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.
355 km from Socovos to Socovos, about 7 h 10 of riding. It goes by way of Lavadero Tello III, maina and back through Lavadero Tello III. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Benizar V
Benizar is one of those places that only a handful of maps bother to name. It is a hamlet belonging to Moratalla, in the hilly north-west of the Murcia region, close to where the province meets Albacete and the first ridges of the Sierra de Segura begin. Around it, in the rock faces and gullies, archaeologists have recorded a cluster of painted shelters, and Benizar V is one in this series: a stone overhang with faint prehistoric figures, part of the Levantine rock art that runs along Spain's eastern mountains.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Benizar V is where the day begins. Next is Lavadero Tello III.
2. Lavadero Tello III
Los Vélez is a corner of Almería that most visitors to the coast never see: a high, dry country of pine forest, almond groves and pale limestone peaks, with the Sierra de María rising above two thousand metres. The Lavadero Tello, the washing place at Tello, is on the edge of that mountain land, near María and Vélez-Blanco, and the shelters of the area hold some of the most famous paintings in southern Spain. At the Cueva de los Letreros, near Vélez-Blanco, a small figure with outstretched arms holding a rainbow-like shape is the Indalo, adopted as the symbol of Almería and painted on houses across the province.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Lavadero Tello III comes up 72 km in. Next is maina.
3. maina
Maina is an obscure name on the map in the Murcian hills north-west of Totana, where the Sierra Espuña rises above the valley of the Guadalentín. It refers to a rock shelter or painted site in the dry limestone country, part of the cluster of prehistoric art sites around here included in the World Heritage listing of Levantine rock art. As with many such places, there is often little to see without a guide, but the landscape around it is worth the ride.