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 Santa Coloma de Cervelló it runs 236 km to Santa Coloma de Cervelló; allow about 3 h 43 of riding. On the way it passes Cova dels Segarulls, Cova de Vallmajor, Aqueduct and back through Cova de Vallmajor. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Few people ride out of Barcelona expecting to find Gaudí in a mill village, but that is exactly what waits at Santa Coloma de Cervelló, a short hop up the Llobregat from Sant Boi. The Colònia Güell was a textile colony founded by the industrialist Eusebi Güell, who moved his cotton works out of the city in the 1890s and built housing, a school, shops and a theatre for the workers around the factory. He asked his friend Antoni Gaudí for a church. Gaudí spent about ten years on the design and its foundations, and when money and the Güell family's enthusiasm ran out around 1914, only the lower level had been finished. That crypt is what you come to see.
Read the complete Crypt at the Colònia Güell write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Crypt at the Colònia Güell is where the day begins. Next is Cova dels Segarulls.
The vineyards of the Penedès roll out in every direction from Vilafranca, and the Cova dels Segarulls lies among them, a few kilometres outside the town in the low hills toward the coastal range.
Read the complete Cova dels Segarulls write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cova dels Segarulls comes up about 47 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cova de Vallmajor.
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.
about 76 km into the recorded legs you reach Cova de Vallmajor. Next is Aqueduct.
The Pont del Diable, the Devil's Bridge, is not a bridge for people. It is a Roman aqueduct, a tall, two-tiered stone arcade that carried water to Tarraco, modern Tarragona, from the Francolí river, about fifteen kilometres away. It spans a small valley near the road to Constantí, two hundred metres long and about twenty-seven metres high at its tallest point, built of big dressed stones without mortar, and it has stood for roughly two thousand years. UNESCO included it in the Archaeological Ensemble of Tarraco in 2000.
Read the complete Aqueduct write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Aqueduct, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Cova de Vallmajor sits at 127 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cova dels Segarulls.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cova dels Segarulls write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cova dels Segarulls comes up about 189 km into the recorded legs. Next is Crypt at the Colònia Güell.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Crypt at the Colònia Güell write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Crypt at the Colònia Güell closes the day.
Crypt at the Colònia Güell → Cova dels Segarulls is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova dels Segarulls → Cova de Vallmajor is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova de Vallmajor → Aqueduct is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Aqueduct → back through Cova de Vallmajor is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cova de Vallmajor → back through Cova dels Segarulls is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cova dels Segarulls → Crypt at the Colònia Güell is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.