Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros and Iglesia de Santa María
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
166 km
Riding-time estimate
2 h 38
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
166 km from Lechón to Lechón, about 2 h 38 of riding. On the way it passes Cañada de marco, Iglesia de Santa María and back through Cañada de marco. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros
The prehistoric painters of eastern Spain had a thing for archers. Across hundreds of rock shelters from Catalonia to Andalusia, they painted small, dynamic human figures drawing bows, chasing deer and goats, sometimes fighting each other, and these scenes of the so-called Levantine style are part of the UNESCO listing of rock art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. Shelters with names like the Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros, the shelter of the black archers, are scattered through the limestone hills of the province of Teruel and its neighbours in Aragon, often in remote ravines and protected by grilles.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros is where the day begins. Next is Cañada de marco.
2. Cañada de marco
Calamocha has a reputation in Spain, and it is not for its nightlife. This town in the Jiloca valley of Teruel province is one of the coldest places in the country in winter, a high, open basin where the air pools at night and frost bites hard. In summer that same altitude makes it pleasant when the coast is sweltering. The Cañada de Marco is a site in the hills just outside town, and the name hints at the old drove roads, the cañadas, that once carried flocks of sheep across Aragon between summer and winter pastures.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cañada de marco comes up about 31 km into the recorded legs. Next is Iglesia de Santa María.
3. Iglesia de Santa María
Somewhere in the folds of the Sierra de Algairén, south-west of Zaragoza, a bell tower pokes up above a cluster of ochre roofs, and that is your Iglesia de Santa María. Half the villages of Aragon have a church of that name, and this one does the job the others do: it marks the middle of a small place where the shop, the bar and the plaza all orbit the same square of stone. The nearest neighbours on the map are Cosuenda, Almonacid de la Sierra and Alpartir, each a few hundred souls, each about nine kilometres off.