Mallorca's climbs, measured · Palma
Puig de sa Coma Fosca from Gènova
The road to Puig de sa Coma Fosca goes up and stops: there is no way onward, so it is ridden up and back down the same way. The way there is the Ma-1044 / Carrer de Miquel Lladó. From Gènova it is 5.3 km and 340 m, an average of 6.4%, finishing at 393 m.
No kilometre measured on Mallorca is steeper than this climb's worst: 15.6%. It saves the worst for last: the steepest kilometre starts at km 4.3 with 190 m already behind you. 40% of it is at 8% or steeper. The nearest town on this island you can actually book a bed in is Palma — 4.3 km of road to the foot of the climb.
Build a week around this climb →
Gènova is not the foot of the climb: 2.0 km of road separates the village from the lowest point, and that distance is not in any figure on this page. The climb is measured from where the road stops going down — which on this one means you will have ridden 2.0 km before the numbers below start.
The shape of it
- Length
- 5.3 km
- Height gained
- 340 m
- Average gradient
- 6.4%
- Steepest kilometre
- 15.6%
from 53 m at the foot to 393 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 4.3
Kilometre by kilometre
The worst whole kilometre below runs from km 4.0, at 12.5%. No kilometre of it goes backwards — you climb 362 m and keep it.
Every kilometre of the climb to Puig de sa Coma Fosca from Gènova
| Kilometre | Gradient | Altitude at the end |
|---|---|---|
| 0.0 – 1.0 | 1.7% | 70 m |
| 1.0 – 2.0 | 4.3% | 113 m |
| 2.0 – 3.0 | 2.7% | 140 m |
| 3.0 – 4.0 | 7.8% | 218 m |
| 4.0 – 5.0 | 12.5% | 343 m |
| 5.0 – 5.3 | 16.8% | 392 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 7 August 2026.
How much of the climb sits at each steepness
| Gradient | Distance | Share of the climb |
|---|---|---|
| downhill | 0.9 km | 17% |
| 0–4% | 0.8 km | 15% |
| 4–6% | 0.9 km | 17% |
| 6–8% | 0.5 km | 9% |
| 8–10% | 1.2 km | 23% |
| 10%+ | 0.9 km | 17% |
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 7 August 2026.
The bends, counted
Counted from the road centreline rather than from memory: 1 hairpin on this side, where a hairpin is a turn of at least 135° taken inside 150 m of road. The one is at km 4.3. Drop the distance condition and count every turn of 135° however long it takes, and the figure is 2 — which is why published hairpin counts disagree with each other.
That puts this road 72th of the 116 climb-sides with a bend count, at 0.2 hairpins per kilometre. The twistiest roads on Mallorca has the whole ranking, the rule the count uses, and four published counts checked against the road they were counted on.
Every hairpin on the climb, in the order you meet them
| Kilometre | Turn | Taken within | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.3 | 180° | 109 m | left |
How we got this Bearings are taken every 5 m along the OpenStreetMap centreline and consecutive turns in the same direction are added into one bend; a bend ends when the road has turned 25° back the other way. A bend of at least 135° within 150 m of road is a hairpin. One script applies that rule to all 116 climb-sides it can reproduce.Computed from the same OpenStreetMap centreline the gradients are measured along.Computed 6 August 2026.
Where it stands
Its steepest kilometre averages 15.6% against an island median of 7.1%, so it is steeper than the middle of the set. It gains more than the 192 m the median climb-side here gains, and the table puts every other measure beside the same middle.
Puig de sa Coma Fosca from Gènova, against all 75 published climb-sides
| Measure | This climb | Island median | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Height gained | 340 m | 192 m | 10 of 75 |
| Length | 5.3 km | 5.0 km | 35 of 75 |
| Average gradient | 6.4% | 4.5% | — |
| Steepest kilometre | 15.6% | 7.1% | 1 of 75 |
| Altitude at the top | 393 m | — | 23 of 75 |
| Difficulty index | 2.2 | — | 4 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 — which is what makes the comparison worth more than the individual figures. 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 7 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 15.6% — 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 Grinding at 38 rpm, and even a 40-tooth sprocket does not fix it at this power. This is a gradient for a smaller chainring. 15.6% for a kilometre · 5.5 km/h · 38 rpm in a 34×30
Puig de sa Coma Fosca — Gènova is 5.3 km and gains 340 m, and its hardest continuous kilometre averages 15.6%. 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 | 6.4% | 12.2 | 84 | Turning 84 rpm — the gear is not the problem here. |
| On its steepest kilometre | 15.6% | 5.5 | 38 | Grinding at 38 rpm, and even a 40-tooth sprocket does not fix it at this power. This is a gradient for a smaller chainring. |
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 site’s own measured average and steepest-kilometre gradients for each climb, plus the gear and rider figures you enter.Computed 7 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 — ask for the ratio this calculator says you need, by name. We have no bike-hire partner, so there is nothing to recommend there; 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.
