Mont Caro in Catalonia may not be well known to cyclists, but that just makes this rugged, remote climb all the more rewarding
Words Trevor Ward Photography Juan Trujillo Andrades
Pick a mountain, any mountain. Alpe d’Huez? Add three hairpins and two per cent to its average gradient. Ventoux? Subtract Chalet Reynard and the shop at the summit. Hardknott Pass? Add 11km of distance and 1,100m of elevation. The Galibier or Stelvio? Deduct all the motorised sightseers and overpriced fromage and gelato. What are you left with? Possibly the longest, toughest, quietest European climb you’ve never heard of – Mont Caro in Catalonia, Spain.
It’s a climb so challenging and off-the-beaten-track that the Vuelta a España has never been up it. Spain’s oldest bike race, the Volta a Catalunya, has only been halfway, stopping at a point known as El Portell, ‘The Gateway’. The gateway to what exactly isn’t made clear, but beyond is a landscape too rugged and hostile for the modern comforts that accompany a professional bike race. It’s the domain of Iberian ibex, wild cats, snakes, vultures and eagles, not luxury team coaches and corporate VIP enclosures.
The road is narrow, its surface neglected and crumbling at the edges. The hairpins resemble childlike squiggles rather than precision-engineered arcs, gouged rather than sculpted into the limestone rockface. It’s a climb that is cruel and unforgiving, which rather makes me wonder why I have come back here for a second go.
Big Mig and me
It was almost exactly a year ago that I made it to the summit of Mont Caro and quietly vowed, ‘Never again.’ I turned to my guide, Santi, and told him it was nothing personal, but I’d be happy if I never saw his face again.
I returned to the UK in a mild state of shellshock and urgently sought validation from other riders, ranging from friends to the author of a well-known series of Greatest Cycling Climbs, but none of them had even heard of Mont Caro, let alone ridden up it. I felt like the Bible-thumping evangelist everyone crosses the street to avoid. And then I found myself interviewing a certain Miguel Induráin for this magazine (Issue 140). Surely he’d ridden up it?
‘Si,’ he replied with those trademark sleepy eyes. And then, without further prompting, he added, ‘Es muy duro.’ It’s very hard. Miguel Induráin, winner of five Tou
