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 424 km round trip from Ḩūsān - roughly 6 h 41 in the saddle. It goes by way of Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud, Tel Beer Sheba, Mamshit and Shivta. It crosses from Palestinian Territories into Israel - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Battir is a village of terraces. On the slopes of the hills south-west of Jerusalem, a system of stone-walled terraces and irrigation channels has been watered for centuries by a spring that is shared out in turn among the village families, according to a rota that locals still keep. The terraces grow vegetables, olives, and aubergines for which Battir is known, and the system, with its Roman-era origins and later improvements, was listed by UNESCO in 2014 as a cultural landscape. The little railway line from Jaffa to Jerusalem, built by the Ottomans in the 1890s, runs along the valley floor below the village.
Read the complete Area 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Area 2 is where the day begins. 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.
Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tel Beer Sheba.
Tel Beer Sheba is a mound on the edge of the modern city of Beersheba, in the northern Negev desert of southern Israel, and it holds the remains of an Iron Age town that has been excavated and partially reconstructed. With Megiddo and Hazor, it forms the UNESCO site of the Biblical Tels, recognized for their importance in understanding the cities of the biblical era. The name Beersheba appears many times in the Bible, associated with Abraham and the wells he dug in the desert.
Read the complete Tel Beer Sheba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 95 km into the recorded legs you reach Tel Beer Sheba. Next is Mamshit.
Mamshit sits on a low spur above a dry riverbed in the northern Negev, a few kilometres east of Dimona, and from a distance it looks like nothing more than a heap of pale stones. Up close it becomes a town: streets, courtyards, staircases, arches, two Byzantine churches with mosaic floors and a set of large houses built by people who knew how to live comfortably in a hard place. This was Mampsis, a Nabataean settlement on the caravan routes that carried incense and spices from Arabia across the desert to the Mediterranean ports, and it shares a World Heritage inscription with Avdat, Haluza and Shivta as one of the desert cities of the Incense Route.
Read the complete Mamshit write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mamshit, about halfway. Next is Shivta.
There is no water at Shivta, and yet a town of some size thrived here, in the middle of the Negev desert, for several centuries. Its people collected every drop of rain that fell on the surrounding hills and channelled it into cisterns, and they grew grapes, wheat and olives in the dry valleys around. Shivta began as a Nabataean settlement on the trade routes between Arabia and the Mediterranean, and it reached its peak in the Byzantine period, when it had three churches, houses, wine presses and streets of stone. It is part of the Incense Route listed by UNESCO, with the desert cities of Avdat, Haluza and Mamshit.
Read the complete Shivta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shivta sits at 195 km, about halfway. Next is back through Mamshit.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mamshit write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Mamshit comes up about 284 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Tel Beer Sheba.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tel Beer Sheba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 330 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Tel Beer Sheba. Next is back through Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
back through Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud, late in the day. Next is Area 2.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Area 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 424 km.
Area 2 → Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud → Tel Beer Sheba is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tel Beer Sheba → Mamshit is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mamshit → Shivta is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shivta → back through Mamshit is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Mamshit → back through Tel Beer Sheba is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tel Beer Sheba → back through Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud → Area 2 is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.