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.
From Mequinensa / Mequinenza it runs 183 km to Mequinensa / Mequinenza; allow about 4 h 39 of riding. The stops in between: Val de mamet I, Abrigo del Plano del Pulido, Abric del mas de Barberà and back through Abrigo del Plano del Pulido. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Where the Segre and the Cinca rivers meet the Ebro, the land opens out into a dry, tawny basin that feels far from the sea. Mequinenza sits at the heart of it, a small town of about 2,500 people that has a story unlike any other on the Ebro. The old town was flooded in the 1960s when the Ribarroja dam created the Mar de Aragón, a huge reservoir, and the inhabitants were moved to a new town built higher up. The writer Jesús Moncada, born here, wrote about the vanished town in his novel Camino de sirga, and the loss still colours the way people talk about the place.
Read the complete Camino de la Cova Plana l write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Camino de la Cova Plana l is where the day begins. Next is Val de mamet I.
The Ebro river cuts through Aragon in a wide, dry valley, and where it meets its tributaries the Segre and Cinca around Mequinenza it was dammed in the twentieth century to make long, narrow lakes among bare hills. Val de Mamet is a dry side valley in this country, with a shelter that holds prehistoric paintings. The surroundings are arid and open, with low limestone cliffs, thyme and rosemary scrub, and scattered pines and almonds, and the silence is broken mostly by the wind and the occasional hawk.
Read the complete Val de mamet I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Val de mamet I comes up about 23 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abrigo del Plano del Pulido.
South of Caspe, the lower Aragón country is a dry, sculpted landscape of ochre hills, flat-topped mesas and gullies cut into soft sandstone, with almond and olive groves clinging to the valley floors. In these sandstone outcrops, prehistoric people found shelter and left paintings, and the Abrigo del Plano del Pulido is one of the rock shelters of the area included in the World Heritage site of the rock art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. The painted figures, in the reddish tones of Levantine art, are small and faded, and as at most of these sites, access is controlled and visits may need to be arranged in advance.
Read the complete Abrigo del Plano del Pulido write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 63 km into the recorded legs you reach Abrigo del Plano del Pulido. Next is Abric del mas de Barberà.
Alcañiz is the capital of the Bajo Aragón, a region of olive groves, cereal fields and dry hills crossed by the Guadalope river in the south-east of Aragón. The town is crowned by a castle built for the Order of Calatrava, now a parador, and its main square, with a Gothic loggia and the town hall, is one of the finest in the region. The shelter of the Mas de Barberà lies in the hills just outside town, toward Castelserás and Calanda.
Read the complete Abric del mas de Barberà write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abric del mas de Barberà, about halfway. Next is back through Abrigo del Plano del Pulido.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo del Plano del Pulido write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abrigo del Plano del Pulido sits at 112 km, about halfway. Next is back through Val de mamet I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Val de mamet I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Val de mamet I comes up about 161 km into the recorded legs. Next is Camino de la Cova Plana l.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Camino de la Cova Plana l write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Camino de la Cova Plana l closes the day.
Camino de la Cova Plana l → Val de mamet I is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Val de mamet I → Abrigo del Plano del Pulido is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo del Plano del Pulido → Abric del mas de Barberà is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abric del mas de Barberà → back through Abrigo del Plano del Pulido is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abrigo del Plano del Pulido → back through Val de mamet I is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Val de mamet I → Camino de la Cova Plana l is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.