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.
An 82 km round trip from Socovos - roughly 2 h 06 in the saddle. It goes by way of Fuensanta II, friso de los Gitanos o Abrigo del Cazador and back through Fuensanta II. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
This is the country of the upper Segura, where Albacete and Murcia meet, and it is among the least visited corners of southern Spain. The river cuts through limestone sierras, with pine forests, reedy banks and small terraced fields where almond and olive trees grow, and the villages, Socovos and Férez among them, are small, white and quiet. The scale of the land is bigger than its population, and in summer the cicadas are the loudest thing you will hear.
Read the complete Cueva de los Cascarones write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva de los Cascarones is where the day begins. Next is Fuensanta II.
Fuensanta II is the sort of name only an archaeologist could love, a numbered rock shelter in the hills of northwest Murcia where prehistoric painters left a handful of figures on the stone. It is one of the hundreds of sites grouped under UNESCO's listing of rock art in the Mediterranean Basin of the Iberian Peninsula, and the Moratalla area is unusually rich in them. The paintings are small, faint to the untrained eye and protected, so the real value of coming is to understand the landscape that drew people here thousands of years ago: springs, shelter and game in rough, broken country.
Read the complete Fuensanta II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fuensanta II comes up about 17 km into the recorded legs. Next is friso de los Gitanos o Abrigo del Cazador.
Nerpio sits at about a thousand metres in the Sierra de Segura foothills, at the far south-west corner of Albacete province, in a high valley that feels closer to Andalusia than to La Mancha. It is an out-of-the-way place, with orchards of apples, almond and walnut trees in the valley bottoms and bare limestone peaks above. The area is famous among specialists for its rock art: dozens of shelters in the surrounding gorges hold paintings of the Levantine and Schematic styles, and they are part of the Mediterranean-arc group UNESCO listed in 1998. The Friso de los Gitanos, the Gypsies' Frieze, is one of the better known, and the name tells you that locals have been looking at it for a long time.
Read the complete friso de los Gitanos o Abrigo del Cazador write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 39 km into the recorded legs you reach friso de los Gitanos o Abrigo del Cazador. Next is back through Fuensanta II.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fuensanta II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fuensanta II, late in the day. Next is Cueva de los Cascarones.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva de los Cascarones write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cueva de los Cascarones. That is the ride.
Cueva de los Cascarones → Fuensanta II is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuensanta II → friso de los Gitanos o Abrigo del Cazador is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
friso de los Gitanos o Abrigo del Cazador → back through Fuensanta II is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fuensanta II → Cueva de los Cascarones is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.