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 Chert/Xert it runs 468 km to Chert/Xert; allow about 8 h 17 of riding. The stops in between: La Covassa, Castell de Villafamés, Peñón de Santo Espíritu and Barranc de la falaguera- Abric I. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Northern Castellón is a hard, empty, beautiful part of Valencian Spain, a country of limestone ridges and terraced slopes some thirty kilometres back from the Mediterranean, and the Abric Mas de la Roca belongs to it, about six kilometres from the village of Xert, whose name is spelled Chert in Catalan and Valencian. Xert has fewer than a thousand people, Canet lo Roig and Catí are similar, and everything here is small and old.
Read the complete Abric mas de la Roca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abric mas de la Roca is where the day begins. Next is La Covassa.
Culla sits on a narrow rocky crest in the Alt Maestrat, the inland highlands of Castellón, its houses wrapped around the remains of a castle that once controlled a large swathe of these mountains. The Knights Templar held it in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the village still has the feel of a lookout, with views in every direction over terraced slopes, stone walls and empty ridges. La Covassa, just below the village, is one of the many rock shelters in this part of Valencia that hold prehistoric paintings, part of the Mediterranean rock art group that UNESCO protects across eastern Spain.
Read the complete La Covassa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Covassa comes up about 51 km into the recorded legs. Next is Castell de Villafamés.
Villafamés announces itself from a long way off: a village of white and ochre houses stacked up a hill of reddish rock, with the remains of a castle crowning the top. It stands a little inland from the coast of Castellón, roughly between Borriol, Cabanes and the beach town of Benicàssim, close enough to the sea that you can smell salt on a westerly breeze turning, yet already in that rumpled hill country that leads up into the Maestrat.
Read the complete Castell de Villafamés write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 83 km into the recorded legs you reach Castell de Villafamés. Next is Peñón de Santo Espíritu.
Behind the orange groves of the Camp de Morvedre, a few kilometres inland from Sagunto, the land rises into the Sierra Calderona, a low range of pine woods, scrub and red sandstone that separates the coastal plain from the dry interior. The Peñón de Santo Espíritu is a rocky outcrop in these hills above the village of Gilet, and it carries prehistoric rock art in the Levantine tradition, the style of painted hunters, animals and human figures found in shelters along the Mediterranean side of Spain and listed by UNESCO as the Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. The paintings are fragile and often protected, so do not expect to wander up and touch anything.
Read the complete Peñón de Santo Espíritu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Peñón de Santo Espíritu, about halfway. Next is Barranc de la falaguera- Abric I.
Alginet sits in the Ribera Alta, the flat, fertile plain south of Valencia where the Júcar river spreads out among orange groves, rice fields and small towns. To the west, the plain meets the first hills of the interior, low ridges of limestone covered in pine and scrub. The Barranc de la Falaguera, the ravine of the fern, cuts into these hills near Alginet, Alfarp and Benifaió.
Read the complete Barranc de la falaguera- Abric I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Barranc de la falaguera- Abric I sits at 209 km, about halfway. Next is back through Peñón de Santo Espíritu.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Peñón de Santo Espíritu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Peñón de Santo Espíritu comes up about 304 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Castell de Villafamés.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castell de Villafamés write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 384 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Castell de Villafamés. Next is back through La Covassa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Covassa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La Covassa, late in the day. Next is Abric mas de la Roca.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abric mas de la Roca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 468 km.
Abric mas de la Roca → La Covassa is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Covassa → Castell de Villafamés is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castell de Villafamés → Peñón de Santo Espíritu is 76 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Peñón de Santo Espíritu → Barranc de la falaguera- Abric I is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Barranc de la falaguera- Abric I → back through Peñón de Santo Espíritu is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Peñón de Santo Espíritu → back through Castell de Villafamés is 80 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Castell de Villafamés → back through La Covassa is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La Covassa → Abric mas de la Roca is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.