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 216 km to María; allow about 3 h 42 of riding. The stops in between: Abrigo de la Esperilla, Yedra and back through Abrigo de la Esperilla. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
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 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 56 km into the recorded legs. Next is Yedra.
In the souvenir shops of Almería there is a little stick figure with outstretched arms and a rainbow arching over his head, and it comes from here. This is the Indalo, a prehistoric painting found in the Cueva de los Letreros near Vélez-Blanco, and it has become the emblem of the whole province, painted on houses and doors and carved on bracelets. Nobody knows quite what it meant, though some say it was a charm against storms. Yedra is a nearby shelter, a short drive from the village, and belongs to the same group of rock art sites that UNESCO lists as part of the Mediterranean Basin tradition.
Read the complete Yedra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 108 km into the recorded legs you reach Yedra. 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 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.
Back at Cueva Ambrosio. That is the ride.
Cueva Ambrosio → Abrigo de la Esperilla is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de la Esperilla → Yedra is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yedra → back through Abrigo de la Esperilla is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abrigo de la Esperilla → Cueva Ambrosio is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.