Cycling in Malaga - routes and bike hire please

fat bloke

I did some token due diligence searching on the forum but the newest hit was over 10 years old so I feel it's ok to ask again. A couple of us have four days booked in February. We were going to return to Calpe but the flights weren't the best and the Malaga schedule worked out better. It's a place I've been meaning to explore for a while so....

Anyway, I see Eat Sleep Cycle have a hub there for bike hire and they're usually presumably excellent, but undoubtedly pricey, guided cycle tours. We hired bikes from them in Girona and they were grand. They also had very good GPX routes to buy on their site - only a couple of euro each and we did them all pretty much. - I don't see the same thing offered for Malaga from them.

Anyway, long story short - as per the title. If anyone has been recently and would like to recommend a bike hire outlet and either share some Garmin routes or point me in the direction of some, that'd be super.

I know you can access all sorts of routes on a Garmin device itself and we've done that but the routes can be a bit hit or miss. With a short trip you want to be hitting the ground running with dependable tried and tested routes and a prompt and efficient bike hire place.

Tipperarymike

I'm heading to Malaga in 10 days for a solo week and will let you know how I get on and send you a few routes if they work out. It will be my first time there so there probably are better lads placed to advise.

timbel

I used Kamaga bike hire the couple of times I was there. They do a delivery and collection service which was handy.

Have a few routes done out on the work laptop which I will post during the week when back in office.

fat bloke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121555631#Comment_121555631

I came across this site today

https://www.bike2malaga.com/en/cycling-routes-malaga-andalusia/road-bike-routes-malaga

It has 20 or so routes starting from Malaga and with a bit of jiggery pokery you can download gpx files. They link to Strava but you need full membership of Strava to download from there. There's a 2nd link to a site called wikiloc, which is never heard of, but if you sign up for a free account of that you can download the gpx as a file on your phone and if you click on the download to open in Garmin Connect you can see the route / course which you can then send to your Garmin.

I've been caught with such before where in actuality / on the ground the routes weren't great but you never really know until you try them in the field.

Anyway, they might prove useful to you and you could report back on their usability or accuracy! :).

If you like, pm me an email address or something and I can send you the ones I've downloaded if it's not working for you.

fat bloke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121555703#Comment_121555703

Kamaga have nice looking Bianchis! I wonder would they deliver to Malaga

nilhg

I used bike2malaga back in 2014, they were absolutely perfect for me back then, in the city centre close to the train station, we were out in Fungirola and I just popped in and picked up the bike.

https://www.strava.com/activities/213099459

-If you look at my strava history a few days either side of that you'll see the spins I did, the one up to Peurto de Leon was one that sticks out for me.

timbel

Delivered to me in Torremolinos which is next door

Daroxtar

I had a bike from Kamaga back in June. Bianchi sprint with disc brakes. Really nice guy delivered to Fuengirola.

You could do a nice loop taking in the climb up to the TV antenna over Mijas, a right good one if you like 10% gradients then on over to Alhaurin El Grande, Alhaurin el Torre and back to Malaga for about 85km with 2000m climbing

monkeyslayer

Been to Malaga a few times, its great place to cycle. Steve from https://cyclenerja.com/ is a gent and would drop bikes up to Malaga for you no problem and collect. Very sound. Not sure what he has to rent at moment as he updated his fleet since I used him. The guys in Bikestardo in Marbella are cool too, and will deliver and collect etc. Eatsleepcycle are cool but very expensive and often sold out so get your booking in early. They do have some lovely bikes tho.

seanin4711

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121555631#Comment_121555631

any update on this for routes and bike Hire?

Feb 6th -13th mid term with the kids.

out early for 3-4 hours in the morning before anyone knows i am gone.

