No longer a top-secret climb
Thanks to the Vuelta, it may no longer be the top-secret climb known only to Andalusians, but La Pandera retains a privacy and tranquillity that you may only find on the Muro di Sormano. Like the Muro, the Pandera is closed to motorized traffic, this only enhancing its standing as one of cycling’s new must-climb mountains.
It’s place at the Vuelta a España
Your first thought at this point might be how or why on earth a professional bike race ever ended up here. Faced with increasing competition and falling television audiences, having unsheathed the Alto del Angliru in 1999, three years later Vuelta boss Cordero premiered his ‘Angliru of the south’, La Pandera. In 2002 Roberto Herras dominated the Pandera much like he did the Vuelta that year and since then the win has gone to the likes of Alejandro Valverde, Andréi Kashechkin, Damiano Cunego and Rafał Majka.