Pick a mountain, any mountain. Alpe d’Huez? Add three hairpins and two per cent to its average gradient. Ventoux? Subtract Chalet Reynard and the shop at the summit. Hardknott Pass? Add 11km of distance and 1,100m of elevation. The Galibier or Stelvio? Deduct all the motorised sightseers and overpriced fromage and gelato. What are you left with? Possibly the longest, toughest, quietest European climb you’ve never heard of – Mont Caro in Catalonia, Spain.
It’s a climb so challenging and off-the-beaten-track that the Vuelta a España has never been up it. Spain’s oldest bike race, the Volta a Catalunya, has only been halfway, stopping at a point known as El Portell, ‘The Gateway’. The gateway to what exactly isn’t made clear, but beyond is a landscape too rugged and hostile for the modern comforts that accompany a professional bike race. It’s the domain of Iberian ibex, wild cats, snakes, vultures and eagles, not luxury team coaches and corporate VIP enclosures.
It was almost exactly a year ago that I made it to the summit of Mont Caro and quietly vowed, ‘Never again’
The road is narrow, its surface neglected and crumbling at the edges. The hairpins resemble childlike squiggles rather than precision-engineered arcs, gouged rather than sculpted into the limestone rockface. It’s a climb that is cruel and unforgiving, which rather makes me wonder why I have come back here for a second go.
Big Mig and me
It was almost exactly a year ago that I made
