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 305 km round trip from Thoreau - roughly 6 h 35 in the saddle. It goes by way of Kin Bineola, Halfway House and back through Kin Bineola. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Casamero is a small sandstone pueblo on the edge of a valley below the red cliffs of north-western New Mexico, near Prewitt and Thoreau, and it was built about a thousand years ago by people connected to the great Chaco culture. It is one of the Chacoan outliers, communities that shared the architecture, pottery and probably the beliefs of the great houses of Chaco Canyon, more than eighty kilometres to the north, and that were connected to them by a network of straight roads. The walls of Casamero, made of carefully laid stone, still stand to a good height, with the outlines of rooms and a great kiva, a large round ceremonial chamber, nearby. It is part of the Chaco Culture World Heritage site.
Read the complete Casamero write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Casamero is where the day begins. Next is Kin Bineola.
Over a thousand years ago, the people of Chaco Canyon built great houses of finely laid sandstone, multi-storey buildings with hundreds of rooms and ceremonial kivas, and connected them with roads that ran straight across the desert. Kin Bineola is one of the outlying great houses, some distance south-west of the canyon, on the Navajo Nation in north-western New Mexico. Its walls still stand in places to several storeys, with the characteristic Chacoan masonry of small stones packed between larger ones. It is one piece of the World Heritage property for the Chaco Culture, together with the canyon and other outliers.
Read the complete Kin Bineola write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kin Bineola comes up about 81 km into the recorded legs. Next is Halfway House.
The Chacoans built roads that do not seem to go anywhere. From Chaco Canyon, the centre of an extraordinary culture that flourished in the San Juan Basin of north-western New Mexico around a thousand years ago, a road known as the Great North Road runs almost due north for about fifty kilometres, straight as a ruler across mesas and washes, toward Kutz Canyon. Along it stand small great houses, and the site known as Halfway House is one of them, a stone structure about halfway along the road, possibly a waystation or a ceremonial marker. Chaco Culture, including outliers like this one, was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 1987.
Read the complete Halfway House write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 142 km into the recorded legs you reach Halfway House. Next is back through Kin Bineola.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kin Bineola write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kin Bineola, late in the day. Next is Casamero.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Casamero write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Casamero. That is the ride.
Casamero → Kin Bineola is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Kin Bineola → Halfway House is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Halfway House → back through Kin Bineola is 81 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kin Bineola → Casamero is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.