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 Albarracín it runs 150 km to Albarracín; allow about 3 h 36 of riding. On the way it passes Barranco del Pajarejo, Torre de la iglesia del Salvador and back through Barranco del Pajarejo. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,450 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
The Sierra de Albarracín is big sky country. At over a thousand metres, the plateau is cold in winter and bright in summer, with pine forest, juniper and limestone outcrops, and a population so thin that you can drive for half an hour without meeting a house. Abrigo del Ciervo, the Shelter of the Deer, lies four kilometres from the town of Albarracín, in the sandstone landscape of the Rodeno, and its name suggests that the animal was an important one for those who painted here. The group of Levantine rock art sites in this area is part of the Mediterranean Basin rock art that UNESCO listed in 1998.
Read the complete Abrigo del Ciervo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo del Ciervo is where the day begins. Next is Barranco del Pajarejo.
Red rock, dark pines and a sky that seems higher than it should be: that is the country south of Albarracín, where the Barranco del Pajarejo cuts into the sandstone. Geologists call this stone rodeno, a coarse red sandstone that weathers into towers, overhangs and smooth shelters, and prehistoric people used those shelters as canvases. The Pinares de Rodeno protected landscape around Albarracín holds a well-known group of painted shelters with bulls, deer and human figures in white and red, and this gully is part of that wider area, quiet and seldom visited.
Read the complete Barranco del Pajarejo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Barranco del Pajarejo comes up about 32 km into the recorded legs. Next is Torre de la iglesia del Salvador.
Teruel spent decades as the Spanish joke about forgotten provinces, until its people adopted the slogan Teruel existe, Teruel exists, and turned it into a political movement. Ride into the old centre and you will agree it exists rather vividly. The Torre del Salvador is one of its four great Mudéjar towers, built of brick and glazed ceramic in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by craftsmen trained in the Islamic tradition. The road, or rather a street, still passes through an archway at its base, and you can climb inside, between the outer and inner shells of the tower, up narrow stairs to the bells.
Read the complete Torre de la iglesia del Salvador write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 75 km into the recorded legs you reach Torre de la iglesia del Salvador. Next is back through Barranco del Pajarejo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Barranco del Pajarejo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Barranco del Pajarejo, late in the day. Next is Abrigo del Ciervo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo del Ciervo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Abrigo del Ciervo. That is the ride.
Abrigo del Ciervo → Barranco del Pajarejo is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Barranco del Pajarejo → Torre de la iglesia del Salvador is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Torre de la iglesia del Salvador → back through Barranco del Pajarejo is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Barranco del Pajarejo → Abrigo del Ciervo is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.