I am planning to be based around Alhaurin el Grande(25mins inland from Coast) nearest town fuengirola

Cycling Costa Del Sol - Your ultimate guide to cycling Routes, Climbs, Hotels, Bike Rental & Events (completetravel.co.uk)

Tipperarymike

To update on this, I ended up taking my own bike but I got the lads at Eat Sleep Cycle to rebuild my bike and repack it for me. I would highly recommend them , I don't know much on the rental side of things, they seemed pretty busy with that and it was mostly fairly high end bikes..

I'd recommend both these loops

https://www.strava.com/activities/9827444352

https://www.strava.com/activities/9833621430

https://www.strava.com/activities/9827444352

Other spins I did were point to point and probably not of much use to you from Fuengirola if you want to keep it to 3/4 hour spins. The climbs in general were excellent, surfaces ideal and roads were so quiet in places. On a couple of days I probably didn't meet a car for maybe 20k.

fat bloke

Any tips for getting out of Málaga? I've heard from several people now that that is the major hurdle!

Tipperarymike

Tbh I didn't find it as bad as I was expecting it to be. There are a heap of traffic lights but traffic wise I'd say it depends on the route. We were staying on Calle Marmoles which is on the eastern side of the 'river'. I think that river is just an inlet for flooding from the sea maybe?. Anyway point I'm making us that going out via Calle Marmoles was easy compared to going in the direction of Torremolinos etc. I tried that one day and I hated it, ended up going on the bike path but ended up getting a handy spill as it started to rain, the path was lethal enough in those conditions.

As for a suggestion I'd be inclined to get north as quickly as you could and then maybe branch east or west off to run parallel to the coast road. Definitely for me starting from Calle Marmoles made it a lot easier

fat bloke

Well! I think Málaga is one of my new favourite places in the world. The city is fabulous, great buzz, vibrant atmosphere, deadly restaurants. The airport is right close to the city for arriving and leaving. The flight times are great to and from Dublin. Roads are stupendously fabulous. Bike hire worked great. Weather was delightful.

I could keep going here, I just loved it.

We took routes from the address I posted above. Started out with this:

Then the following day

Followed by

And the last day cos we were tired and were leaving for home and had to sort bikes etc we did an out and back 70k 1000m.

As per advice above we quickly realised that getting out of the city to the north was the best way to get away from cars and traffic lights etc. Once you were in the hills you had the place to yourself for miles and miles and miles. There were lots of routes to the east and west I wanted to try but the 8 to 10km of stop start city cycling at the beginning or end of a long spin was a deal-breaker.

Kamaga bikes provided us with 2 really nice, and brand new for 2024, Bianchi Specialissimas. Ultegra di2. Decently light, and they dropped and collected. They're actually based in Marbella and he said Marbella first have that traffic or suburban sprawl issue, but then you need to factor in a longer airport transfer.

Anyway, hope the above helps anyone looking to go and try it out. I thought it was class but, to be fair, I've yet to come across anywhere in Spain that wouldn't provide you with a safe, scenic and memorable cycling holiday.

Alexzont

Brilliant! Heading there for 2 weeks in April so definitely going to use some of these routes

fat bloke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121795951#Comment_121795951

2 weeks???! Aw man. Jealous!

Eat Sleep Cycle have a group spin from the shop every Saturday if you wanted to change things up. If you're going out every day for a fortnight then you'll probably get enough of the routes to the North so you'll have to suck up the commute kilometres in and out of the city, but I'd say they're worth it. I'd have have loved to do the "El Churro" routes to the west - in fairness, after about 5 or 6 km you get onto one of those "rutas de cyclistas" where traffic is max 50kph and the drivers are all extremely courteous (which they were everywhere tbh.)

Also, be wary of our second route - it was bloody hard and then that run from torre del mar along the coast back into Malaga was pan flat but tortuously long and into a headwind and also it was getting late and a bit dark. It was one of the longest 30 odd km of our lives!

nilhg

When I was there 7 or 8 years ago I went in and out from Torremolinos on the train to Malaga a couple of times, there were cyclists with bikes on the train, obviously skipping the heavy traffic areas to get out west for a spin, always an option if you were staying in the city, there's a line that goes out to Alora too I think