CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 370 km round trip from Hellín - roughly 6 h 39 in the saddle. On the way it passes Cueva del Esquilo, Cueva Ambrosio and back through Cueva del Esquilo. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
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 Cueva del Esquilo.
The border between Albacete and Murcia runs through a tangle of mountains here, and the villages of Socovos, Férez and Letur sit among them like small islands. The Cueva del Esquilo is one of the painted rock shelters in these hills, a reminder that people lived and hunted in the Segura mountains thousands of years before any border existed. Like most of the rock art in the region, it is protected and best visited with local guidance; the town halls and tourist offices of the surrounding villages are the place to ask.
Read the complete Cueva del Esquilo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva del Esquilo comes up 62 km in. Next is Cueva Ambrosio.
Cueva Ambrosio belongs to the high, empty north of Almería province, on the dry plateau where Andalusia runs into Murcia, fifteen or so kilometres out of Vélez-Blanco. This is a landscape of broad, pale fields, almond and cereal farms, low limestone ridges and long skylines, with the pines of the Sierra María to the south and almost nothing built on the horizon.
Read the complete Cueva Ambrosio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
124 km in you reach Cueva Ambrosio. Next is back through Cueva del Esquilo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva del Esquilo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cueva del Esquilo, 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.
Back at Barranco de la mortaja I. That is the ride.
Barranco de la mortaja I → Cueva del Esquilo is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva del Esquilo → Cueva Ambrosio is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva Ambrosio → back through Cueva del Esquilo is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cueva del Esquilo → Barranco de la mortaja I is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.