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.
459 km from Castellote to Castellote, about 8 h 12 of riding. It goes by way of Coveta de la Cornisa, Centelles- Abric I, Castell de Villafamés and Peñón de Santo Espíritu. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Castellote is one of those villages in the Teruel Maestrazgo that seems to have been built by people who wanted to be left alone. Its houses pile up beneath a great rock wall topped by the ruins of a castle associated with the Knights Templar, and the Guadalope river winds below on its way into the Santolea reservoir. The Abrigo del Barranco Hondo, a painted rock shelter in a deep ravine outside the village, is part of the extensive collection of Levantine rock art scattered through these mountains, with small figures in red ochre that have survived on the stone for millennia.
Read the complete Abrigo del Barranco Hondo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo del Barranco Hondo is where the day begins. Next is Coveta de la Cornisa.
Morella is one of the most dramatic towns in Spain: a walled medieval city wrapped around a conical hill, with a castle on the summit and its walls running unbroken around the base. It stands in the mountains of the Ports in the north of Castellón province, at around a thousand metres, and its silhouette, seen from the roads that climb toward it, is unforgettable. The Coveta de la Cornisa, the little cave of the ledge, lies in the hills about four kilometres away.
Read the complete Coveta de la Cornisa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Coveta de la Cornisa comes up about 66 km into the recorded legs. Next is Centelles- Abric I.
Albocàsser and Catí are two quiet stone towns in the inland hills of Castellón, and between them, in a rocky ravine, the Centelles shelters hold some of the prehistoric paintings that make this corner of Spain a capital of Levantine rock art. The style is distinctive: small human figures, often archers, painted in red with long legs and dynamic poses, hunting deer, ibex and boar, sometimes in groups, sometimes in battle. The sites are part of the UNESCO listing of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. Nearby, the Valltorta gorge, near Tírig, holds some of the most famous examples, and its museum explains the art and the people who made it.
Read the complete Centelles- Abric I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 113 km into the recorded legs you reach Centelles- Abric I. 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.
Castell de Villafamés, about halfway. 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 sits at 193 km, about halfway. 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.
back through Castell de Villafamés comes up about 308 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Centelles- Abric I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Centelles- Abric I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 347 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Centelles- Abric I. Next is back through Coveta de la Cornisa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Coveta de la Cornisa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Coveta de la Cornisa, late in the day. Next is Abrigo del Barranco Hondo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo del Barranco Hondo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 459 km.
Abrigo del Barranco Hondo → Coveta de la Cornisa is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Coveta de la Cornisa → Centelles- Abric I is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Centelles- Abric I → Castell de Villafamés is 39 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 → 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 Centelles- Abric I is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Centelles- Abric I → back through Coveta de la Cornisa is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Coveta de la Cornisa → Abrigo del Barranco Hondo is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.