, and not somewhere else in Europe? The answer is variety, convenience and lifestyle.

The terrain of Catalunya is varied and beautiful. Girona is near the Pyrenees for serious mountain training, it has rolling hills to keep every training ride interesting, and there’s also flat road for recovery days. Not to mention the glittering blue waters of the nearby Costa Brava.

Then there’s the convenience. Girona has its own airport, which is just a 20-minute cab ride from town. This means that pro cyclists can easily use it, or Barcelona, an hour down the highway, to get to their races around the world.

Many pro teams also have their service course (base of logistical operations) in Girona, which adds to the convenience factor.

Lastly, lifestyle. Spanish culture and food are hard to beat.

Group rides start around midday, rather than punishingly early in the morning. There’s a glut of excellent coffee shops, plus usually great gelato (RIP, La Bombonera) to be found for a post-ride refuel.

And rents – while they have spiralled upwards lately – still remain competitive when compared to other countries in Europe.

For iconic climbs and breathtaking landscapes, the Alps are the most famous and feared mountain range in the Tour de France. No peaks in Europe reach higher, no challenge is more rewarding.

No route of Le Tour feels complete without at least a long weekend spent watching the athletes do battle in the Alps.

Just listing a few names of cols in the Alps is enough to conjure images from cycling’s history: the Galibier, the Madeleine, the Iseran.

And then, of course, there are the Italian Alps, which so often prove decisive in the Giro d’Italia. The Stelvio pass winds its way up through 48 hairpins before reaching the summit and is widely agreed to be one of the world’s best cycling roads.

It’s even closed to motorised traffic for one day of the summer, so cyclists can enjoy it without the buzz of motorbike engines in the background.

Let’s not forget the Swiss and the Austrian Alps! Perhaps less famous, but no less fearsome. The Ötztal Glacier Road in Austria is Europe’s second-highest paved road, while Switzerland boasts the epic Umbrailpass and the cobbled–yes, cobbled–ascent to the Passo San Gottardo.

Planning a trip to go cycling in the Alps is quite easy to do. There are a great many companies offering guiding, bike rental, cyclist-friendly accommodation and so on.

Our advice would be to choose a couple of towns to use as a ‘base’ and then do loops out from there to tackle your target cols.

Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne makes a great starting point for ascents of the Glandon, Galbier and Telegraphe, while from Grenoble you can tackle the legendary Alpe d’Huez in a day’s ride.

It would be remiss of us not to mention ‘the Giant of Provence’, Mont Ventoux, which is technically an Alp.

It stands virtually alone on the landscape, far from the other mountains we’ve discussed – but its unmatched place in cycling folklore means it’s well worth the trip on its own.

Plus, there are three ways to climb it, you lucky devils!

With steep ascents and stunning natural beauty, the Dolomites might be the most beautiful and least-understood mountain range in Europe.

Sometimes the word ‘dolomite’ is used as a synonym for ‘mountain in northern Italy, when in fact they are a small but distinct sub-range in the north-eastern part of the Italian Alps.

They get their name because they’re composed of a particular type of rock, also called dolomite.

Neither the Stelvio, the Mortirolo, nor the Gavia are Dolomites in the true sense of the word.

However! There are still loads of incredible climbs in the Dolomite range, not least the Passo di Giau, which is as visually stunning as it is steep.

With an average gradient of 9.5%, you’ll want to tackle it on a lightweight road bike and ensure you have a nice range on the cassette (at least 32t).

Other amazing climbs in the Dolomites include the Passo Pordoi and the Tre Cime di Lavaredo (three peaks grouped together that look like a trio of battlements or sharp teeth poking out of the ground).

The prevailing characteristics of the Dolomites are steep ascents – try to spin a high cycling cadence to conquer the inclines – and utterly breathtaking views.

There’s truly nothing like the quality of dusky pink light you get among the peaks at the end of the day, known in Italian as ‘enrosadira’ or in German as ‘Alpenglow’.

When you’ve finished your climbing exploits, the region is known for a carb-heavy mixture of Italian and Austrian cuisines. Expect potatoes, pasta and plenty of crunchy bacon bits. Yum!

Rugged, raw and redolent of cycling’s golden age, the Pyrenees form the border between France and Spain and are often described as more rugged and wild than the Alps.

It’s certainly true that there is less tourism generally, and the range feels very remote by contrast.

That said, the Col du Tourmalet has featured more times in the Tour de France than any other. If the mountain range consisted only of this one climb, it would still be well worth a visit.

According to an old and probably fanciful story, rider Octave Lapize yelled "You are murderers!" at Tour de France officials during the 1910 race while climbing the Col du Tourmalet.

The story goes that Lapize felt they’d made the stage too hard for anyone to complete. So let that be a good guide to just how difficult it is. Admittedly, poor Octave was doing it on an iron bicycle and had never even heard of carbon fibre road bikes!

The Tourmalet may be an icon, but there are hundreds of cols to climb in the Pyrenees. And they can be accessed from the French side, the Spanish side, or sometimes both.

Generally, the mountains of the Pyrenees do not reach the same towering altitudes of the Alps or the Dolomites. However, they’re still incredibly challenging, and the scenery is something altogether different.

The Agnes, the Anzican and the mighty Aubisque should all be on your bucket list – and we haven’t even got past the As!

Don’t sleep on the Spanish side of the range, either.

Whether it’s the climb to the Vallter 2,000 ski station, which is accessible from Girona (albeit a big ride), or the ascent to the Col du Portalet (known as the Puerto de Portalet), which tops out at the border between the two countries – there’s so much to be explored.

If we had one word of advice for heading to the Pyrenees, it would be to stick to the core summer months. The weather is very changeable in the mountains, and it’s not unheard of to get snow on the Tourmalet in September.