Easy flat cycling in Mallorca: car-free paths near Alcúdia

If the mountains are somebody else’s holiday, stay in the bay of Alcúdia and ride the coast path.

It runs 12.6 km from Pollença to Alcúdia, it never touches a road a car may use, and it climbs 3 metres — not per kilometre, in total. Ridden the other way it costs 43 m. Of the seven publishers quoted in this guide, one mentions it, and calls it “This flat and well-maintained route offers mesmerizing views of the Mediterranean Sea on one side and the charming towns on the other.”. That is true, and the climbing figure tells you how flat.

Mallorca is sold to riders who come for Sa Calobra, and its flat riding usually gets a single adjective. In numbers, it is small and specific: 244.0 kilometres of road a motor vehicle may not use, broken into 91 separate pieces, of which 13 are long enough to be a ride and exactly one is longer than sixteen kilometres.

What counts as easy: cars, climbing and distance from your bed

Three things make a road easy, and they do not always come together. Lump them into one and you end up recommending the path with the most climbing on it, just because it has no cars. So each one is shown separately.

One caveat on the second class: an unnumbered road is a road with no number on it. That tells you nothing about how many cars use it, and a lane can still be busy. What it does tell you is that a route made only of these roads never joins the island’s numbered network, which is where the island’s traffic is.

How we got this A way counts as unnumbered when it carries no Ma- reference and is not classed trunk or primary. That is a property of the map and not a traffic count: it does not claim a lane is empty, only that a route using these ways never joins a numbered road.Computed from the ridable road graph the base cluster is measured on (trunk|primary|secondary|tertiary|unclassified|residential|living_street|cycleway).Computed 8 August 2026.

Thirteen rides, and only one of them is a day out

Check the climbing before the length. The hilliest traffic-free ride on Mallorca is a seafront path: 14.9 km from ses Illetes to Peguera through Calvià, 193 m of climbing and a ramp of 5.8%. With a child on the back of the bike, that ramp ends the afternoon. The word “promenade” gives you no warning.

Three of the thirteen have no climbing figure. They are the short ones; the ten you would plan a day around all have one.

How we got this Connected components of the segregated ways, plus stitches under 500 m over classes a car does not use. The crossing of a piece is the longest shortest-path between two of its nodes, found by double sweep — exact on a tree, a lower bound otherwise, so a crossing here is never overstated.Computed from the segregated network alone, as a graph in which roads do not exist.Computed 8 August 2026.

The Vía Verde: five published claims checked

Almost everything published about easy riding here is about one route. The old Manacor–Artà railway is 28.9 km end to end, and it is the only ride on Mallorca that is both traffic-free and long enough to fill a day. The pages quoted in this guide make five claims about it. 3 of 5 hold up against the measurements.

The traffic claim is the important one and it holds. Off the segregated network the route spends 759 metres: 470 m of unmarked path outside Manacor, 30 m more at Sant Llorenç des Cardassar, and 258 m of service road near Son Moro. There is no numbered road anywhere on it. For a family, that is what matters most, and it is true.

The surface claim will spoil your day if you believe it. Three quarters of the route is gravel, and three people who rode it say so, in two languages. VIEL UNTERWEGS (3 May 2026): “Die gesamte Strecke wurde mit Kies und Sand aufgeschüttet und rundherum viele Bäume gepflanzt.” Mallorca für Kinder calls it a “gut ausgebauter Schotter- & Asphaltweg”. And Family Friendly Mallorca (21 April 2026) puts the cost of it plainly: “It can feel like a bumpy ride after a while, so well-padded saddles (or padded cycling shorts) are your best bet for all comfort.” Bring wide, high-volume tyres and leave the race bike at home.

The flattest rides, by climbing per kilometre

Sort the paths by climbing per kilometre and the order changes completely. Pollença to Alcúdia is 0.2 m of climbing per kilometre. The Vía Verde is 6.9 m, 29.1 times as much, and the Calvià seafront is 12.9 m, or 54.4 times.

The north bay is the only place on Mallorca where a long traffic-free path, a truly level one and a town with beds are all in the same spot. Only 10 of the 18 base towns have a traffic-free ride within 10 km of the door.

Quiet country lanes away from the numbered roads

That leaves the other 6,372 kilometres. Three quarters of the island’s rideable network carries no number, but 3,006.0 km of that is streets inside towns. What you want is the country lane: OpenStreetMap’s unclassified, a public road outside the town streets. There are 2,832.4 km of it.

The towns with the most country lane at the door are not on this list at all. Inca has 355.1 km of country lane inside ten kilometres, which is 3.4 times the best published base (Platja de Muro, 105.3 km). At the other end, Port de Sóller, one of the best addresses on the island if you came to climb, has 11.0 km.

The towns in the Serra de Tramuntana, the mountain range along the west coast, have the least. Sóller, Port de Sóller, Valldemossa: the unnumbered network you can reach from each of them runs 6.2 km to 27.7 km, against 252.1 km in the north bay. In the mountains the lane network is a handful of dead ends off the Ma-10, because the mountain leaves room for one road.

