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.
169 km from Alpera to Alpera, 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. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Abrigo II
Alpera is a small town on the plateau between Albacete and the Valencian coast, in the flat, windy country where La Mancha begins to tilt towards the sea. It is best known among archaeologists for Cueva de la Vieja, a shelter with one of the largest collections of Levantine paintings in the interior, and Abrigo II is part of the same group. The cluster of figures includes human forms, animals and symbols, painted in red and black, and the whole group is part of the UNESCO listing for the Mediterranean basin.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Abrigo II 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.