CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
74 km one way from Logroño - plan on about 1 h 25 of riding. It goes by way of Laguardia, Haro and Briones. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 18 km this is La Rioja Wine Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Logroño sits on the south bank of the Ebro, in the centre of La Rioja, and for a wine lover it is as close as it comes to a capital. The city has around a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants and a pleasant old quarter, with a cathedral, an old stone bridge and a very tasty pedestrian street called Calle del Laurel, where bar after bar serves a single speciality, such as mushrooms with prawn, or small skewers of grilled pork, along with a glass of the local red. Locals walk from bar to bar, eating one or two things in each, a ritual called the pinchos crawl.
Read the complete Logroño write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Logrono is where the day begins. Next is Laguardia.
Laguardia stands on a ridge above the Ebro valley, a walled hill town with the long blue wall of the Sierra de Cantabria rising behind it like a stage backdrop. It is the main town of the Rioja Alavesa, the part of the Basque Country that lies south of the mountains and produces some of Spain's best-known wine, and it has about fifteen hundred permanent residents, most of whom seem to have a cellar.
Read the complete Laguardia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Laguardia comes up about 18 km into the recorded legs. Next is Haro.
Haro is the capital of the Rioja Alta, a mid-sized river town with twelve thousand inhabitants and an astonishing density of wine. It sits where the Tirón river comes down to meet the Ebro, with the Sierra de Cantabria on the north side and the blue ridges of the Sierra de la Demanda far away to the south, and the soil of the surrounding slopes gives the wines their reputation for elegance rather than muscle.
Read the complete Haro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 45 km into the recorded legs you reach Haro. Next is Briones.
Briones sits on a hill above the Ebro, a village of fewer than nine hundred people with a ring of old walls, a big baroque church and more wine in its cellars than anyone could drink in a lifetime. It belongs to La Rioja Alta, the western and highest part of the Rioja wine region, where the river turns the landscape green and the vines run in long lines up toward the grey limestone wall of the Sierra de Cantabria. The silhouette of the village, with its church tower at the top, rises over the vineyards like a ship's prow.
Read the complete Briones write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Briones, late in the day. Next is Najera.
Nájera has been a capital, and the town remembers it. In the eleventh century, it was the seat of the kings of Nájera-Pamplona, and the great monastery of Santa María la Real, founded in 1032 by King García Sánchez III, still stands at the foot of a red sandstone cliff. The legend says the king, chasing a dove while hunting, followed it into a cave and found a statue of the Virgin inside, and he built the monastery on the spot. The church holds the royal pantheon, with carved tombs of the kings and queens of Navarre, and a cloister of delicate stone tracery. The cliff above, the colour of rust, gives the whole town a warm tone.
Read the complete Najera write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Najera. That is the ride.
Logrono → Laguardia is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Laguardia → Haro is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Haro → Briones is 8 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Briones → Najera is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.