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.
From Mequinensa / Mequinenza it runs 492 km to Mequinensa / Mequinenza; allow about 9 h 35 of riding. On the way it passes mas de Torres, Mallata C, Les Coves and Cova del Tabac. 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 mas de Torres.
The Monegros in high summer is the closest thing Europe has to a desert, a wide, dry plateau of gypsum hills, wheat stubble and steppe scrub under a hard, white sky. Near the village of Candasnos, close to the main road between Zaragoza and Lleida, the shelter labelled Mas de Torres is one of the rock art sites of the Mediterranean Basin listed by UNESCO, a reminder that people lived and hunted here long before the land dried out to its present state.
Read the complete mas de Torres write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
mas de Torres comes up 44 km in. Next is Mallata C.
Ontiñena is a small farming village on the Alcanadre river, at the edge of the Monegros, the dry, wind-scoured steppe of central Aragón. Out in the ravines around it, prehistoric people left painted figures in rock shelters, among them the site labelled Mallata C, one of the many small components of the UNESCO listing of Mediterranean rock art. The paintings are small, simple and best seen with a local guide, and the walk there crosses a landscape that seems built for epic films: gypsum hills, eroded gullies and wide skies.
Read the complete Mallata C write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
88 km in you reach Mallata C. Next is Les Coves.
The western edge of Catalonia, around Lleida, is fruit country. Irrigation canals bring water from the Pyrenean rivers to a broad, flat plain of orchards growing apples, pears and peaches, laid out in neat lines that stretch to the horizon. Les Coves lies in this area, close to the Aragonese border, between Alfarràs, Albelda and Algerri, where the valley of the Noguera Ribagorçana spills out of the hills and onto the plain.
Read the complete Les Coves write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les Coves, about halfway. Next is Cova del Tabac.
Above the village of Camarasa, where the Segre comes out of the pre-Pyrenean hills onto the plain of Lleida, a cave in the limestone holds some of the most interesting rock paintings in Catalonia. The Cova del Tabac, the tobacco cave, is a wide shelter with schematic paintings, simplified human figures, animals and symbols in red, and it is one of the sites included in the UNESCO listing of Mediterranean rock art on the Iberian Peninsula. A short walk leads up from the road to the shelter, which also offers a fine view over the valley, and on a clear day the Pyrenees rise white on the northern horizon.
Read the complete Cova del Tabac write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cova del Tabac sits at 175 km, about halfway. Next is back through Les Coves.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Les Coves write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Les Coves comes up 219 km in. Next is back through Mallata C.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mallata C write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
263 km in you reach back through Mallata C. Next is back through mas de Torres.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete mas de Torres write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through mas de Torres, late in the day. 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.
The route ends here after 492 km.
Camino de la Cova Plana l → mas de Torres is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
mas de Torres → Mallata C is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mallata C → Les Coves is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Les Coves → Cova del Tabac is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova del Tabac → back through Les Coves is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Les Coves → back through Mallata C is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Mallata C → back through mas de Torres is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through mas de Torres → Camino de la Cova Plana l is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.