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 Alpera it runs 169 km to Alpera; allow about 5 h 12 of riding. It goes by way of Barranco del Cabezo del moro, Olula and back through Barranco del Cabezo del moro. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Abrigo I
Here the wide plains of La Mancha begin to tilt towards the coast, and the country turns into a patchwork of vineyards, cereal fields and low, pine-covered ridges. Alpera, Carcelén and Alatoz are small villages in the east of Albacete province, close to the border with Valencia, and the landscape has a high, windy character with big skies and few trees on the open ground. The Júcar river runs through a deeper, more broken country to the south, with canyons and reservoirs that give the otherwise dry terrain a green edge.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Abrigo I is where the day begins. Next is Barranco del Cabezo del moro.
2. Barranco del Cabezo del moro
Almansa is one of those towns you see from the motorway and do not stop at, and that is a mistake. Its castle is spectacular, a Gothic fortress built on a sharp limestone outcrop right in the middle of town, looking exactly like a child's drawing of a castle. Around it spreads a wide plain at about seven hundred metres, the meeting point of the Valencian, Murcian and Castilian lands, and a few kilometres out in the surrounding hills lies the ravine known as the Barranco del Cabezo del Moro.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Barranco del Cabezo del moro comes up about 45 km into the recorded legs. Next is Olula.
3. Olula
Caudete and Almansa sit in a corridor of land where Castile-La Mancha, Valencia and Murcia meet, and for centuries this was frontier country, where kingdoms and armies passed and fought. Olula is a point in the hills near Caudete, linked on the rides with rock-art shelters in the surrounding sierras, part of the extensive UNESCO listing of prehistoric art in Mediterranean Spain.