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.
A 312 km round trip from Calasparra - roughly 5 h 49 in the saddle. It goes by way of Abrigo de Zaén I, Abrigo del mojao and back through Abrigo de Zaén I. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
The Segura river does something dramatic near Calasparra: it squeezes into the Almadenes canyon, a narrow gorge in grey limestone, and the first time you see it from the rim it is a quiet shock in a district otherwise made of dry hills and irrigated bottoms. The Cueva de las Cabras sits in that territory, in the dry uplands of Murcia where the Spanish Levant starts to blur into the interior plateau, and its rock paintings belong to the same family as those further north in Castellón.
Read the complete Cueva de las Cabras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva de las Cabras is where the day begins. Next is Abrigo de Zaén I.
Zaén is a name that appears on maps of the Sierra de Segura and the Sierra del Taibilla as a small valley with a few farms, and the shelter here is one of the painted caves of the Albacete interior. The area, wild and thinly populated, lies between Letur, Socovos and Férez, in the country drained by the Mundo river. This is the Spain of the unfashionable inland, where roads are quiet, villages are small and the hills are covered with pine and juniper. The paintings belong to the Mediterranean-arc group UNESCO listed in 1998, and the nearby Letreros de los Mártires, mentioned in the ride titles, belongs to the same tradition.
Read the complete Abrigo de Zaén I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de Zaén I comes up about 87 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abrigo del mojao.
Sometimes a name on a map is all you have, and this is one of those places. The Abrigo del Mojao belongs to the cluster of painted rock shelters in the high north-east of Almería, in the sierra country that spills across towards Murcia, and it sits some sixteen kilometres from the nearest village of any size. The shelters here are part of the Mediterranean Basin rock art tradition that UNESCO recognised in 1998, and their paintings are usually schematic, simple red signs and figures drawn by people who lived in this dry upland thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Abrigo del mojao write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 156 km into the recorded legs you reach Abrigo del mojao. Next is back through Abrigo de Zaén I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo de Zaén I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abrigo de Zaén I, late in the day. Next is Cueva de las Cabras.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva de las Cabras write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cueva de las Cabras. That is the ride.
Cueva de las Cabras → Abrigo de Zaén I is 87 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de Zaén I → Abrigo del mojao is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Abrigo del mojao → back through Abrigo de Zaén I is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Abrigo de Zaén I → Cueva de las Cabras is 87 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.