Mallorca's climbs, measured · Serra de Tramuntana
Coll d'en Portell from Establiments
The Ma-1040 crosses coll d'en Portell at 213 m. Climbed from Establiments it is 5.0 km long and gains 121 m, an average of 2.4%.
Its steepest kilometre averages 4.7%, starting at km 4.0 — gentler than the 7.1% median of every climb measured here. Of the 75 climb-sides in this catalogue it is the 66th biggest by height gained — less than the 193 m median — and the 75th steepest over a kilometre.
The shape of it
- Length
- 5.0 km
- Height gained
- 121 m
- Average gradient
- 2.4%
- Steepest kilometre
- 4.7%
from 92 m at the foot to 213 m at the top
summit minus the lowest point on the road — not a running total of every rise
height gained over length
from km 4.0
Kilometre by kilometre
The hardest whole kilometre in the table below runs from km 4.0, at 4.7%. The road climbs the whole way, but not evenly: the rises along the series add up to 150 m against the 121 m between foot and summit, the difference being the short dips a 5 m model reads inside the climb. Every figure below is read off the same elevation series, sampled every 10 m and smoothed over 50 m.
Every kilometre of the climb to coll d'en Portell from Establiments
| Kilometre | Gradient | Altitude at the end |
|---|---|---|
| 0.0 – 1.0 | 4.0% | 132 m |
| 1.0 – 2.0 | 0.3% | 134 m |
| 2.0 – 3.0 | 0.5% | 140 m |
| 3.0 – 4.0 | 2.7% | 167 m |
| 4.0 – 5.0 | 4.7% | 213 m |
How we got this Elevation sampled every 10 m from the Instituto Geográfico Nacional's 5 m national terrain model along the OpenStreetMap centreline, then smoothed over 50 m. The final row is short where the climb does not end on a whole kilometre.Computed from IGN Elevacion4258_5 (CC BY 4.0 scne.es) and OpenStreetMap (ODbL).Computed 5 August 2026.
How much of the climb sits at each steepness
| Gradient | Distance | Share of the climb |
|---|---|---|
| downhill | 0.8 km | 16% |
| 0–4% | 2.7 km | 54% |
| 4–6% | 1.0 km | 20% |
| 6–8% | 0.4 km | 8% |
How we got this Measured over 100 m windows — short enough to be meaningful, long enough that a 5 m terrain model's own vertical noise does not dominate.Computed from the same elevation series.Computed 5 August 2026.
Where it stands, in a set measured the same way
Ranks are the reason this catalogue exists. Anywhere else, comparing two Mallorcan climbs means comparing one person's bike computer with another site's copy of a third site — here both sides of every row below came off the same script, measure-climbs.mjs, so the comparison is the part you can trust even where you argue with an individual number.
coll d'en Portell from Establiments, against all 75 published climb-sides
| Measure | This climb | Island median | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Height gained | 121 m | 193 m | 66 of 75 |
| Length | 5.0 km | 5.0 km | 38 of 75 |
| Average gradient | 2.4% | 4.5% | — |
| Steepest kilometre | 4.7% | 7.1% | 75 of 75 |
| Altitude at the top | 213 m | — | 61 of 75 |
| Difficulty index | 0.3 | — | 73 of 75 |
How we got this Rank among every climb-side published in this catalogue, all measured by one script from the same two datasets. The difficulty index is height gained squared, divided by ten times the length in metres — published so it can be argued with. Average gradient is not ranked: on its own it rewards short steep ramps over anything else.Computed from the 75 published climb-sides.Computed 5 August 2026.
The gear it asks for
The number that decides whether you ride up a climb or walk it is not its average. It is the steepest sustained kilometre, which here is 4.7% — so that is what this calculator is wired to. It opens on this climb; change the chainring, the cassette and your weight and it will tell you what cadence that gear actually turns.
The kilometre that decides it You would be out of this gear long before here: 106 rpm. The row is about the gradient, not about your bottom gear. 4.7% for a kilometre · 15.4 km/h · 106 rpm in a 34×30
coll d'en Portell — Establiments is 5.0 km and gains 121 m, and its hardest continuous kilometre averages 4.7%. That kilometre, not the average, is what your lowest gear has to survive.
| Where | Gradient | km/h | rpm | What that means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Over the whole climb | 2.4% | 22.4 | 154 | You would be out of this gear long before here: 154 rpm. The row is about the gradient, not about your bottom gear. |
| On its steepest kilometre | 4.7% | 15.4 | 106 | You would be out of this gear long before here: 106 rpm. The row is about the gradient, not about your bottom gear. |
A 34×30 on 28 mm tyres moves you 2.41 m per pedal revolution.
How we got this Cadence, development and speed-in-gear are exact arithmetic on the tooth counts and the wheel circumference (ETRTO 622 mm rim plus two tyre sections, × π). Speed from power is modelled: gravity + rolling resistance (Crr 0.005) + air (CdA 0.35 m², air 1.2 kg/m³), divided by 97.5% drivetrain efficiency. On these gradients gravity is the overwhelming term, but the rolling and drag figures are estimates rather than measurements. 60 and 100 rpm are the lines this tool draws between grinding, turning and spun out — conventions we chose, not findings; the cadence column is the number to argue with. Every row is computed in the gear you selected, which is why the gentler one can read as a cadence nobody pedals.Computed from this project’s own measured average and steepest-kilometre gradients for each climb, plus the gear and rider figures you enter.Computed 5 August 2026.
