Collections
Curated route packs from the world's best cycling destinations.
Girona Collection
Girona didn't become the preferred winter base for WorldTour professionals by accident. The medieval city sits at the intersection of everything that makes cycling here exceptional: warm light from October through April, roads that empty of traffic within ten minutes of the old town, and a density of quality climbs that no comparably sized city in Europe can match. The geography does most of the work. To the east, the Gavarres — rounded hills of cork oak and maquis, criss-crossed by quiet back roads where you can string together 100km without touching a main road. To the north, the Pyrenean foothills rise sharply: the notoriously relentless grind to Mare de Déu del Mont, the long slog up to Sant Hilari Sacalm with its twisting forest descent to the Susqueda reservoir. Directly above the city, Rocacorba — a 10km climb averaging 5.9% that professionals use as a benchmark test and most visitors discover at slightly higher perceived exertion than anticipated. The Costa Brava road to the east is something else entirely. Drop over the ridge above the Gavarres and the Mediterranean appears without warning, turquoise and flat, below switchbacks cut into limestone. The coastal section through Tossa de Mar and back via Sant Grau abbey is one of the genuinely great cycling days in Europe: long enough to hurt, varied enough to hold your attention. The terrain between disciplines blurs pleasantly in this part of Catalonia. The practical side: coffee at the Rambla, mechanics who have seen every conceivable malfunction, and a cycling culture that means café owners at the top of climbs know why you look the way you look. Girona is not a secret. The roads are still quiet.
Dublin & Wicklow
Dublin cyclists live twenty minutes from two very different kinds of riding. North: the lanes beyond Skerries — flat, fast, coastal, where the training groups hammer along in echelons when the wind comes off the Irish Sea. South: the Wicklow Mountains — Military Road, Sally Gap, Glenmacnass, the kind of climbs that break you with gradient and reward you with isolation. The city itself is a reasonable launch pad. Marlay Park, Bull Island, Dun Laoghaire pier — all standard meetup points for weekend groups. Head south-west through the Featherbed or south-east via Enniskerry and within 30km you're on roads where the only traffic is sheep. The range is what makes it. A Saturday epic — Blessington, Glendalough, Sally Gap, back via Glencree — is 150km and 2,500m of climbing through terrain that regularly surprises visitors with how remote it feels for a capital city. Wicklow's roads are generally well-surfaced but narrow. The R115 (Military Road) is the most iconic stretch: 30km of high moorland with views to the coast on clear days. In winter, ice and crosswinds make the gap roads serious; in summer, the light lasts until 10pm and the mountains are empty. For interval work: the N81 corridor (Blessington direction) offers long, flat, low-traffic stretches ideal for threshold sessions. The climb up Kilmashogue from Marlay Park is a classic VO2 test piece — short, steep, repeatable.
Calpe & Costa Blanca
Calpe exists at the intersection of flat coastal training roads and serious mountain climbing, which is why half the professional peloton has spent at least one January here. The town itself is unremarkable — a medium-density Spanish resort with a distinctive rock (the Peñón de Ifach) jutting out of the harbour. The riding is not unremarkable at all. The signature climb is the Coll de Rates: 6.5km at 5.4% average, topping out at 626m with views across the entire Marina Alta. The Vuelta a España uses it regularly. Every training camp based in Calpe uses it obsessively. The approach from Parcent through the Jalon Valley wine country is one of the better warm-up roads in European cycling — wide, smooth, gently rising, and quiet enough that you can ride three abreast without incident. Inland from the coast, the terrain stacks up fast. The Sierra de Bernia loop — short, aggressive, with gradients touching 15% — is the kind of ride that looks reasonable on paper and less reasonable at kilometre four. Guadalest, further in, adds a reservoir, a castle on a cliff, and a proper 20km approach climb. The Alcalali loop through Castell de Castells is the century ride: 160km, 2,000m of climbing, and roads that empty of traffic the moment you leave the N332 corridor. The coastal road itself serves a purpose. The stretch between Calpe and Benidorm via Altea is flat, fast, and mostly has a cycle lane — ideal for tempo work, interval sessions, or easy recovery spins. The morning group rides that leave from the Calpe harbour wall at 9am sharp are a rite of passage for visiting riders. Climate: riding is possible year-round, but the sweet spot is October through April when temperatures sit between 15-22°C and rain is sparse. Summer is rideable but hot — start before 7am or don't start.
Mallorca
Mallorca earned its reputation as Europe's premier early-season training destination through a combination of climate, terrain, and infrastructure that no competitor has managed to replicate. January temperatures in the mid-teens, rainfall measured in single-digit days per month, and a road network that was resurfaced comprehensively in the early 2000s and has been maintained since. The Serra de Tramuntana along the north-west coast provides the headline climbs. Sa Calobra — the 10km descent (and return ascent) down 26 hairpins to a cove at the base of a canyon — is cycling's version of a pilgrimage route. The road was built in the 1930s to connect the isolated village to the rest of the island and feels it: narrow, exposed, and engineered to make every metre memorable. Cap de Formentor, the island's north-eastern tip, is flatter but no less dramatic: a long peninsula ride ending at a lighthouse above open Mediterranean. Away from the showpieces, the interior is where the riding quietly excels. The climbs up to Orient from Bunyola, the loop through Caimari to the monastery at Lluc, the rolling roads south through Randa — all are long-weekend rides that would be destination-worthy anywhere else but here compete for attention with a top five that is unreasonably stacked. The coastal plain around Palma and the south-east offers fast, flat training terrain. The Playa de Palma strip road is where teams do early-season base miles. Inland from there, the roads through Algaida and Montuïri are quiet, well-surfaced, and roll gently enough that you can hold a conversation or a pace line. Logistics: Palma airport is a 15-minute transfer from most cycling hotels. Bike hire is excellent (Canyon, Specialized, Pinarello fleets at most shops). The island is small enough that any route can start and end at your hotel without a transfer.