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 Mula it runs 287 km to Mula; allow about 4 h 24 of riding. It goes by way of Cavidad II, Cueva del Niño and back through Cavidad II. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Mula is a town in the heart of the Murcia region, built on the slopes of a hill crowned by a sixteenth-century castle, with an old quarter of narrow streets, noble houses and churches. Around it, a dry landscape of hills, ravines and badlands opens out, with orchards and olive groves along the river. The Cejo Cortado, a name meaning the cut brow, refers to a rocky escarpment with prehistoric shelters about seven kilometres from the town, between Mula, Albudeite and Ricote.
Read the complete Cejo Cortado I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cejo Cortado I is where the day begins. Next is Cavidad II.
South of Hellín the land opens into the dry, high steppe of southern Albacete, a country of esparto grass, almond terraces and bare limestone ridges, and it is in these ridges that the small painted cavities of the area hide. Cavidad II is one of them, a modest hollow in the rock with prehistoric pigment on its walls, part of a dense scatter of rock art sites around the Minateda area that archaeologists have studied for more than a century. Like most of the Levantine sites it is fragile and frequently protected by a grille, so it rewards patience and imagination more than a quick photograph.
Read the complete Cavidad II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cavidad II comes up about 79 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cueva del Niño.
Ayna is a village of white houses clinging to the walls of a deep gorge carved by the Mundo river, in the Sierra de Alcaraz in the southwest of Albacete province. Its setting is so dramatic that it is sometimes called the Little Switzerland of La Mancha, and it was the backdrop for the cult Spanish film Amanece, que no es poco, a surreal comedy shot here in the late 1980s. A few kilometres away, in a rocky ravine, the Cueva del Niño holds something rare for this part of Spain: Palaeolithic paintings of deer, ibex and horses, much older than the Levantine figures painted later on the same walls. It is part of the UNESCO listing of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula, and access is restricted to protect the paintings.
Read the complete Cueva del Niño write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 144 km into the recorded legs you reach Cueva del Niño. Next is back through Cavidad II.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cavidad II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cavidad II, late in the day. Next is Cejo Cortado I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cejo Cortado I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cejo Cortado I. That is the ride.
Cejo Cortado I → Cavidad II is 79 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cavidad II → Cueva del Niño is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva del Niño → back through Cavidad II is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cavidad II → Cejo Cortado I is 79 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.