Perpignan to Avinyonet de Puigventós

This ride up to the Col de Panissars was outstanding. And it was all well paved cycling path and roads, including some asphalt and some concrete after passing Riunoguès. Sadly, the roughly 3km from the Col de Panissars to a little before joining N-II was absolutely terrible. Only a skilled mountain biker would like it. This roughly 3km was not only unpaved, it was very rocky with some terribly steep parts, which was dangerous to ride on and even very difficult to just walk the bikes. The slopes and badly eroded road condition made walking the bikes with their heavy panniers very difficult. Sadly, trying to ride some of the better parts of this bad section, my wife fell twice with fortunately no serious injuries. So, we do not recommend these three kilometers to anyone who is not a skilled mountain biker.

Being mostly new to Spain (we'd spent a week pedaling around the Basque Country ten years previously), we weren't sure about the riding conditions on major roads, so we relied on Google Maps routes for bicycles. We shouldn't have. Not only did Google not alert us to the terrible road immediately after the Col de Panissars, but it lead us onto local roads that required frequent turns as well as back roads in and near Figueres where the unpaved roads were bad and some of the route simply didn't exist. We would have been much better off just staying on N-IIa and N-260 as we approached Figueres and later Avinyonet de Puigventós.

Note that N-II and N-260 for the most part had excellent road shoulder. We were very comfortable riding on these roads.