The Top Motorcycle Roads in Northern Spain: The Pyrenees Mountains (Part 1)
What makes the Pyrenees a top destination for riding your motorcycle is world-class scenery and nature, but also the regions and cities that bookend the mountain range. On one side, you have the Basque Country with its beautiful, raw nature and unmatched food culture; I recommend Antonio’s in San Sebastián, where the sauce on their prawn ravioli pincho (ravioli de langostino) deserves its own feature article. And on the other side, you’ll find Costa Brava, a criminally underrated section of the Mediterranean coastline, and the Mediterranean urban hub of Barcelona located just 1-1.5 hrs from the foothills of the Pyrenees. We’ve highlighted some of the best roads along the Pyrenees in Part 1 of The Top Roads in Northern Spain.
Several of these roads are featured in our Pyrenees Motorcycle Tour guide, which includes the GPX file you can upload to your mobile phone or GPS unit. We’ve added checkpoints along the way that highlight quaint towns, great lunch spots, and campsites if you choose to make it a camping holiday.
C-13 between Cellers and Camarasa
This is a must-ride route that you go out of your way for. Fortunately, it’s on a main artery road, so you don’t have to go far out of your way to ride it—it’s easily incorporated into a larger tour.
There are routes where you are in the middle of a valley or up on the ridge of a mountain, and your entire field of view is filled with expansive, natural beauty, giving the opposite sensation of claustrophobia. This is one of those routes. This 30 km stretch of road offers a "larger-than-life" perspective in stark contrast to our normal day-to-day experience, which is typically limited to 10 meters from our noses.
Surrounded by impressive rock faces in deep red hues, you can momentarily forget civilization as you are overcome by natural beauty. A film buff might feel the scenery evokes sentiments of Jurassic Park or Avatar.
Rating: 5/5
Distance: 33 km
Difficulty: 3/5
Sector: Eastern Pyrenees
L-511 between Coll de Boixols (18 km marker) to Coll de Faidella (28 km marker)
It’s a wonderful stretch of road, offering great views and a challenging path that can test your skill, only if you decide to push it. Also, with many of the turns, you can see what's coming on the other side, allowing you to dip the bike harder into the corner at speed with greater confidence.
We also appreciated the vegetation around the road as we rode it during the autumn. Many of the routes in the Pyrenees are covered in alpine trees that don’t change color much, but this stretch of the L-511 does. It also passes through Boixols, a town with a community center and four homes, and we love a quaint Spanish town in the hills.
Rating: 4/5
Distance: 10 km
Difficulty: 4.5/5
Sector: Eastern Pyrenees
BV-4031
This is a fun little route that’s a departure from the other roads in the area. The surrounding geography provides a very secluded feeling; it’s rocky with little vegetation, and you’re more likely to come across wild, roaming sheep and horses than other people.
This road takes you up to 2,000 meters (~6,500 ft.) above sea level, where climate conditions are very unpredictable—rain and fog can give way to clear skies just 100 meters (330 ft.) down the road. The edges of the roadway are marked with 3-meter-high red and white rods for when the mountain gets a healthy amount of snowfall.
Rating: 4/5
Distance: 30 km
Difficulty: 4.5/5
Sector: Eastern Pyrenees
N-260
The N-260 is the most popular road to ride in the Pyrenees, and for good reason. It’s the main country road that traverses the length of the mountain range, offering a combination of otherworldly views along with the convenience of a main transportation artery. There are sections that will challenge your riding skills, but for the most part, it’s a wide road with gentle curves that allow you to fully take in the surrounding nature. And if you want to carve up the countryside a bit harder or get more “off-the-beaten-track,” you can pop off the main road on little side quests in search of the best Spanish roast lamb or quaint hamlets where time has stood still since their medieval founding.
You can create a full trip with the N-260 as the main feature with little trips branched off of it, or ride sections of the route that fit into a wider tour you are creating. Either way, the N-260 is always a safe bet when selecting a good motorcycle route in Northern Spain.
Best Sections of the N-260
Google Maps
Rating: 4/5
Distance: 13 km
Difficulty: 2/5
Sector: Eastern Pyrenees