The air at the top, and what the way down feels like
You finish this climb 340 m above where you started it, and the air knows. In January — the coldest month at this top — the foot of the climb averages 14.0 °C around 12:00 while the top averages 11.2 °C. That is an arm-warmer's worth: 2.8 °C bought with 340 m of climbing. In July the same top sits at 28.0 °C.
Then you turn round. Going down at 30–50 km/h you make your own wind, and at 08:00 in January the air at this top — 6.5 °C standing still — feels like 2.0 °C at the slower speed and 0.7 °C at the faster one. By 12:00 the air at this top has climbed back above the range the index is published for, in every month of the year: the cold descent from here is an early one, not a high one. Whatever you would wear on the way up, the way down is the reason the gilet is in the pocket.
The air at Puig de sa Coma Fosca, month by month
| Month | Foot, 08:00 | Top, 08:00 | Top, 12:00 | Descending, 08:00 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7.6 °C | 6.5 °C | 11.2 °C | 0.7 °C – 2.0 °C |
| February | 7.1 °C | 6.7 °C | 12.1 °C | 1.0 °C – 2.3 °C |
| March | 9.8 °C | 8.5 °C | 13.3 °C | 3.4 °C – 4.6 °C |
| April | 11.7 °C | 10.4 °C | 15.5 °C | — |
| May | 15.7 °C | 14.4 °C | 19.0 °C | — |
| June | 20.6 °C | 19.4 °C | 24.0 °C | — |
| July | 23.2 °C | 22.4 °C | 28.0 °C | — |
| August | 22.7 °C | 22.0 °C | 27.7 °C | — |
| September | 19.9 °C | 18.8 °C | 24.3 °C | — |
| October | 14.9 °C | 13.9 °C | 19.3 °C | — |
| November | 11.9 °C | 10.6 °C | 14.7 °C | — |
| December | 9.2 °C | 8.3 °C | 13.1 °C | 3.2 °C – 4.4 °C |
How we got this Hourly readings from two stations 1,007 m apart, paired so that every figure is a difference between two instruments reading the same instant. The temperature at 393 m is read between them and never projected past the upper one. The descent column is the wind chill index at 30–50 km/h of the rider's own air, printed only inside the range its publisher states it holds, and taken at 08:00 because that is the hour it speaks about at every top on this island.Computed from 27,536 paired hours at 8 m and 1,015 m, 2018–2021.Computed 17 August 2026.
Two thermometers 1,007 m apart define a line, not a surface, so a top on the north coast reads a figure taken across the island. Every figure here is measured under an open sky: where the mountain's own shadow lies, read the table as the warm version of the morning. What the temperatures do across the whole island, and what to put in the pocket, is on the kit guide.
What else is close
What else is up here, if this one turns out to be short of a day. Distances are straight-line between the summits, not by road — in the Tramuntana the road between two tops four kilometres apart can be fifteen.
Measured climbs nearest to Puig de sa Coma Fosca
| Climb | Straight line | Comarca | Height gained | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coll dels Tords from Calvià | 1.8 km | Serra de Tramuntana | 160 m | 2.2% |
| Coll dels Tords from Establiments | 1.8 km | Serra de Tramuntana | 201 m | 2.8% |
| Coll de sa Creu from Gènova | 1.9 km | Palma | 248 m | 4.9% |
| Coll de sa Creu from Gènova | 2.1 km | Serra de Tramuntana | 304 m | 5.0% |
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 7 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 how to read it
- 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.
- Where a road reaches a tunnel mouth without going through it, the model has already climbed the hill the road is about to pass under, so the last metres are dropped rather than measured. One climb-side on the island is affected and its page says how far short of the portal its figures stop.
- 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 Gènova to Puig de sa Coma Fosca 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 7 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.
Gènova is the last named place before this climb, 2.0 km short of the foot — near enough to be riding it before the legs are warm. Somewhere to stay the night before. Otherwise it is a hire car from Palma, like most of the island. Both links are marked and pay us if you use them.
Puig de sa Coma Fosca 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.