Cycle Touring in Spain

A guide to eight 1-2 week routes covering Pyrenees and Picos de Europa in the North, the Sierras of Demanda, Gredos and Guadarama in central Spain, and the Sierras of Nevada and Grazalama and the Serrania de Ronda in the South. Varying in difficulty, with options to shorten or lengthen stages or go off-road.

The Instituto Geográfico Nacional produces two series of maps at 1:200 000. The scale and level of detail is just right for cycling: they show all roads including most forest and other major tracks, rivers, contours at 100m and most geographical features. There are two caveats: changes to the road networks are not updated very quickly, and town details can be very poor. The two series show the same level of detail but are presented differently.

The series of Mapa Provincial cover the whole of Spain on a province-by-province basis. Within each province boundary the map has all the detail listed above, but outside only the road system is continued and sometimes the contours, but not vegetation detail.

The series of Mapa Guía only covers the more popular areas, but do not suffer a drop-off in detail at provincial borders. Stanfords of Long Acre in London (020-7836 1321 or www.stanfords.co.uk) is a good stockist.

The other maps worth considering are Michelin orange 1:400 000, which show all the public roads along with some limited topographic detail. They are revised annually so try and get an up-to-date one, otherwise new roads may be missing. These maps are widely available in bookshops.

Other useful maps are detailed in the text where relevant.