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.
A 386 km round trip from Nerpio - roughly 8 h 26 in the saddle. The stops in between: Tenada de Cueva moreno, Cueva del Niño, Cavidad II and back through Cueva del Niño. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
A rambla is a dry riverbed that only runs after storms, and the Rambla de Pedro Izquierdo is one of many that cut into the limestone hills around Nerpio, in the remote south-western corner of Albacete. In a rock shelter above it, prehistoric people left paintings in the Levantine style, small, lively figures of people and animals, and the site is one of the many shelters around Nerpio that belong to the UNESCO-listed Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. Visits are normally arranged through the village, and a guide will know which shelters are accessible and when the light is right for seeing the faded pigment.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Rambla de Pedro Izquierdo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de la Rambla de Pedro Izquierdo is where the day begins. Next is Tenada de Cueva moreno.
A tenada is a farm shed for livestock, the kind of low stone building that marks old transhumance routes, and the cave that goes with it is a local hollow in the limestone near Letur and Socovos in the south of Albacete province. This is the dry, hilly outer edge of the Sierra del Segura, where the pine woods give way to open scrub and cereal fields, and the horizon is a series of pale ridges. The label also links to the Letreros de los Mártires, a set of painted marks in a nearby shelter, which hints at the density of prehistoric art in this district.
Read the complete Tenada de Cueva moreno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tenada de Cueva moreno comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 127 km into the recorded legs you reach Cueva del Niño. 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.
Cavidad II, about halfway. 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 sits at 173 km, about halfway. Next is back through Tenada de Cueva moreno.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tenada de Cueva moreno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tenada de Cueva moreno comes up about 324 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abrigo de la Rambla de Pedro Izquierdo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Rambla de Pedro Izquierdo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de la Rambla de Pedro Izquierdo closes the day.
Abrigo de la Rambla de Pedro Izquierdo → Tenada de Cueva moreno is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tenada de Cueva moreno → Cueva del Niño is 66 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 → back through Tenada de Cueva moreno is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tenada de Cueva moreno → Abrigo de la Rambla de Pedro Izquierdo is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.