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.
302 km from Nerpio to Nerpio, about 5 h 37 of riding. It goes by way of Cueva del Niño, Cavidad II and back through Cueva del Niño. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
High above the Segura headwaters, the village of Nerpio feels more like a mountain outpost than part of southern Spain. It lies on the edge of the Sierra de Alcaraz and the Sierra de Segura, well over a thousand metres up, and the climate is the sort that sends locals indoors in January and has snow arriving early. The Abrigo de la Cornisa belongs to a cluster of painted shelters in the district, and the Nerpio area as a whole is known for having one of the richest groups of rock paintings in the country.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Cornisa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de la Cornisa is where the day begins. Next is Cueva del Niño.
Ayna is a village of white houses clinging to the walls of a deep gorge carved by the Mundo river, in the Sierra de Alcaraz in the southwest of Albacete province. Its setting is so dramatic that it is sometimes called the Little Switzerland of La Mancha, and it was the backdrop for the cult Spanish film Amanece, que no es poco, a surreal comedy shot here in the late 1980s. A few kilometres away, in a rocky ravine, the Cueva del Niño holds something rare for this part of Spain: Palaeolithic paintings of deer, ibex and horses, much older than the Levantine figures painted later on the same walls. It is part of the UNESCO listing of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula, and access is restricted to protect the paintings.
Read the complete Cueva del Niño write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva del Niño comes up about 85 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cavidad II.
South of Hellín the land opens into the dry, high steppe of southern Albacete, a country of esparto grass, almond terraces and bare limestone ridges, and it is in these ridges that the small painted cavities of the area hide. Cavidad II is one of them, a modest hollow in the rock with prehistoric pigment on its walls, part of a dense scatter of rock art sites around the Minateda area that archaeologists have studied for more than a century. Like most of the Levantine sites it is fragile and frequently protected by a grille, so it rewards patience and imagination more than a quick photograph.
Read the complete Cavidad II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 151 km into the recorded legs you reach Cavidad II. Next is back through Cueva del Niño.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva del Niño write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cueva del Niño, late in the day. Next is Abrigo de la Cornisa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Cornisa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Abrigo de la Cornisa. That is the ride.
Abrigo de la Cornisa → Cueva del Niño is 85 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva del Niño → Cavidad II is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cavidad II → back through Cueva del Niño is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cueva del Niño → Abrigo de la Cornisa is 85 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.