Coll de Sóller

The old pass road over the Tramuntana into Sóller, more than fifty hairpins packed into a handful of miles, left almost to itself since the tunnel opened in 1997.

Before the 1997 Sóller tunnel opened, every car crossing to the valley had to take this serpentine over the Coll de Sóller, and the engineers packed it with switchbacks, roughly thirty a side and more than fifty in total. From Bunyola the road winds up through pine and rock to the 508 metre col, then unspools down the far side into Sóller. The surface is narrow and a little cracked, the corners are tight and stacked close together, and because most traffic now takes the tunnel it is usually quiet apart from cyclists who love it. It is short but intense, a hairpin exercise rather than a high-speed run. Mind very tight stacked hairpins with limited sightlines, many cyclists on the climb, and an uneven, sometimes greasy surface.