The Montagna Atlas · Spain
Serra de Tramuntana
Mallorca is the most ridden island in the world for one reason. The Serra de Tramuntana runs the whole northwest coast, a wall of limestone that rises straight out of the Mediterranean, and through it winds a network of roads built by hand in another century. The climbs are long enough to matter and never brutal for the sake of it. The tarmac is some of the smoothest in Europe. And when you crest a col, the reward is usually the sea.
The island owes its two most famous roads to one man. Antonio Parietti was the engineer who drew the road to Cap de Formentor in 1925 and then, in 1932, the descent to Sa Calobra, 26 hairpins coiling down to a cove that can only be reached by that road or by boat. He designed them for the pleasure of travelling them, which is why they feel like they were built for bicycles.
Winter is the point. From late January the professional peloton moves in, the Challenge Mallorca opens the European season, and the roads around Port de Pollença fill with team kit. By April the Mallorca 312 sends thousands of riders around the whole range in a day. Summer belongs to the beaches. Riders come back when the air cools in October.
Ride it · Mallorca
km 0.3
Leaving the cove
The road starts between two cliffs at the water's edge. There is no warm up, just the first ramps rising away from the boats.
km 3.2
Into the canyon
Limestone walls close in and the road threads a natural corridor of rock. The gradient settles into its steady seven percent.
km 7.7
The tie knot
The Nus de sa Corbata. The road loops 270 degrees and passes under itself, Parietti's signature written in stone.
km 9.2
Coll dels Reis
The col at 682 metres. Behind you the road falls all the way back to the sea you started from.
The official climbs
Plate I
from Port de Sa Calobra
Beyond the famous climbs
from Esporles
The hardest road on the island is one almost nobody rides. Sobremunt climbs out of the Esporles valley on a narrow finca road with pitches close to 19 percent, rough in places, silent always. The databases rate it the toughest climb in Mallorca, harder than Sa Calobra, yet only a few hundred riders have ever recorded it. It flips the island's reputation for smooth six percent boulevards on its head. Bring low gears and go on a dry day.
from the harbour
Hiding in plain sight below one of the most visited towns in Mallorca. A single lane road drops from Valldemossa to a tiny fishing port, hung on the cliffs the whole way down, and the only way out is back up, five kilometres at over seven percent with ramps to 12. It works like a miniature Sa Calobra with a fraction of the audience. Descend carefully, swim if you are brave, and climb back to Valldemossa for coffee among the day trippers who have no idea what is below them.
from Artà
The northeast's secret. Beyond Artà, where almost no visiting cyclist bothers to ride, a quiet road crosses the Coll des Pescadors and climbs to a small 19th century hermitage in the hills. The final ramps pitch into double digits, the surface is rough enough to feel like an adventure, and from the top you can see both bays and the whole Tramuntana across the water. One guide calls it a mini Sa Calobra crossed with a mini Formentor. That is about right.
When to ride
February to May is the classic window, with the pro season openers in late January and the Mallorca 312 in late April. October brings warm sea, empty roads and long light.
Late February to mid May. The peloton arrives for the Challenge Mallorca in January, spring brings stable weather and warm climbs, and the island empties of summer traffic. October is the quiet second season and the sea is still warm enough to swim.
It is 9.4 km at 7 percent with a steady rhythm and no brutal ramps, so most fit riders climb it in 40 to 70 minutes. The catch is that you must descend it first because the road dead-ends at the sea. Whatever you ride down, you ride back up.
Port de Pollença puts Formentor, Femenia and the eastern Tramuntana at your door and is where most teams stay. Sóller sits in the heart of the range below Puig Major and the Coll de Sóller. Both work, and the island is small enough that nothing is far.
Mostly, but not entirely. The east has Sant Salvador, a monastery climb with world champions' jerseys hanging inside, and the flat interior is perfect for recovery days and long steady work between mountain days.
We ride Mallorca with one private group at a time. Tell us what you have in mind.
