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 306 km round trip from Cuenca - roughly 5 h 30 in the saddle. The stops in between: marmalo IV, Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón, Torre de la iglesia del Salvador and back through Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Cuenca is built on a spur of rock between two gorges, and the Barrio del Castillo is its highest quarter, the old castle district at the narrow tip of the ridge. The Huécar river runs along one side and the Júcar along the other, each in a deep cleft with limestone cliffs, and the old town clings to the top between them like a ship's prow. The castle that gave the quarter its name has largely gone, though a gate and a few walls remain, and the Torre de Mangana, a clock tower that was once part of the fortress, stands nearby. The whole walled town is on the UNESCO list as an unusual example of a medieval fortress city that kept its shape.
Read the complete Barrio del Castillo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Barrio del Castillo is where the day begins. Next is marmalo IV.
Villar del Humo is a village of a few hundred people in the Serranía de Cuenca, a high land of pine forest, limestone gorges and sparse villages that lies between the cities of Cuenca and Valencia. The Marmalo shelters nearby, of which this is the fourth, are among the most famous sites of Levantine rock art in the region, with painted figures of hunters, animals and scenes that archaeologists have studied for a century. They are part of the Mediterranean-arc group UNESCO listed in 1998, and the village has made them a point of local pride.
Read the complete marmalo IV write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
marmalo IV comes up about 58 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón.
Paridera is a shepherd's word: a stone pen where ewes give birth, sheltered from the wind. Above Tormón, a tiny village in the southern Sierra de Albarracín, one such overhang has given its name to a rock shelter with prehistoric paintings, the Abrigo de la Paridera, part of the Levantine rock art sites the Iberian Peninsula shares under one UNESCO listing. The cliff here is rodeno, the red sandstone that gives this corner of Teruel its startling colour, eroded into towers, arches and overhangs among the pine trees.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 121 km into the recorded legs you reach Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón. Next is Torre de la iglesia del Salvador.
Teruel spent decades as the Spanish joke about forgotten provinces, until its people adopted the slogan Teruel existe, Teruel exists, and turned it into a political movement. Ride into the old centre and you will agree it exists rather vividly. The Torre del Salvador is one of its four great Mudéjar towers, built of brick and glazed ceramic in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by craftsmen trained in the Islamic tradition. The road, or rather a street, still passes through an archway at its base, and you can climb inside, between the outer and inner shells of the tower, up narrow stairs to the bells.
Read the complete Torre de la iglesia del Salvador write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Torre de la iglesia del Salvador, about halfway. Next is back through Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón sits at 197 km, about halfway. Next is back through marmalo IV.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete marmalo IV write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through marmalo IV comes up about 250 km into the recorded legs. Next is Barrio del Castillo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Barrio del Castillo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Barrio del Castillo closes the day.
Barrio del Castillo → marmalo IV is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
marmalo IV → Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón → Torre de la iglesia del Salvador is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Torre de la iglesia del Salvador → back through Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón → back through marmalo IV is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through marmalo IV → Barrio del Castillo is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.