Somewhere in the folds of the Sierra de Algairén, south-west of Zaragoza, a bell tower pokes up above a cluster of ochre roofs, and that is your Iglesia de Santa María. Half the villages of Aragon have a church of that name, and this one does the job the others do: it marks the middle of a small place where the shop, the bar and the plaza all orbit the same square of stone. The nearest neighbours on the map are Cosuenda, Almonacid de la Sierra and Alpartir, each a few hundred souls, each about nine kilometres off.
This is the Campo de Cariñena and the edge of Valdejalón, which means wine and fruit. Garnacha vines grow low and gnarled on stony red soil, the kind of bush vine that looks dead in February and drips with grapes by late September. Lower down towards the Jalón river the land turns to orchards of peach, cherry and pear, and in spring the blossom along the valley floor is worth slowing down for. Up in the sierra the scrub smells of thyme and rosemary when the sun has been on it, and you will share the lanes with tractors, the odd shepherd and very little else.
The riding is the reason to come. Narrow local roads wind between the villages with plenty of blind crests and gravel spilled from field entrances, so read the surface and keep something in reserve. The real enemy is the cierzo, the cold north-westerly that funnels down the Ebro valley and can lean a motorbike over without warning. On a calm morning, though, you get empty tarmac, long views back across the plain towards the Moncayo massif and a light that turns the hills copper in the evening.
As a start and finish point it works well because everything practical is close. Fuel is the one thing to plan: the hamlets themselves are hit and miss, so fill up in La Almunia de Doña Godina, about fifteen kilometres away, which has stations, supermarkets and proper lunch menus. In the villages a bar on the plaza will usually manage a coffee and a bocadillo, and the church square is a calm place to stand, drink some water and work out which way the wind is blowing before you go.