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 363 km round trip from Thoreau - roughly 7 h 24 in the saddle. It goes by way of Kin Nizhoni, Kin Ya'a, Kin Bineola and back through Kin Ya'a. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
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 Nizhoni.
Navajo speakers call it Kin Nizhoni, which means beautiful house, and the name has outlived the walls. This is one of the Chacoan outliers, a village of stone-and-mud buildings put up about a thousand years ago by Ancestral Puebloan people who were linked to the great centre at Chaco Canyon, some distance to the north. The outliers sit scattered across the high desert of northwestern New Mexico, often connected to Chaco by straight prehistoric roads, and each tells a piece of the story of a society that traded turquoise, pottery and macaw feathers across a very large area.
Read the complete Kin Nizhoni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kin Nizhoni comes up about 71 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kin Ya'a.
A broken stone tower rising out of the sagebrush is what you see first at Kin Ya'a, and it is one of the strangest sights in the Southwest. This was a Chacoan great house, built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries by the same Ancestral Puebloan culture that raised the monumental buildings of Chaco Canyon, some forty kilometres to the north. What makes Kin Ya'a special is its tower kiva, a round ceremonial room built up four storeys high, much of which still stands. Its name is Navajo and is usually translated as tall house. It is one of the outlying sites included in the World Heritage listing of Chaco Culture, linked to the canyon by what archaeologists believe was a formal road.
Read the complete Kin Ya'a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 135 km into the recorded legs you reach Kin Ya'a. 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, about halfway. Next is back through Kin Ya'a.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kin Ya'a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kin Ya'a sits at 192 km, about halfway. Next is back through Kin Nizhoni.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kin Nizhoni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kin Nizhoni comes up about 292 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Casamero closes the day.
Casamero → Kin Nizhoni is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kin Nizhoni → Kin Ya'a is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kin Ya'a → Kin Bineola is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kin Bineola → back through Kin Ya'a is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kin Ya'a → back through Kin Nizhoni is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kin Nizhoni → Casamero is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.