STAGE 17. Águilas - Puerto de Mazarrón (53.2 km)
On this stage, we'll leave from the Tourist Office in Águilas for its urban environment. It's one of the areas with the largest volume of cycle tourism and triathletes in the Region of Murcia. From the Playa de las Delicias, we'll join a stretch of segregated cycle land from the ring road east of Águilas until the parish of Todosol, and we'll continue on the quiet road which crosses Calabardina until Cabo Cope, with some dream views of the sea.
The route then passes through very quiet rural roads, crossing the Regional Park of Cabo Cope y Puntas de Calnegre before connecting with the RM-D20 to face the main challenge of this stage: the climb to Lomo Bas in its gradient from Águilas, 2.8 km long with a demanding average of 7.5% and some slopes more than 10%.
After a well-deserved descent of almost 4 kilometres, we'll continue through the town of Los Curas until finding ourselves back at the sea in Puntas de Calnegre in the municipality of Lorca. Skirting beaches, in one of the typical landscapes of this route, we'll take the road from Punta to Percheles to arrive at one of the moments of highest visual quality of this stage, with several kilometres of dirt roads to the foot of the Sierra de las Moreras which run parallel to the sea and beaches such as Covaticas, Piedra Mala or Rincón de Bolnuevo, a dream for lovers of gravel or mountain biking, until reaching Bolnuevo in Mazarrón. After passing through the town, we'll use Rambla de las Moreras to connect with the avenues of Castellar and D. José Alarcón Palacios, which run parallel to the Mazarrón and Tierno Galván beaches, crossing the urban environment of Puerto de Mazarrón until ending up at the Tourist Office.
