A label like Zona 2 tells you that someone with a clipboard and a map divided this country into sectors, and numbered them, and then walked every one. That is how the rock art of the Sierra del Segura was found: slowly, valley by valley, by teams who recorded dozens of shelters around Nerpio and the high country towards Jaén. The Zona 2 stop is seven kilometres from Nerpio, in hills of pine and juniper at a bit over a thousand metres, and it is a good example of the way this part of Spain hides things in plain view.
It is also a good base for a large ride. To the south, Huéscar, a town of eight thousand on the high plateau of Granada, has the fuel, thirty-eight kilometres off. To the north-west, Segura de la Sierra, a village of white houses clustered around a castle on a crag, sits in the Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas natural park, which is the largest protected area in Spain. Yeste, twenty-seven kilometres to the north, has the nearest bigger services in the opposite direction.
The roads are quiet and the corners are generous, with long views across the highland. The surface is mostly good, but gravel and potholes can appear after winter, and the cold in January is real. In spring the hills are green and the rivers run, and in autumn the poplars along the valleys turn gold. Summer is dry, bright and hot in the afternoon.
Nerpio has a handful of bars and a couple of places to stay, but do not rely on it for fuel. Carry water, and take care of the paintings, which have lasted this long because the sector was hard to reach.
It is worth thinking about scale before you set out. On the map, these places look close, but the roads are slow and winding, and a loop from Nerpio to Huéscar and back by the mountains is a full day, not a morning. Start early, keep your lunch simple, and stay out of the high ground after dark in winter, when ice makes the descents unpleasant and there is nobody to flag down. Mobile coverage is patchy, so leave word with someone about where you are heading.