The road from Ta'if to Al Hada is a short ride that does an enormous amount, because it is one big drop. The Sarawat escarpment runs down the western side of Arabia like a stair, and the road plunges off it in a stack of tight hairpins, falling toward the hot lowland that leads to Mecca. Bends follow one another so fast that you barely have time to look at the view, and on a motorcycle the sequence is a joy: sharp, well-surfaced and well-banked, with walls of rock above and the plain hundreds of metres below.
The geography explains why. This is the western face of the Arabian Shield, an ancient block of crystalline rock that rises abruptly from the Red Sea plain, and the mountains here are cooler and greener than anything around them. Ta'if, up on the top, has long been a summer refuge for Saudis fleeing the heat of the coast, and it is famous for its roses and fruit. Fog and cloud roll up the escarpment in summer, giving the hairpins a dreamy, misty character, and the temperature can fall ten degrees from the bottom to the top.
The road is popular, and that is the one real warning. At weekends and in the evenings it fills with cars, many of them driven enthusiastically, and the hairpins are narrow, so a blind corner can bring a car across your line. Ride early on a weekday for the cleanest experience, keep to your side and never assume the next bend is empty. Surfaces can be dusty or sandy at the edges, and after rain the tarmac is slick. Take care too with the brakes on the long downhill, since constant braking will heat them.
Baboons live on these cliffs, hamadryas baboons that have learned to wait for tourists and food, and you will see them perched on the barriers. Do not feed them: it makes them bold and sometimes aggressive. A cable car also runs from the top near Al Hada, and there are cafés and small shops by the viewpoints.
Ta'if, with more than half a million people, has fuel, food and everything else. Fill up there before you take the hairpins.