Alpinum - Cerdagne Cycle Tour 2026

The Col du Calvaire de Font-Romeu, the Collada de Toses, the Col de la Llose… These names are part of the vocabulary of true cycling Pyrenean 🏔️ enthusiasts. Some of these cols regularly host Tour de France stages and the images remain etched in memories 🏞️. In July, it will be you on these roads. And this story is yours to write 🚴‍♂️.

Welcome to the Alpinum Cerdagne Cycle Tour, the cycling tour that traverses the most spectacular landscapes of Catalan and French Cerdagne 🌄. Not a race, but a collective cycling adventure, with three distances to choose from: 185 km (Endurance), 145 km (Medium), and 89 km (Sport), all starting and finishing in the village of Alp, nestled at 1,400 m altitude in the heart of the Catalan side of the Pyrenees ⛰️. Yes, there is elevation. A lot. That's the point 😅. What makes the Alpinum unique is its territory. The Cerdagne, a wide valley shared between Spain 🇪🇸 and France 🇫🇷 offers 360° panoramas over the peaks that few cycling routes in Europe can rival 👀.

The big boss of the distances is 185 km, with 4 cols and 3,635 mD+. It's impressive on paper, but the organizers have slipped a detail of refined cruelty into the route 😈: towards km 160, "Endurance" participants pass just a few meters from the finish line 🏁 before they have to set off to climb the Collada de Toses again. Seeing the "arrival" sign only to head back uphill when you've already completed 160 km… it's the kind of moment that builds character or makes you seriously doubt your own decisions 🤪. The most tenacious pass with a smile. The others also get through, but with their teeth clenched 😬. The intermediate format brings together three magnificent cols and crosses the Catalan and French Cerdagne as well as a portion of the Capcir 🗺️. 145 km, 2,673 mD+: enough to return with true pride in your eyes 🥹, without needing two weeks of forced recovery on the couch 🛋️. The last dish you might find yourself consumed by is the 89 km with its Col du Calvaire ☀️. It sets the tone, not the longest distance but just as formidable as its siblings. This ascent towards Font-Romeu plays out over the last 10 kilometers with an average gradient of 5.4%, steady, clear, but unforgiving once fatigue sets in 😵. The Calvaire is one of the most emblematic cols in the Eastern Pyrenees, regularly used by the biggest professional races. Climbing it out of curiosity would already be worth the trip. Doing it in 89 km as part of the Alpinum, that's even better! 🤭 It's perhaps what the Alpinum holds most precious and rare 💫: it's not a competition 🚫. No ranking, no official timing, no pressure on the result. It's a cyclotouristic walk, a well-organized outing where everyone rides at their own pace, stops if the view is too beautiful to ignore 📸, and arrives whenever it suits them (within the cut-off time, of course 😄).

It all starts and ends in Alp 🏘️, a Catalan village known to the general public for its two ski resorts, La Molina and Masella, which together form the Alp 2500 domain, one of the largest in the Iberian Peninsula. In July, the ski lifts are off, the slopes are green, and the roads the snowcats traversed this winter are entirely free for bikes 🌿. It's another mountain that reveals itself, just as beautiful, and infinitely quieter 🤫. The first kilometers flow gently on Spanish territory, on secondary roads that carefully avoid busy thoroughfares 🛤️. The organizers have chosen their routes carefully: open valleys, stone villages 🪨, almost non-existent traffic. Catalan Cerdagne is traversed at your own pace, with a relaxed back. Then comes the border, imperceptible from the saddle, just a discreet sign on the roadside, and entry into French Cerdagne 🇫🇷. That's where the scenery shifts and the gradients awaken 😤. The Col de la Llose (1,866 m) and the Col de la Creu (average of 4.8%, peaks at 9.1% in some sections) then lead the cyclist into the valley of the Aude, a unique territory in the Pyrenees, away from major roads, forested, wild, crossed by roads bordered by spruces and streams 💦. It's a corner that most cyclists do not know, and that's exactly what makes it valuable 🌲.

The Cerdagne itself is a unique geographic case 🗺️: shared between two states since the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, it hosts the Spanish enclave of Llívia, a town that refused to be classified as a "village" under the terms of the treaty and found itself surrounded by French territory. In Puigcerdà, the artificial lake dug in 1260 by King Sancho I of Majorca is still there, lined with terraces in summer ☕️. On the French side, in Font-Romeu, the solar furnace of Odeillo, one of the largest in the world 🌍, stands over the station like a sci-fi installation🔬. On the dining front 🍽️, two must-tries. The trinxat: a crushed mix of green cabbage and potatoes with crispy bacon, born in Pyrenean farms to feed people who worked hard in the cold 🥶. Rustic, generous, and much better than it sounds 😋. And the boles de picolat: meatballs simmered with green olives, porcini mushrooms, and a cinnamon stick in tomato sauce 🤌. To accompany it all, a red wine from the Côtes du Roussillon or a Collioure 🍷, neighboring appellations made for this cuisine 🍷 (to be consumed in moderation!). For dessert, the rousquilles are the region's iconic sweet since the 19th century 🍩.

Why choose between Spain and France when you can have both? ✌️