Coll de Sóller
Mallorca
Gradient by colour: under 3% 3–6% 6–9% 9%+
Stats computed from OpenStreetMap and satellite elevation data — approximate.
Coll de Sóller is a 7.3 km cycling climb averaging 4.4% (+321 m), rising from 181 m to 502 m in Mallorca.
Sixty-two hairpins that the 1997 road tunnel handed to cyclists: traffic fell from 4,000 vehicles a day to under a thousand, and the 1874 pass road became one of the best known climbs on the island. Ca'n Topa waits at the 497 m summit sign.
Kritzolina
CFiesta
Frank Vincentz
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Where it bites
Steepest 500 m: 6.0% (km 4–4.4).
Road: paved throughout
| km | to | avg |
|---|
| 1 | 197 m | 1.8% |
| 2 | 244 m | 4.2% |
| 3 | 289 m | 5.1% |
| 4 | 340 m | 4.5% |
| 5 | 382 m | 4.5% |
| 6 | 433 m | 5.0% |
| 7 | 490 m | 5.8% |
What it’s like to ride
Coll de Sóller is the old Ma-11A, the main road over to Sóller until the road tunnel opened in 1997, and since bikes are banned from that tunnel the pass has effectively become a cyclists' road. From Bunyola you turn off the Ma-11 just before the tunnel mouth and settle into a steady 5%, around twenty sweeping hairpins between traditional Mallorcan dry stone walls, gentle enough to hold momentum, with good visibility through the corners and the valley widening behind you. The Sóller side is the harder one, roughly 7.4 km at 6% with pitches of 9–10%, narrower, shadier and tighter in its bends; between the two flanks the pass counts more than 60 hairpins. The summit sign stands at 497 m with Ca'n Topa right beside it, a whitewashed old farmhouse café where pro training camps and first-timers both stop, homemade snacks and freshly squeezed juice, views over Palma Bay and the Sóller valley, and a small pool customers are welcome to use; D'alt des Coll sits a little further along the road with proper food and a shaded terrace. Going down, the curves are tight and constant and gravel and small rocks collect in them, so have your brakes and tyres sorted before you drop in.
History
Sóller could be reached from the rest of Mallorca only by sea or by mule over the Tramuntana until 1847, when a cart road begun in 1833, paid for by the town's own residents and built with their own labour, finally opened. The road over the col was built in 1874, narrow and needing 70 curves of only a few metres' radius to cross the 497 m saddle and drop into the valley. It carried everything moving between Palma and Sóller until the 2,988 m road tunnel opened to traffic in 1997, cutting the run from 50 minutes over 37 km of pass road to 25 minutes. Traffic fell with it, from around 4,000 vehicles a day to 956 by 2005 while 8,456 took the tunnel. That left the 62 bends of the crossing to cyclists and walkers, and it is now one of the best known cycling climbs on the island.
Common questions
- How long and steep is Coll de Sóller?
- Coll de Sóller is a 7.3 km cycling climb averaging 4.4% (+321 m), rising from 181 m to 502 m in Mallorca.
- Where is Coll de Sóller steepest?
- The steepest 500 m averages 6.0%, between km 4 and km 4.4 of the climb.
- How many hairpins does Coll de Sóller have?
- Coll de Sóller has 23 hairpin bends, counted from the road's map geometry (a hairpin here means at least 150 degrees of turning completed within 150 metres of road). Painted corner numbers on some climbs count gentler bends too, so the two figures can differ.
- What is the road surface like on Coll de Sóller?
- Coll de Sóller is paved throughout.
7.3 km · +321 m · 4.4% avg · ~6.0% max · 181 → 502 m · 23 hairpins