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.
From María it runs 221 km to María; allow about 3 h 49 of riding. On the way it passes Panal, Letreros de los mártires, Río frío and back through Letreros de los mártires. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,450 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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.
Cueva Ambrosio is where the day begins. Next is Panal.
The north of Almería province is a different Spain from the sunburnt beach coast to the south. Here, around Vélez-Blanco and Vélez-Rubio, the land lifts to a high, cold plateau of almonds, cereal and pine woods, and the Sierra María-Los Vélez natural park rises above it, a rough limestone ridge with its summit above two thousand metres. Panal is a rock shelter in those hills, a short distance from Vélez-Blanco, and it belongs to the group of paintings recognised by UNESCO as the Mediterranean Basin rock art. Here the paintings are of the schematic kind, simple red signs and figures, rather than the lively hunting scenes found further north.
Read the complete Panal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Panal comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Letreros de los mártires.
Out in the high north-east of Granada province, Huéscar feels a long way from the Alhambra and the beaches of the Costa Tropical. This is the altiplano, a broad upland of wheat fields, almond trees and pale badlands at around a thousand metres, ringed by mountains, with the great limestone hump of La Sagra rising to the north. The rock shelter called Letreros de los Mártires lies in this country, a dozen or so kilometres from the town.
Read the complete Letreros de los mártires write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 84 km into the recorded legs you reach Letreros de los mártires. Next is Río frío.
Cold water is a rare luxury in southern Spain, and a stream called Río Frío promises exactly that. It is a land of pine forests, limestone crags, deep river gorges and tiny villages, and the painted rock shelters scattered through these hills are part of the UNESCO listing of rock art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula.
Read the complete Río frío write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Río frío, about halfway. Next is back through Letreros de los mártires.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Letreros de los mártires write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Letreros de los mártires sits at 147 km, about halfway. Next is back through Panal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Panal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Panal comes up about 197 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cueva Ambrosio.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva Ambrosio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva Ambrosio closes the day.
Cueva Ambrosio → Panal is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Panal → Letreros de los mártires is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Letreros de los mártires → Río frío is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Río frío → back through Letreros de los mártires is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Letreros de los mártires → back through Panal is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Panal → Cueva Ambrosio is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.