Sierra de Gúdar and Valdelinares

Valdelinares holds an official title that is hard to believe when you see it for the first time: it is the highest inhabited municipality in the whole of mainland Spain, at an altitude of 1,692 metres. To put this into context, it is higher than most Swiss villages and almost 100 metres higher than the famous Trevélez in the Alpujarras (which long claimed the record). The village itself is modest — barely a hundred inhabitants in winter — but its very existence at that altitude, with stone houses clustered around the church, is a geographical rarity that makes the motorbike journey worthwhile just to see it. And the road leading there is probably the best in the whole of the Sierra de Gúdar.

The Sierra de Gúdar forms part of the Maestrazgo massif in Teruel but has its own distinct character: it is higher, more wooded, better preserved and, above all, home to the small but historic ski resort of Valdelinares, one of only two ski resorts in the south of the Iberian Peninsula (the other being Sierra Nevada). In winter it is blanketed in snow and the landscape is reminiscent of the Austrian Alps on a smaller scale. In summer, maximum temperatures rarely exceed 25°C, whilst in the rest of Aragon they hover around 40°C, making the area an ideal motorcycling retreat during the hottest months.

Mora de Rubielos, the natural starting point for the route, is another pleasant surprise. This small village in the Gúdar-Javalambre region was, during the 14th century, the capital of a powerful lordship linked to the Fernández de Heredia family, and as a reminder of that prosperity, it still boasts two unique gems: the Fernández de Heredia Castle, an imposing fortress-palace with a Renaissance inner courtyard; and the former Collegiate Church of Santa María, a Gothic church on a cathedral-like scale whose construction spanned over a hundred years and whose Baroque altarpiece is one of the most spectacular in Aragon. A stroll through Mora before heading up into the mountains is the best possible introduction.

The A-228 road from Mora to Alcalá de la Selva and Valdelinares is the backbone of motorcycling in the area. It is a continuous climb stretching for around 35 km, with wide, technical bends, road surfacing in good condition (the Teruel Provincial Council maintains it well due to the ski resort’s importance for tourism) and very little traffic outside of winter weekends. The summit of the climb, just before reaching Valdelinares, is a pass with no official name but stands at over 1,800 m, making it one of the highest tarmac-surfaced passes in Spain outside the Pyrenees and the Sierra Nevada. The views to the south, over the Maestrazgo and the valleys of Castellón, are vast.

An interesting fact for motorcyclists: Valdelinares has a very distinctive tradition of livestock farming linked to transhumance. Until the 1950s, every autumn the herds would make their way down from here on journeys lasting several days to the Valencian coast, following the ‘cañadas reales’ (royal cattle tracks) which still exist and can be explored (on a trail motorbike) along certain sections. The Cañada Real Conquense is one of the most important of these and crosses the Sierra de Gúdar from north to south. For lunch, stop off at the La Posada del Molinero restaurant in Alcalá de la Selva, where they serve roast lamb worthy of the finest rotisseries in Zaragoza, at village prices. Fill up in Mora before heading up: there are no petrol stations up there.