Puerto de Sagunto launches new cycling race El Puerto de Hierro this Sunday
The Peña Ciclista Porteña cycling club is organising the first edition of El Puerto de Hierro this Sunday, a 60-kilometre race through Puerto de Sagunto's industrial estates starting at the Horno Alto (blast furnace) site.
Before it becomes a sports route, the road that dozens of cyclists will ride this Sunday in Puerto de Sagunto, Sagunto's coastal district, used to be the heart of Valencia's steel industry. Altos Hornos del Mediterráneo (AHM), a company founded in 1971 to run Sagunto's integrated steel plant, built Blast Furnace No. 2 there — now the starting point of a race that pays tribute to that past. The plant's activity ended abruptly: on 4 February 1983, Spain's Council of Ministers ordered the closure of Plant IV and the dismantling of the blast furnaces, and steel production stopped for good on 5 October 1984.
Four decades later, that same site hosts something very different: the first edition of El Puerto de Hierro ("The Iron Port"), a social cycling race organised by the Peña Ciclista Porteña club. The neutralised start goes off at 10:00 next to the old Blast Furnace, while the finish line sits near the Fertiberia bridge, after 60 kilometres of road crossing much of the town's business fabric: Ingruinsa, the Siderúrgico estate, Camí a la Mar, and both phases of Parc Sagunt.
That is another way of reading the route: where blast furnaces once smoked, factories and workshops from very different sectors now sit side by side, with Parc Sagunt (a newer business park) as an example of the fresh industrial ground gained over recent decades. Riding through those streets on a Sunday morning is, in a way, a two-wheeled tour of the town's economic reinvention.
The new race was unveiled on Thursday, at an event led by Mayor Darío Moreno alongside Javier Timón, the council's sports chief, and representatives of the organising club: its president, Manolo González; vice-president Juan García; and rider Juan Pablo Edo of team Inlet. City Hall said it valued initiatives like this becoming something residents feel is truly theirs, while the sports department stressed that the race is another step toward promoting cycling and reflects the sport's deep roots in the town. The club itself thanked, besides institutional backing, the involvement of sponsors and Local Police officers, and singled out the roughly fifty volunteers without whom the day would not be possible; organisers said their goal is for the industrial-estate circuit to return every year and become a sporting reference across Camp de Morvedre.
Anyone wanting to take part should act fast, since this first edition is capped at 200 entries. Men and women will compete across categories Junior, Sub23, Master 30, Master 40, Master 50, Master 60, Elite and Para-cycling, bringing together licensed racers and amateurs from different generations. The top three finishers in each category will step onto the podium to collect a trophy at the end of the day. According to aytosagunto.es and elperiodic.com, with additional background from Wikipedia.