Did you know that when WorldTour pros and amateurs alike are fastening their seat belts in preparation for landing en route to Denia and Calpe, they are actually flying over cycling terrain that is even better than where they’re headed.

For just 170km further north lies the province of Castellon, still part of the Comunidad Valenciana, and offering a wealth of spectacular roads with none of the hype and at times crowdedness experienced just down the coast.

Roughly half the size of Alicante – the province where you’ll find the pro winter hideaway of Denia and Calpe – Castellon is the second most mountainous region out of 50 in Spain, and when you consider that only Switzerland is classified as more mountainous than Spain in the whole of Europe, you begin to understand just how hilly this little pocket of land pressed up against the Mediterranean really is.

It’s why Mathieu van der Poel keeps coming back year after year, and why former British pro Tim Harris took the EF-Education-Tibco-SVB women’s team there on a training camp in the winter just gone.  “I’ve been all around Europe but Castellon is the best place to ride a bike – it’s got absolutely everything,” says Harris.

Inspired, we went to see what all the fuss was really about, and tested our legs on four different routes, each one including a must-do climb.

This article was published in Cycling Weekly in May 2023. You can read the full article here.