Cantabria by Bike

Mountain Bike Routes in Cantabria, Spain

GPS Tracks

By: Javier Tovar, Pedro Ceballos, and Michael González Harbour

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Total Kilometers
5095

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Try the new Interactive Map and the new Interactive List of Routes

Introduction

In this page you can find mountain bike routes that we have enjoyed cycling in the beautiful mountains of Cantabria, in Spain. They are routes of mid difficulty that allow us to watch spectacular views of the landscapes that make us fall in love with this region. The routes are almost completely cyclable. Most of them go through mountain dirt roads, and some are on trails or even have some short cross country segments. Many also have an initial and final part on secondary roads.

All routes begin and end in the same place, so that we can get there by car, carying our bikes.

The routes can be viewed in 3D projected on satellite pictures thanks to the free Google Earth program. In addition to the tracks in Google Earth format, we also provide the GPS track files that you can download on your GPS receiver, maps of the routes, the altitude profiles, and pictures of the area. There is also a link to a page where you can view the track on satellite pictures or maps, using the services of Google Maps.

We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Map of the routes

Press this button to see the Interactive Map, in which you can zoom and filter the routes by difficulty or by zone:

To see a route you can click on the number that appears in the map. The color indicates the physical difficulty. The duration of each route is the total duration, including stops.

Low

Medium

High

Very High

Note: The map of Cantabria is a modification of the original obtained from Wikimedia Commons, which is distributed under a Creative Commons

Last Routes:

109. Valderredible and the Plateau of La Lora	Dec 2009
110. The Pasiego Valleys of Aldano and Troja	Dec 2009
111. Beach of La Arena, Cape Quejo and the Marshes of Joyel	Dec 2009
01. Ruente, Monte AA, Collada de Carmona, and ascent to Zarceillo	Jan 2010

MTB Routes

Press this button to see the interactive list of the routes. You can filter by zone, difficulty, etc.
Press this button to see the fixed list of all the routes:

The Way of Saint James

Weather forecast

If you are viewing this page in the morning:

HIRLAM model from the Spanish AEMET: Accumulated rain forecast for today from 8 to 14 hours (CET).
HIRLAM model from the Spanish AEMET: Accummulated rain forecast for today from 14 to 20 hours (CET).

If you are viewing thispage in the evening:

HIRLAM model from the Spanish AEMET: Accummulated rain forecast for tomorrow from 8 to14 hours (CET).
HIRLAM model from the Spanish AEMET: Accummulated rain forecast for tomorrow from 14 to 20 hours (CET).

Current situation

Forecasts

Instructions

Google Earth can be downloaded for free from http://earth.google.com/, and requires high-speed Internet connection (DSL o similar). After installing, you can open the "KMZ" files thatyou will find for each route. The program has controls to tilt the point of view and get a 3D display of the track.

The GPS tracks are offered in the popular formats PLT, of OziExplorer, and GPX, which is an interchange format readable from many programs.With them it is possible to open the route in a GPS route management application. Most GPS receivers have their own management program. Two popular GPS programs are:

GPS TrackMaker. Free program that lets you manage the routes, display them on a digital map, or transfer them to a GPS receiver. It can be found at: http://www.gpstm.com/
OziExplorer. Similar to the previous one, but not free. You can find it at: http://www.oziexplorer.com/

The Datum used in the GPS tracks is WGS84. Remember that there may be significant differences, up to 300 meters, if you use an incorrect datum. Spanish cartography usually comes with the European Datum.

For the maps shown in each route we have used maps of Cantabria of scale 1:100.000 from the Government of Cantabria, and the official road map of Cantabria, which are accessible for free in: http://www.gobcantabria.es/portal/page?_pageid=80,2822683&_dad=interportal&_schema=INTERPORTAL and in http://www.carreterasdecantabria.es/Mapa/ElMapa.html , respectively. However, to plan the routes it is advisable to use maps of scale 1:50.000 or 1:25.000, wich are available in libraries. The 1:50.000 maps are less up to date, but can be found in the Instituto Geográfico Nacional.

A very useful resource to plan your routes is the Sigpac viewer, by the Ministery of Agriculture of the Spanish Government. It has topographic maps of Spain at 1:25000 scale, as well as high-resolution aereal pictures that are usually up to date. There is a very useful program called Jsigpac (in Spanish) that allows you to download the maps and photos from the Sigpac server to your hard disk, so that you can later use them in a track management program such as OziExplorer. Pay attention to the instructions when you install it. If you don't follow them strictly, the program will not work.

To generate the Google Maps files we have used the converter available in GPS Visualizer.

Disclaimer

We have tried to ensure that the information in this page is correct, and we publish it with the intention that it is useful. However, it has to be used under your own responsability. We cannot be responsible of the consecuences of using this information, or of any errors that it may contain.

The information in this page can be copied and distributed only for non-profit purposes, and citing the source.

Contact Information

For any question or comment on this page you can send an e-mail to Michael González Harbour: contacto@cantabriaenbici.es

©Copyright 2006-2010 by Javier Tovar, Pedro Ceballos, and Michael González Harbour