The cassette is the one specification worth putting in writing when you book a hire bike, and it is the one most often left to chance. We have no commercial relationship with any Mallorcan bike-hire company and will not invent one; what we can help with is a hire car to reach these roads from the airport, which is marked and pays us if you use it.
On the signposted network
The Consell de Mallorca signposts sixteen cycle-touring routes across the island and publishes them as prose — no track, no profile, no climb list. We reconstructed and measured all sixteen, which means we can say which of them ride this climb, in which direction, and at which kilometre of their day. Nothing here is matched by name: a route contains a climb only when its line passes within 120 m of both the foot and the summit, in that order for an ascent.
Official routes that ride coll d'en Portell from Establiments
| Route | Direction | At kilometre | Route length | GPX |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ermites de Ponent (Hermitages) | descends it | over the top at km 47.4 | 74.1 km | not published |
How we got this The route × climb join, computed from the two measured datasets. For an ascent the kilometres are the route's own, from the foot of the climb to its summit; for a descent only the summit crossing is recorded, because the route meets the top first. A route with no GPX is one whose reconstruction disagreed with the distance the Consell publishes by more than 5%, or whose loop did not close — its line is not published, but it still passes over this climb.Computed from the sixteen reconstructed official routes and this climb's measured foot and summit.Computed 5 August 2026.
What else is close
The nearest measured climbs, straight-line between summits. Straight-line and not by road, deliberately: in the Tramuntana the road between two summits four kilometres apart can be fifteen, and a figure that looks like a riding distance but is not one is worse than an honest approximation.
Measured climbs nearest to coll d'en Portell
| Climb | Straight line | Comarca | Height gained | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Puig de ses Rotes from Esporles | 0.6 km | Palma | 169 m | 6.5% |
| Canet from Esporles | 1.5 km | Palma | 137 m | 6.2% |
| coll de s'Heura from Esporles | 1.9 km | Serra de Tramuntana | 137 m | 5.2% |
| coll de s'Heura from Son Serralta | 1.9 km | Serra de Tramuntana | 222 m | 2.3% |
How we got this Great-circle distance between the two summit points, sorted ascending. Other sides of this same summit are excluded — they are in the section above.Computed from the published climb-sides and their summit coordinates.Computed 5 August 2026.
Or go back to the whole atlas, where all 75 climb-sides can be filtered and sorted at once.
How this was measured, and what it does not know
- The inventory is queried from OpenStreetMap rather than written down: every named pass on a paved road, and every named summit a paved road dead-ends at above 150 m. Each entry carries the OSM id of its top and of the village it starts from.
- Ways tagged as closed to the public — private, no, customers, permit — are removed from the road network before anything is routed, so no climb here is measured up somebody’s drive. A road shut to cars but open to bicycles is kept.
- The road is the OpenStreetMap centreline of whichever road actually crosses the pass — not a GPS trace of one ride, so no rider’s wander or lost signal is in the number.
- Elevation is sampled every 10 m from the Spanish national 5 m terrain model, and interpolated in a straight line through tunnels and over bridges, where a terrain model reads the mountain above or the valley below.
- The foot of the climb is the lowest point on that road between the summit and the named village. The distance from the village to the foot is reported separately, because on several of these climbs it is kilometres.
- Height gained is summit minus foot. It is not a running total of every rise, which depends entirely on the sampling interval and is the single biggest reason published figures disagree.
- Average gradient is height gained over length — not the mean of the per-sample gradients, which over-weights the flat bits.
- The steepest kilometre is the largest height gain over any 1,000 m window on the climb, sliding 10 m at a time.
How we got this Inventory queried from OpenStreetMap; the road walked from Establiments to coll d'en Portell on the filtered island road graph; elevation sampled every 10 m and smoothed over 50 m. Comarca from OpenStreetMap admin_level=7 boundaries by point-in-polygon.Computed from OpenStreetMap road centrelines (ODbL) and IGN Elevacion4258_5, Spain’s 5 m national terrain model (CC BY 4.0 scne.es).Computed 5 August 2026.
Sources, because these licences require the attribution: road geometry © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); elevation from the Instituto Geográfico Nacional (CC BY 4.0 scne.es); comarca boundaries from OpenStreetMap admin_level=7. This climb clears the 100 m the atlas requires of an entry; the ones that do not are listed there with their figures.
Getting here: Establiments is the village the climb starts from, so it is the sensible place to stay the night before if you want the road to yourself, and a hire car is how most riders reach this part of the island from Palma. Both links are marked and pay us if you use them. We have no arrangement with any Mallorcan bike-hire company, so there is nothing to recommend there and we are not going to invent one.
coll d'en Portell on one page
The splits and the profile for this climb, formatted to fold into a jersey pocket — plus a note when the measurement is revised.