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.
From Bicorp it runs 279 km to Bicorp; allow about 5 h 27 of riding. On the way it passes Barranc d'Alpadull- Abric I, Penya Escrita and back through Barranc d'Alpadull- Abric I. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Ayora is the town for this country, and the road to the shelter starts there, in a broad valley of cereal fields, vines and almond trees where the horizon seems to move away as you approach it. The Valle de Ayora-Cofrentes lies in the south-west of the province of Valencia, between the Júcar river and the mountains of the interior, and it is the kind of landscape that you might cross without noticing, if you were not on the lookout for the dozens of painted shelters hidden in the surrounding gorges.
Read the complete Abric de Lucio o Gavidia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abric de Lucio o Gavidia is where the day begins. Next is Barranc d'Alpadull- Abric I.
The painted shelter of Barranc d'Alpadull sits in the folds of the Serra de Mariola, the limestone massif that rises between Bocairent, Alfafara and Agres in the inland corner where Valencia, Alicante and the old kingdom's hill country all meet. It is one of the many small overhangs in eastern Spain that carry Levantine rock art, the group of sites inscribed together by UNESCO as the Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin. Do not expect a museum. These are faint, reddish figures under a lip of stone, usually fenced, often hard to read unless the light is low and raking, and part of the pleasure is simply knowing that hunters drew here thousands of years before anyone thought of building a road up this valley.
Read the complete Barranc d'Alpadull- Abric I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Barranc d'Alpadull- Abric I comes up about 71 km into the recorded legs. Next is Penya Escrita.
In the folded limestone hills behind the Costa Blanca, far enough inland that the resorts feel like another country, a rock shelter called Penya Escrita holds prehistoric paintings. The name means something like the written rock, which is what the people of Tàrbena and Bolulla called it long before archaeologists arrived. The figures belong to the rock art of the Mediterranean Basin of the Iberian Peninsula, a UNESCO site made up of hundreds of shelters scattered from Catalonia down to Andalusia, painted by hunter-gatherers and early farmers thousands of years ago. They are small, faded and easy to miss, and they are best appreciated with patience rather than expectation.
Read the complete Penya Escrita write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 140 km into the recorded legs you reach Penya Escrita. Next is back through Barranc d'Alpadull- Abric I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Barranc d'Alpadull- Abric I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Barranc d'Alpadull- Abric I, late in the day. Next is Abric de Lucio o Gavidia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abric de Lucio o Gavidia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Abric de Lucio o Gavidia. That is the ride.
Abric de Lucio o Gavidia → Barranc d'Alpadull- Abric I is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Barranc d'Alpadull- Abric I → Penya Escrita is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Penya Escrita → back through Barranc d'Alpadull- Abric I is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Barranc d'Alpadull- Abric I → Abric de Lucio o Gavidia is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.