My Murcia

From a great ride many years ago in Murcia, a place I used to winter for many years

The winds and half wheeling of the Murcian desert roads lay imminently in wait for us, which is a familiar experience for me on these particular roads. For a few years now myself and bike holiday guru Graham Baxter have pounded these winter roads together in an attempt to regain the fitness of our long past the sell by date racing years. Mid winter, a traditionally unfit time for myself, is a pre season training camp peak time for Graham. This always makes the experience a relatively painful one for myself, but hey, at least the sun was shining, I could be at home on the turbo trainer in wet wales ! What more could I ask for ( Besides and extra ration of fitness. )  ?

The Tour of Murcia is also a regular pounder of these particular desert roads. These are the kind of roads you see for many a monotonous mile after mile on the TV coverage of the Vuelta Espana each year.  For us, luckily, these desert flats are relatively small scale, and simply lay down as a kind of fury carpet warm up for the great and fearsome hills which form the heartland of the region of Murcia.

Puerto de Mazzaron was chosen as both a pleasant and convenient starting point for the ride; one of last years Murcia stages passed through the town on it’s way to a stage finish in nearby Lorca. But perhaps more importantly for us was the fact that there are some great seaside bars on the promenade here, which make for a great sunny and relaxing breakfast venue, even if they are hard to leave behind, especially when you know what lies ahead.

The desert road to Alhama is wide and gently rolling, and always seems to have a head wind with it, which ever way you’re going. Almost as soon as you pass through the town of Mazzaron your horizons are dominated by the scary, but pleasing, vista of the Sierra Espuna, a spectacular national mountain park, and the ultimate challenge for the ride. The jagged green mountains of Espuna look oh so close, but it takes around an hour of desert bashing to reach Alhama, which is the gateway to the park. 

No sooner have you left the moped plagued streets of Alhama behind and the whole scene changes. Gone are the scrub and bleakness of the desert, gone is the head wind, and sadly also gone is the flat, for good ! The road climbs straight out of Alhama, winding it’s way through the towns suburban fincas and orange groves. Things start quite gently at first, but are most definitely noticeable. Looking at a local map it’s hard to grasp exactly what depth there is to this sassy slice of Murcia. On the ground you soon get a taste for things, this climb may well be a lowly 1500 odd meters high, but when you’re climbing from near sea level that’s a hell of a long way, some 20 kilometers of first category sufferance to be precise.

The road is quite narrow and twisty right through, which makes things seemingly pass all that bit faster. Though at times that same tree lined tunnel vision gives the impression that you’re actually going absolutely nowhere at all. After a while things start to get decidedly cooler, and the greenery takes on more of an autumnal sense and style, which signifies that we’re actually nearing the summit. A few more twists and turns and suddenly the gears are crunched down to bottom as the twisty Tarmac snake rears it’s neck in revolt. Enticingly a 1 km to the summit marker appears smudged across the road, lifting spirits in the knowledge that in just a few painful minutes the days climbing and pain will be over with. This final kilometer of the climb is absolute hell; it’s steep, straight, and relentless. The whole road is plastered with writing right up to the summit, signifying the passage of the Tour of Murcia and various other local races. Eventually we top the beast, which is known as the Col Bermejo Collado. Our ride is about to head downhill, but a couple of years back the race it’s self turned sharp right and climbed right up to the ultimate high of the Espuna range, the Moron. This is actually in a fenced off military zone, so you can only ride as far as the gates, which we were in no mood to do. On that day a certain Marco Pantani romped up here to a stage victory, but last year the race took our option of heading downhill.

The descent from here is long and twisty, and a real rim cooker. Last year the road had just been re-surfaced, which caused mayhem in the race, even so Once’s David Canada stayed upright to take the stage, and seal overall victory in the race. For us however the only prize laying in wait was a final cortado and a bocadillo ( Coffee and sandwich. ) in Aledo, it was certainly well earned prize, and topped off a perfect, even if tiering mid winters ride.