Mountain Biking in the Sierra Calderona

The park

The Sierra Calderona is a protected natural park that runs between the provinces of Valencia and Castellón. Villages such as Náquera, Serra and Gátova sit on its edges, which makes it the closest real mountain riding to Valencia city. Our guided tours meet at Aparcamiento Calderona in Náquera.

Rock and landscape

The story of these hills starts around 250 million years ago, when sediment built up on a coastal plain that was sometimes under the sea. Two rocks shape what you ride on today. Red sandstone, known locally as rodeno, forms the most striking peaks, including Garbí, Picaio and Penyes Altes. Grey limestone forms the gentler hills and hides caves and sinkholes. Stone from a quarry near Serra ended up in the floor of the Cartuja de Portaceli monastery and in Valencia Cathedral.

Forest and plants

Aleppo pine covers much of the park. On the sandstone you also find maritime pine and cork oak, and these cork oak woods are some of the southernmost on Spain's Mediterranean coast. Between the trees grow strawberry tree, mastic, heather and rockrose, plus aromatic plants such as rosemary, thyme and lavender. In spring the trails smell of them.

A worked landscape

For centuries people earned a living from these hills. Stonecutters quarried sandstone for paving stones, kerbs and millstones. Lime and gypsum were fired in kilns for days at a time, and charcoal burners turned oak, carob and olive wood into fuel until the mid-20th century. Stone terraces, old kilns and quarry faces are still visible along many of the trails we ride.