Cercedilla - Colmenar Viejo

Ride in Sierra Guadarrama, from Cercedilla train station to Colmenar Viejo train station.

To get to Cercedilla with a bike, it's fairly easily and comfortable with local trains (cercanias) from all major train station in Madrid: Atocha, Nuevos Ministeriosa and Chamartin.

0,0km at 1150m - Cercedilla train station. From the station trail goes to Las Dehesas parking area but not with main asphalt road but through the forest with dirt road. It is a bit of a climb at the beginning and later continues fairly flat to the parking.

7,1km at 1350m - Las Dehesas parking. Trail goes left to the dirt road in to the forest. Some nice fun ride here by the hiking path, but wide and good enough for mtb. Again a bit of climb before fun descent through the habitant area until Embalse de Navalmedio (a bit of adventure there as the path ended up with a fence around the lake and I had to jump and carry the bike over the fence!)

14,0km at 1290m - Embalse de Navalmedio. Trail continues south from here with asphalt to meet local road M-601 to Navacerrada and later turns sharp left to the town. I was hoping to pass to the lake with a path through fields but it came out impossible so I went back and continued with local roads to get out of the town and meet M-607

21,5km at 1170m - M-607. Trails follows local road until first roundabout (actually 200m before it) to take a small detour with dirt roads through village and come back on asphalt road soon after. After passing housing areas of Mataelpinio and El Boaco, trail meets local road M-608 in direction to Manzanares el Real.

36,7km at 900m - Manzanares el Real. At entrance to the town, at round about, trail goes south to the lake and small bridge. Here, a nice dirt road starts with first climb and later fun descent.

40,3km at 990m - Crossroads. Sharp left turn to even bigger dirt road and still fun downhill to the river.

45,4km at 850m - River under M-607. Downhill ends and really fun and technical section starts here through narrow path full of big rocks, all the way to Colmenar Viejo. Last part before train station done along the tracks.

53,7km at 810m - Colmenar Viejo train station. Back to Madrid/Chamartin with cercanias.

Level moderate just for overall distance and few climbs at the beginning. Really fun part before Colmenar, but also quite boring sections with local big roads.