Southern Spain Extreme

The pitch for this tour is simple: Andalusia has extraordinary roads and this itinerary is built to ride as many of them as a week allows. Edelweiss describes the country as mountain ranges stretching off in every direction, criss-crossed by motorcycling roads, and the tour as hopping from range to range and curve to curve all day. Daily stages of 205 to 360 kilometres are substantially longer than on the company's touring version of the same region. The loop starts in Málaga and the first stage is short by this tour's standards, running east to Viñuela in the hills behind the Costa del Sol. From there it climbs north to La Calahorra, a village under a Renaissance castle on the northern flank of the Sierra Nevada, crossing the Sierra de los Filabres on the way. The third riding day drops southeast to Almería, on the driest coast in Europe, where the rest day sits. The second half is the harder half. Out of Almería the route heads north through Las Alpujarras and over the Puerto de Tiscar into the Cazorla national park, staying at Burunchel inside it. The next stage crosses to Mengíbar in the olive country of Jaén, and the last runs back south over the ranges to Málaga, taking in Alhama de Granada, the Guadalcacín reservoir, the Puerto de las Palomas and the white towns strung along the Sierra de Cádiz. What the price covers is worth reading closely because it differs from the company's touring products. All eight nights in hotels chosen for regional flair, breakfast every day and seven dinners, motorcycle rental with unlimited mileage, third-party and comprehensive motorcycle insurance with a model-dependent deductible, a tour information pack in English or German, and English and German speaking guides riding with the group. There is no support van on this one, so luggage travels on your bike. Lunches, fuel, drinks and anything else not listed are excluded. The tour needs six riders to run and is not suited to people with limited mobility. Bikes range from a Honda NC750X through to a BMW R1300GS Adventure, and riders may bring their own.

Edelweiss sells this as the riding tour of Andalusia and the numbers back it up: nine days, seven of them riding, 1,782 to 1,989 kilometres in total and daily stages of 205 to 360. It starts and finishes in Málaga, not Seville, and spends its week hopping between mountain ranges rather than between cities. The route runs east to Viñuela, north to La Calahorra below the Sierra Nevada, down to Almería for a rest day, then up through Burunchel into the Cazorla national park, west to Mengíbar and back over the ranges to the coast. Highlights the company names include the Sierra de los Filabres, the Puerto de Tiscar, Alhama de Granada, the Puerto de las Palomas and the white towns. Hotels are chosen for regional character and luggage is not carried, so pack accordingly.