The most famous dead end in cycling. Antonio Parietti finished this road in 1932, 26 hairpins pouring off the Coll dels Reis to a cove you cannot reach any other way, and near the top he looped the road under itself in a full circle. Locals call that bend the Nus de sa Corbata, the tie knot. You earn the climb by descending it first, watching the ribbon you are about to ride back up. The gradient is honest rather than cruel, seven percent nearly the whole way, which is exactly why the professional peloton uses it as a winter dyno. The Strava leaderboard reads like a WorldTour start list, and Tom Pidcock's 22 minute 46 second run from a December training camp is the stuff of legend. Go early. The buses arrive by mid morning.
Plate II
from Sóller
The island's queen climb by every measure. From the orange groves of Sóller the road climbs for nearly 14 km to the Monnàber tunnel at 854 metres, the highest tarmac in the Balearics, on wide sweeping bends with the sea appearing and disappearing behind you. The gradient never punishes, six percent almost throughout, but the length sorts the field. This is the judge of the Trofeo Serra de Tramuntana, the hardest day of the pro season opener, and the high point of the Mallorca 312. The summit itself belongs to a military radar station, so the tunnel is the top. Beyond it the road runs past the Cúber and Gorg Blau reservoirs, the most beautiful high ground on the island.
Plate III
north side, from Sóller
The hairpin monument of Mallorca. When the toll tunnel opened in 1997 it took away the traffic and left riders a private road with more than 50 bends across its two sides, around 30 of them stacked on this northern approach. The gradient is gentle, the rhythm is everything, and the summit view drops into the bowl of Sóller with Puig Major behind. The pros still race it. Remco Evenepoel launched his winning solo over this col at the 2026 Trofeo Serra de Tramuntana. Ride it early or late and you can have every bend to yourself.
Plate IV
The front door of the Tramuntana. Almost every ride into the mountains from the Pollença side starts here, which is why it opens the Mallorca 312 and the Ironman bike course. It is the least theatrical of the great climbs, wide and steady at five and a half percent with barely a hairpin, and that is its value. You can ride it at threshold or in conversation, and either way it delivers you high into the range with Puig Tomir on your shoulder and the road to Lluc rolling out ahead.
Plate V
The gateway climb and the island's meeting point. From Caimari the road stacks up through forested hairpins and the Salt de la Bella Dona gorge to the junction for Lluc, climbing at a civilised five percent the whole way. The Challenge Mallorca crosses it most years on the way to the monastery. At the top sits the most famous petrol station in cycling, the Repsol café where half the riders on the island seem to regroup on any given morning. Order the almond cake. Everyone does.
Plate VI
from Port de Pollença
Pound for pound the most ridden three kilometres in Mallorca. The switchbacks out of Port de Pollença to the Mirador des Colomer are the first act of the Formentor road, and the Strava segment has been attempted more than half a million times, more than anything else on the island. It is also the island's only true professional summit finish. The Challenge Mallorca ends a race at the mirador most years, two kilometres of television gold above the cliffs. Stop at the viewpoint. The Formentor peninsula from that balustrade is the picture everyone takes home.
Plate VII
The lighthouse raid. Parietti's 1925 road runs the length of the Formentor peninsula, nearly 20 km of rises and drops over the Creueta col, past the beach, through the rock tunnel under El Fumat and up three final hairpins to the lighthouse at the end of the island. No single climb here is hard. The ride is the point, an out and back along cliff edges where the road keeps finding new ways to frame the sea. In summer the road closes to cars for most of the day, which makes early starts through the pines one of the great quiet experiences in Mediterranean cycling.
Plate VIII
from Felanitx
The east's lone monument, and the steepest sustained climb on the island alongside Sa Calobra. From Felanitx the road ramps to the sanctuary in under five kilometres at nearly seven percent, with hairpin walls near the top that touch 15 percent. The reward is a 13th century monastery with a view over half of Mallorca, and inside the entrance hangs a shrine of world champions' jerseys. Felanitx raised Guillermo Timoner, six times a world champion on the track, and the island's riders have been leaving their rainbow stripes here ever since. Worth the trip across the plain on its own.
