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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 220 km round trip from Velez Rubio - roughly 3 h 46 in the saddle. On the way it passes Abrigo de la Esperilla, Cueva Ambrosio and back through Abrigo de la Esperilla. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Vélez-Blanco is a white town under a limestone crag in the north of Almería province, with a Renaissance castle on the rock above it and the pine-covered Sierra María rising behind. The Colmenas label sits less than a kilometre away, in country of dry slopes, almond groves and scattered farms.
Read the complete Colmenas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Colmenas is where the day begins. Next is Abrigo de la Esperilla.
Almería is known for its beaches and desert, but the north of the province holds a different landscape: high, dry limestone mountains with pine forests, almond groves and a series of rock shelters where prehistoric people painted. The Sierra de María-Los Vélez rises above two thousand metres, and around the town of Vélez-Blanco several shelters preserve paintings of the Levantine style, with small, lively red figures of hunters, animals and humans. UNESCO lists Spain's Levantine rock art as a World Heritage Site, and the Abrigo de la Esperilla is one of those painted places.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Esperilla write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de la Esperilla comes up about 55 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cueva Ambrosio.
Cueva Ambrosio belongs to the high, empty north of Almería province, on the dry plateau where Andalusia runs into Murcia, fifteen or so kilometres out of Vélez-Blanco. This is a landscape of broad, pale fields, almond and cereal farms, low limestone ridges and long skylines, with the pines of the Sierra María to the south and almost nothing built on the horizon.
Read the complete Cueva Ambrosio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 110 km into the recorded legs you reach Cueva Ambrosio. Next is back through Abrigo de la Esperilla.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Esperilla write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abrigo de la Esperilla, late in the day. Next is Colmenas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Colmenas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Colmenas. That is the ride.
Colmenas → Abrigo de la Esperilla is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de la Esperilla → Cueva Ambrosio is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva Ambrosio → back through Abrigo de la Esperilla is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abrigo de la Esperilla → Colmenas is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.