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 313 km round trip from Artesa de Segre - roughly 5 h 59 in the saddle. The stops in between: Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars, Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés, Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume and back through Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés. The line favours views over speed.
In the Pre-Pyrenees of Lleida, the plain of Urgell ends and the land starts folding into dry, golden hills. Artesa de Segre, Camarasa and Cubells are small places along the edge of this country, where the Segre river and the Noguera Pallaresa bring water down from the mountains, and where reservoirs and gorges give the landscape its character. The Camarasa dam, built in the early twentieth century on the Noguera Pallaresa, is a big wall of concrete holding back a long, green-blue lake in a narrow valley.
Read the complete Antona I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Antona I is where the day begins. Next is Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars.
Os de Balaguer is a small village on the edge of the pre-Pyrenean hills in the Noguera district of Lleida, and the Cova dels Vilasos, also known as the Cova dels Vilars, lies just outside it. The site is one of the painted rock shelters of Catalonia counted within the Mediterranean rock art group protected by UNESCO, and its figures are small and reddish, drawn by people who lived from hunting and gathering in what was then a far wilder landscape. Like its neighbours it is protected and rarely dramatic at first sight; give your eyes a moment in the shade and the shapes begin to come out of the stone.
Read the complete Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars comes up about 45 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés.
South of Lleida the irrigated orchards give way abruptly to dry, open steppe, and the little village of Alfés sits on the edge of that change. The Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés are rock paintings in a small sandstone shelter near the village, schematic designs in red pigment, mostly abstract lines, dots and simplified figures, that belong to the later, more symbolic phase of prehistoric art in eastern Spain, and they are included in the UNESCO listing of Mediterranean Basin rock art. They are modest to look at, but there is something powerful about seeing marks left by people thousands of years ago in such an open, wind-swept place.
Read the complete Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 106 km into the recorded legs you reach Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés. Next is Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume.
Mequinenza had to move. In the 1960s and 1970s, two dams built on the Ebro created a huge reservoir known as the Mar de Aragón, and the old town at the meeting of the Ebro and the Segre was abandoned and largely demolished, its people resettled in a new town above. The story is told in the town's museums and in the novels of Jesús Moncada, who grew up in the old Mequinenza. In a ravine nearby, the Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume holds prehistoric paintings, part of the World Heritage Site of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin.
Read the complete Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume, about halfway. Next is back through Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés sits at 170 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars comes up about 269 km into the recorded legs. Next is Antona I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Antona I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Antona I closes the day.
Antona I → Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars → Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés → Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume → back through Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés → back through Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars → Antona I is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.