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.
A 153 km round trip from Al Ain City - roughly 3 h 01 in the saddle. It goes by way of Jebel Hafit Desert Park, Bidaa Bint Saud and back through Jebel Hafit Desert Park. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 24 km this is Jebel Hafeet Mountain Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Al Ain is the Garden City of the UAE, an oasis town where date plantations are watered by falaj channels, ancient underground canals that have carried mountain water for more than three thousand years, and the shade of the palms is a relief after the desert glare. UNESCO inscribed the city's cultural sites in 2011, including the Bronze Age tombs at Hili, the oases and the sites at Bidaa Bint Saud, a stony ridge with traces of ancient settlement and rock art.
Read the complete Al Naqfa Ridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Al Naqfa Ridge is where the day begins. Next is Jebel Hafit Desert Park.
For riders in the Gulf, there is a road that people talk about with real affection. Jebel Hafit, a long, rocky ridge that rises out of the flat gravel plain on the border between the United Arab Emirates and Oman, is about 1,240 metres high, and a smooth tarmac road snakes up its eastern flank in a long series of hairpins and bends to the top, a distance of about eleven kilometres. At the summit, a hotel and a viewing terrace look out over the oasis city of Al Ain, with the desert stretching away to the horizon, and at dusk the lights come on below like a field of stars. Motorcyclists and cyclists come here in the cooler months, usually early in the morning or at sunset, and the road is one of the best in the country.
Read the complete Jebel Hafit Desert Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jebel Hafit Desert Park comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bidaa Bint Saud.
Jebel Hafit rises out of the flat gravel desert near Al Ain like a lizard's back, a bare, folded limestone ridge about twelve hundred metres high that marks the border between the United Arab Emirates and Oman. It is the best-known landmark in the area, and the scatter of ancient sites around it tells the story of the people who lived here. On the lower slopes are about five thousand years old beehive-shaped stone tombs, the first examples of a type of grave that is now named after the mountain, and the Hafit period is a recognised phase of Bronze Age archaeology in south-east Arabia.
Read the complete Bidaa Bint Saud write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 77 km into the recorded legs you reach Bidaa Bint Saud. Next is back through Jebel Hafit Desert Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jebel Hafit Desert Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Jebel Hafit Desert Park, late in the day. Next is Al Naqfa Ridge.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Al Naqfa Ridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Al Naqfa Ridge. That is the ride.
Al Naqfa Ridge → Jebel Hafit Desert Park is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jebel Hafit Desert Park → Bidaa Bint Saud is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bidaa Bint Saud → back through Jebel Hafit Desert Park is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Jebel Hafit Desert Park → Al Naqfa Ridge is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.