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 Albinyana it runs 477 km to Albinyana; allow about 6 h of riding. The stops in between: Roca Roja, Mas d'En Llort, Roques Guàrdies II and Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Inland from the Costa Daurada, behind the beach towns of El Vendrell and Calafell, the land rises into the low hills of the Baix Penedès, a landscape of vineyards, almond and olive groves, pine woods and small villages. The Cova de Vallmajor, near Albinyana and Bonastre, is a rock shelter in these hills with prehistoric paintings, part of the Levantine rock art of the Mediterranean that is recognised as a World Heritage Site. The paintings are faint and the shelter is protected, so visits are usually by arrangement.
Read the complete Cova de Vallmajor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cova de Vallmajor is where the day begins. Next is Roca Roja.
Roca Roja, the red rock, is a fitting name for this corner of inland Catalonia, where sandstone and conglomerate cliffs glow rust-coloured in the evening light above pine forest and small terraced fields. The point lies in the hills between Querol and Mediona, where the comarques of Alt Camp, Alt Penedès and Anoia meet, a rugged, thinly populated upland that most people speed past on the motorway between Barcelona and Lleida without realising it exists.
Read the complete Roca Roja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roca Roja comes up about 55 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mas d'En Llort.
Montblanc is one of those small Catalan towns that still has its medieval walls, and the Mas d'en Llort label lies a few kilometres from it in the Conca de Barberà, a basin of vineyards and wheat fields ringed by low, scrubby mountains. A mas is a farmhouse, so the spot is probably a rural building or a field track rather than anything with a name on the map, and what you are really riding into is the countryside around it.
Read the complete Mas d'En Llort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 113 km into the recorded legs you reach Mas d'En Llort. Next is Roques Guàrdies II.
Les Garrigues is the dry, stony corner of western Catalonia, south-east of Lleida, a land of low hills, terraced olive groves, almond trees and stone huts, where the light is hard and the summers are hot. Roques Guàrdies II is a rock shelter in these hills near Juneda and Arbeca, with traces of prehistoric paintings in the Levantine style, part of the World Heritage site of rock art in the Mediterranean Basin of the Iberian Peninsula.
Read the complete Roques Guàrdies II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roques Guàrdies II, about halfway. Next is Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume.
Mequinenza had to move. In the 1960s and 1970s, two dams built on the Ebro created a huge reservoir known as the Mar de Aragón, and the old town at the meeting of the Ebro and the Segre was abandoned and largely demolished, its people resettled in a new town above. The story is told in the town's museums and in the novels of Jesús Moncada, who grew up in the old Mequinenza. In a ravine nearby, the Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume holds prehistoric paintings, part of the World Heritage Site of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin.
Read the complete Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume sits at 174 km, about halfway. Next is back through Roques Guàrdies II.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Roques Guàrdies II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Roques Guàrdies II comes up about 315 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Mas d'En Llort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mas d'En Llort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 360 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Mas d'En Llort. Next is back through Roca Roja.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Roca Roja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Roca Roja, late in the day. Next is Cova de Vallmajor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cova de Vallmajor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 477 km.
Cova de Vallmajor → Roca Roja is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roca Roja → Mas d'En Llort is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mas d'En Llort → Roques Guàrdies II is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roques Guàrdies II → Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume is 85 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume → back through Roques Guàrdies II is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Roques Guàrdies II → back through Mas d'En Llort is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Mas d'En Llort → back through Roca Roja is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Roca Roja → Cova de Vallmajor is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.