10 Gravel rides in Ontinyent

We ride out and back from our base in Ontinyent. There's a life times worth of trails in every direction of the compass and most of guests barely scratch the surface of what's available in the area during a visit. Most comeback to explore more. The following routes all start in Ontinyent and form the first 20-30km of some of my favourite local routes. It's by no means exhaustive! Beyond these starting sections, there are hundreds of km's of routes. Here, I don't cover the following areas that we ride :

• Serra Enguera north of Moixent

• Camino de Santiago between Xativa and Font de la Figuera

• Lots of the routes west of Fontanars

• Serra Mariola, south of Bocairent

• Font Freda and the Carricola valley, west of Cova Alta

• Vall d'Albaida and Montaverner valley

• Font roja and the Sierra de reconco (Biar)

• Almansa and into the Albacete region

• North and west of Xativa

• Via Verde Serpis

• Via Verde Xixarra

• Via Verde Villena

• Sierra Aitana the Carresqueta and into Alicante
  

Classic Fontanars 100km route We head west to the Valencia border near Caudete via the wine town of Fontanars. There are many different variations there and back. This one takes the valley trails and the mountain foothills, without major single climbs. The route profile below shows how much off road you get. Nearly all of it! But charming little towns are never far away and there's always the possibility of adding tarmac sections to speed things up, add distance or take it easy.

Cabezo Gordo - Fat head trail Perhaps the hardest climb in Ontinyent? It takes broken back roads before hitting the mail trail to the summit of the Portixol climb, continuing on to Pico Balarma.

Sant Esteve A stunning climb on the tiny 4.5km concrete path to the church before giving way to the gravel climb to Pico Balarma and over the Serra Grossa mountain range towards Moixent.

THE ridge climb onto the Serra Agullent range, affording stunning views of the Vall d'Albaida and Serra Mariola natural park.

Pico Balarma

One of 5 main routes to the summit of Pico Balarma. This one crosses the valley west of Ontinyent at the start of the Tuscany of Valencia. taking on some of the Gr7 before tackling an 8km climb to the summit.

Ontinyent to Bocairent One of many ways to traverse the mountains that separate Ontinyent from Bocairent

Port del Moro A 20km gravel climb followed by our favourite gravel descent of nearly 10km

Turmalet A 5km climb rising to the ridge, following to the foothills of the Cova Alta range.

Fontanars The mid mountain gravel route on the north side of the Ontinyent valley, one of many routes west.

The zig zags The first 5km is now tough on a gravel race bike, due to the storm damaged surface. After that, it's gravel heaven all the way to the Moro summit. 45c tyres recommended as well as easy gears.