Pedalma Madrid to Barcelona 2026

The route

Pedalma's Madrid to Barcelona is the toughest road ultracycling event on the Spanish calendar: 700 km and 7,500 metres of climbing from CDM Margot Moles to Plaça del Tibidabo, with a 50-hour cut-off and a fully self-supported format. No support car, no aid stations beyond the six checkpoints, and the decision to sleep or not is on each rider. This is not a first ultra — it rewards riders who already have 400 and 600 km randonneurs in the legs.

The course flees onto secondary roads up the Henares corridor, climbs into the Alcarria highlands, crosses the Iberian System through Nuévalos and Calatayud, drops into the Ebro Valley at Belchite, and enters Catalonia via the Segre basin before the Penedès. The climbing is concentrated in the first half — most of the 7,500 m sit between Madrid and the Ebro — and the second half is faster but psychologically longer, with wind as the absolute lead character.

Wind decides who finishes and who scratches. In the Ebro Valley the northwesterly cierzo blows almost daily, with typical spring gusts of 30-50 km/h: if it catches you headwind from Belchite to Mequinenza, that is 119 km of exposed fight with no shade. If you get it as a tailwind, the same stretch flies by in three hours and you enter Catalonia with both time and legs. Planning the Madrid start while reading the Ebro forecast 24 hours ahead is what separates a beautiful finish from a slog. The Catalan section adds late-day sea breezes — more manageable but present.

Start is the last weekend of May at 10:30 Saturday, with the finish closing Monday at 13:00. Inside that window the wind shifts several times: that is why MoguWind shows the forecast wind profile at each of the six checkpoints, so riders can decide whether to push through the night or hold off, non-stop or split stops. Registration opens each September and sells out quickly. It is an event that rewards preparation, patience, and reading the weather as carefully as the elevation profile.

Variants and GPX

Past editions

Real Open-Meteo weather on each edition day.

How to register

Registration, price and rules are on the official website of the organization. Official march website →

More information

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Keep reading about planning routes with wind