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 120 km round trip from Ḩūsān - roughly 2 h 10 in the saddle. The stops in between: Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town, Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud and back through Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town. It crosses from Palestinian Territories into Israel - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 30 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
The hills south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem are older than most of the countries now claiming them, and the terraced slopes around Battir are among the best evidence. For centuries, perhaps for two thousand years, farmers here have built dry-stone terraces down the steep valley sides to grow olives, grapes, figs and vegetables, and the water that feeds them comes from springs and is shared out through channels according to a rota among local families. The system was recognised as a World Heritage landscape in 2014, under the title of the land of olives and vines in southern Jerusalem.
Read the complete Area 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Area 1 is where the day begins. Next is Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town.
Hebron, al-Khalil in Arabic, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the Middle East, set in the hills of the southern West Bank. Its heart is the old town, a warren of stone alleys, covered souqs and Mamluk-era houses, grouped around the great mosque built over the Cave of the Patriarchs, where tradition places the tombs of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their wives. The site is holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians, and its name in Arabic, al-Khalil, means the friend, a reference to Abraham as the friend of God.
Read the complete Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud.
Beneath the low hills of the Judean lowlands, the Shephelah, lies a city of caves. Maresha was an important town of the Iron Age and the Hellenistic period, and its inhabitants carved thousands of chambers into the soft chalk beneath their houses: cisterns, olive presses, stables, quarries, burial caves and columbaria, rooms with hundreds of niches, probably used for raising pigeons. Nearby Bet Guvrin, known to the Romans as Eleutheropolis, became a major city in later centuries. The national park and its caves were listed by UNESCO in 2014 as a microcosm of the land of the caves.
Read the complete Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 58 km into the recorded legs you reach Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud. Next is back through Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town, late in the day. Next is Area 1.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Area 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Area 1. That is the ride.
Area 1 → Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town → Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud → back through Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town → Area 1 is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.