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 914 km round trip from Jidd Ḩafş - roughly 16 h 38 in the saddle. It goes by way of Al Zubarah Archaeological Site and Core zone 1. It crosses from Bahrain into Qatar - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Core zone is bureaucratic language, and the thing it describes is simply the heart of the hill: the central area of the Qal'at al-Bahrain archaeological site, where the oldest and most important remains lie. It sits on the north coast of Bahrain, between the shore and the palm gardens, and a short distance from the suburbs of Jidd Hafs and Madinat Isa. The idea of a core zone, with a buffer around it, is how UNESCO protects its sites from being swallowed by the surrounding city, and this one was marked out when the site was inscribed in 2005.
Read the complete Core zone 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Core zone 1 is where the day begins. Next is Hayr Shtayyah.
Out on the north-west coast of Qatar, where the desert slides into a shallow turquoise sea, stand the low ruins of Al Zubarah, once one of the busiest pearling and trading towns in the Gulf. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the town thrived on pearls dived from the oyster beds offshore, traded on to India, Persia and beyond. Then it declined, was abandoned in the early twentieth century, and the sand covered it. Archaeologists have since uncovered streets, houses, a souk, mosques and a long town wall running in an arc around the old harbour. UNESCO inscribed the site in 2013.
Read the complete Al Zubarah Archaeological Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 457 km into the recorded legs you reach Al Zubarah Archaeological Site. Next is back through Hayr Shtayyah.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Core zone 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hayr Shtayyah, late in the day. Next is Core zone 1.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Core zone 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Core zone 1. That is the ride.
Core zone 1 → Al Zubarah Archaeological Site is 457 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Al Zubarah Archaeological Site → Back to Core zone 1 is 457 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.