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.
324 km from Hellín to Hellín, about 5 h 17 of riding. It goes by way of Abrigo del Paso, Cueva de las Conchas, Fuensanta II and Abrigo de la Viñuela. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Hellín is a sizeable town of thirty thousand in the south-east of Albacete province, a dry, open country of hills, almond groves and stony plains that belongs more to Murcia than to La Mancha in feeling. The Barranco de la Mortaja is a ravine in the sandstone hills near the town, and the shelter that gives this stop its name belongs to the rock art of the Mediterranean Basin, a group of sites that UNESCO listed in 1998. The region is among the best for early paintings, with the shelters of Minateda close by, where figures of hunters and animals, in red and black, were painted on the walls of rock overhangs thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Barranco de la mortaja I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Barranco de la mortaja I is where the day begins. Next is Abrigo del Paso.
Calasparra is a rice town, which is not what most people expect of inland Murcia. The rice grown here, in terraced paddies along the Segura and Mundo rivers, was the first in Spain to receive a protected designation of origin, and it is prized for absorbing flavour without turning to mush, so paella cooks prefer it. The paddies shimmer green in summer and gold in autumn, with herons and egrets feeding in the flooded fields, and behind them rise bare limestone hills, so the effect is of a patch of Asia dropped onto a dry Spanish landscape.
Read the complete Abrigo del Paso write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo del Paso comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cueva de las Conchas.
Cehegín's old town rises in a tight cluster of ochre houses and church towers on a hill above the Argos river, in the northwest of Murcia, and it is one of the best-preserved historic centres in the region, with narrow streets, noble houses and churches dating back to the sixteenth century. The Cueva de las Conchas, the cave of the shells, lies less than a kilometre from the town, and it is part of the rich network of prehistoric sites in this area, included in the UNESCO listing of Mediterranean rock art.
Read the complete Cueva de las Conchas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 84 km into the recorded legs you reach Cueva de las Conchas. Next is Fuensanta II.
Fuensanta II is the sort of name only an archaeologist could love, a numbered rock shelter in the hills of northwest Murcia where prehistoric painters left a handful of figures on the stone. It is one of the hundreds of sites grouped under UNESCO's listing of rock art in the Mediterranean Basin of the Iberian Peninsula, and the Moratalla area is unusually rich in them. The paintings are small, faint to the untrained eye and protected, so the real value of coming is to understand the landscape that drew people here thousands of years ago: springs, shelter and game in rough, broken country.
Read the complete Fuensanta II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fuensanta II, about halfway. Next is Abrigo de la Viñuela.
Segura de la Sierra is a village that looks like a stage set, and it is real. It sits on a conical hill above the olive groves of the upper Guadalimar valley, crowned by a castle, with narrow lanes of whitewashed houses winding up to the walls, and from the top the view takes in miles of olives, pine-covered ridges and distant sierras. The castle was a stronghold of the Order of Santiago, the knightly order that held much of this frontier in the Middle Ages. It has a Moorish bath house, restored and open to the public, a bullring built into the rock, and a medieval keep.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Viñuela write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de la Viñuela sits at 141 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fuensanta II.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fuensanta II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fuensanta II comes up about 202 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Cueva de las Conchas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva de las Conchas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 240 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Cueva de las Conchas. Next is back through Abrigo del Paso.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo del Paso write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abrigo del Paso, late in the day. Next is Barranco de la mortaja I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Barranco de la mortaja I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 324 km.
Barranco de la mortaja I → Abrigo del Paso is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo del Paso → Cueva de las Conchas is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva de las Conchas → Fuensanta II is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuensanta II → Abrigo de la Viñuela is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de la Viñuela → back through Fuensanta II is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fuensanta II → back through Cueva de las Conchas is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cueva de las Conchas → back through Abrigo del Paso is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abrigo del Paso → Barranco de la mortaja I is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.