The Transnevada trail wraps itself around Spain’s Sierra Nevada, taking you deeper into the wilds of these Andalusian mountains than any conventional route allows. Cyclist travels to the region of Alpujarra for an adventure along its southernmost stretch
Words SAM CHALLIS Photography JUAN TRUJILLO ANDRADES
You might not think it to gaze up into these vast mountains, but thanks to a network of tracks it’s possible to circumnavigate the Sierra Nevada mountain range, winding far above the sprawling white towns at its feet and deep into its wilds.
Inspired by an old hiking trail, in 2011 Andalucía Tourism and the International Mountain Bike Association stitched together eight otherwise disparate segments to create the Transnevada. At almost 500km long, this set of gravel tracks encircles the range’s rocky peaks like a jagged halo.
The route sits around 2,000m above sea level at all points, but because it traverses the Sierra Nevada’s slopes rather than climbs them more directly, the path mostly rises and falls within a fairly narrow bandwidth, which makes riding the Transnevada surprisingly manageable… once you get up there, of course.
Gorging on sunshine
Nestled in one of the Alpujarra region’s innumerable gorges, morning sees the town of Cádiar cloaked in shadow while the surrounding peaks get first dibs on the rising sun, their yellow brightness at odds with the blue light down in town. Even in late autumn, conditions here are sufficient to heat up the coast, some 40km to the south, to temperatures the British summer would be proud of. However, given that the average altitude of civilisation here is around 1,200m, dawns are fresh enough to wake you up like a strong coffee.
Cádiar is a town typical of the area, its old, whitewashed dwellings squashed haphazardly together, with steep, narrow streets twisting in between. Its sleepy atmosphere belies a tumultuous history that runs in parallel to other villages in the region.
Thanks to the extreme terrain, Alpujarra has always been somewhat cut off from the rest of Spain, and as such it developed its own distinct culture, prospering during the Arab-Andalusian period thanks to its specialist silk production. But by the 1400s, religious wars between the Moors and invading Catholics had caused immeasurable suffering and the population never really recovered, a fact that helps explain why the area continues to fly under t
