Difficult to
climb and even more difficult to locate, the Spanish press once referred to the
Sierra
de la Pandera as the ‘Angliru' of the
South’. While this is something of an overstatement given Angliru’s incessantly
agonizing upper slopes, the Pandera nevertheless has its own share of misery;
particularly the 15 per cent gradients that drift along its denuded ridge for
over four torturous kilometres. But the mountain holds a wonderful sense of
fascination as well.
Only 21
kilometres apart, the Andalucía towns of Los Villares and Valdepeñas de Jaén
are the gateways to la Pandera. More or less half way between them, along the
wide and sweeping A-6060, is a rather inconspicuous rusty green gate that lies
half-hidden by trees off what you’d assume is a driveway rather than another road.
But it’s a road all right, the virtually abandoned A-1104, which like a flight
of lighthouse stairs wends its way slowly up towards the military radar station
at the summit. From this point the road is closed to motorized vehicles save
for bulldozers and trucks that frequent the dust-ridden quarry just metres from
the road’s edge. In essence, this is really where the true climb begins, a 7.6
per cent average gradient along a four-metre-wide strip of rough asphalt that
ironically merges into sections of loose gravel the higher it travels.
Moving slowly
along in magnificent isolation - albeit beneath thin veils of white quarry dust
- it was difficult to imagine the procession of motor vehicles, television
cameras and spectators that would have accompanied the cyclists on the four
occasions that the Vuelta a España has finished on la Pandera’s summit. It
fact, the now iconic mountain wasn’t even considered for a stage in the Spanish
Grand Tour until 2002, in what
was the 57th edition of the race.
Fittingly, it was a Spaniard, Roberto Heras
who became the first cyclist to reach the top. The mountain has been visited on
no less than three occasions since, in 2003, 2006 and most recently, 2009, when
Italian cyclist Damiano
Cunego won the 144 kilometre stage from Granada to the summit of the Pandera.
Other than the
road and the intermittent yellow signs warning cyclists of the next 15 per cent
gradient, I had little in common with Cunego’s day on the mountain. Keeping his
competitors at bay he would have had little time, nor inclination to absorb the
views on offer. But there are plenty to be had and they are spectacular,
whether the Sierra Nevada, almost one hundred kilometres to the southeast or
the 13th century Castillo
de Santa Catalina which, like a sentinel, watches over the white-walled
town of Valdepeñas de Jaén from high above.
One of the
Vuelta's less used climbs today is the Sierra de la Pandera. Perhaps not the
easiest venue for accompanying team cars and camera crews, it's nevertheless an
intriguing and mystical climb, typical of the rugged Spanish
South.
Books by Mark Krieger:
‘High Spain Drifter’ is available on Amazon , Barnes and Noble, Booktopia and other online bookstores.
‘Lycra, Lattes and the Long Way Round’ is available on Amazon, Book Depository, Barnes and Noble, Kobo Books
Both books are also available at local bookshops on the Mornington Peninsula: @ Rosebud Bookbarn and @ La Brocante
Books by Mark Krieger:
‘High Spain Drifter’ is available on Amazon , Barnes and Noble, Booktopia and other online bookstores.
‘Lycra, Lattes and the Long Way Round’ is available on Amazon, Book Depository, Barnes and Noble, Kobo Books
Both books are also available at local bookshops on the Mornington Peninsula: @ Rosebud Bookbarn and @ La Brocante
“When I see an adult on a bicycle, I
do not despair for the future of the human race.” H. G.
Wells
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