How we got this Unnumbered road classed unclassified — a public road that is not a street — with both ends inside 10 km by road of the town's own node. Streets are excluded because a resort's own street grid is the bulk of its unnumbered kilometres and is not what the question is about.Computed from the same door measurement, applied to every town the base cluster measures.Computed 8 August 2026.

What it costs to avoid the numbers

Can you ride to the next town without joining a numbered road? Mostly, no. Of 101 pairs of base towns within 30 km of each other, 24 can be joined on unnumbered roads — 23.8% — and only 7 of those cost essentially nothing.

The most useful row is Port de Pollença to Alcúdia: 8.3 km either way, no numbered road, and it runs along the same corridor as the flattest path on the island. The longest free one is Palma to s'Arenal de Llucmajor, 12.9 km of it. The dearest is Alcúdia to Port d'Alcúdia, where staying off the numbers turns 2.2 km into 5.8 km.

The other 77 pairs cannot be joined at all without a numbered road. Check this before you plan a point-to-point with a nervous rider in the group, or you may find the only road is the Ma-road.

Gentle cols: a summit without the big mountains

The climb pages on the site cover climbs that gain 100 m or more, counting each direction up a pass separately. Forty-four measured passes fall under that bar. They are named cols with roads over them, measured on the same road data and the same terrain model as Puig Major, and they are what you want if you are after a summit without a mountain.

coll de Can Llompart from Sa Pobla is the gentlest road on the island that still arrives somewhere: 5.9 km at 1.0% for 59 m. And if you are already on the Vía Verde, 4 of these start from towns on it or beside it — coll d'Artà from Artà, Coll de Morell from Artà, coll de Son Catiu from Son Servera. A col is an easy afternoon’s add-on to a greenway holiday.

How we got this Climb-sides the atlas withholds for gaining less than 100 m, kept where they still gain at least 40 m, sorted by average gradient. Every figure is the same measurement the atlas publishes for the big ones — same graph, same terrain model, same rules.Computed from the 122 measured climb-sides in the island inventory.Computed 8 August 2026.

Know before you ride

The signposted routes are not traffic-free, and there are a lot of them

The map carries 45 signposted bicycle routes on this island, 682.8 km of them — the lettered circuits you will meet on brown signs in the Raiguer (the foothills below the mountains) and the west. 62.6 km of that total is traffic-free. The rest is road. A signpost shows you the way; it says nothing about the traffic. The longest of them (Ermites del Raiguer, 78.1 km) is on roads from end to end.

Half the painted lane is on a main road

Beside the 244.0 km a car may not use, the island carries 118.9 km of painted cycle lane on 400 roads — and 58.7% of it is on roads classed primary. Added together the two make 362.9 km of “cycling infrastructure”, which is the kind of total that gets quoted. A painted stripe on a main road is a very different ride from an old railway path, so the two are always shown separately here.

The hire trade sells road bikes to adults

Of the 16 operators with a published fleet list, 10 offer an e-bike (62.5%). An e-bike is what lets a mixed group ride together, and they are easy to find. Only one lists anything a child rides on or in. Active Mallorca is the exception, and it lists a child seat. If the trip needs a seat, a trailer or a small bike, ask before you book, not on arrival.

Water, shade and the ground

The greenway has no tap on it and the surface is loose in places. Family Friendly Mallorca is direct about what that means with children: “the only gradient after the Son Sureda tunnel on the final stretch into Artà – gentle though, and manageable for most kids.” is the only rise they flag, and the rest of their advice is about sun and water. The island’s taps are listed in the water guide; for this ride, carry all the water you need.

What riders say

Seven publishers and 15 quotations. Unusually, 3 are first-person accounts from people who rode the route, and 2 of those had children along. Two write in German, so for once the German sources are the stronger half.

All three first-person accounts mention the ground, and all three use it to tell you what to bring. And the operator’s page is right about the thing that matters most: there are no cars.

Booking: where to stay, bikes and transfers

If you are booking now, book the north bay. It has the flat path, the lane network and the beds in the same place. The Serra has the riding this island is famous for and almost nothing a family can use. Port de Pollença, Alcúdia and Platja de Muro all sit on the 12.6 km path; the hotels guide has the ones with a bike room.

If the Vía Verde is the trip, stay on it. Son Moro and the towns either end of the line put the whole corridor at the door — Artà at the quiet end, Manacor at the other, and Cala Millor if the beach has to be part of the deal.

The bike matters more here than it does in the mountains. Three quarters of the island’s best family ride is gravel, and a hire fleet built for road cyclists may not have the right bike. Compare what the operators actually stock and ask about tyre width, an e-bike for whoever needs one, and whatever the smallest rider needs. The hire guide has more on each operator’s fleet.

And if you want to arrive without a car, a booked transfer takes bikes and children in one vehicle, which the bus does not.

The trip planner will build the week around any of this.

Source Vías Verdes (Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles) · checked 3 October 2026The corridor is managed by Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca. Roads, paths and route relations measured 8 August 2026; The route crosses Sant Llorenç des Cardassar, Son Carrió and Son Servera.

Verified Every figure on this page was re-checked against its source on 8 August 2026. Next review due within 120 days.