CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
241 km from Calaceite to Calaceite, about 5 h 21 of riding. The stops in between: Val del Charco del Agua Amarga, Val de mamet I, Roca de marta and back through Val de mamet I. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Calaceite is the kind of village that makes you slow down without being asked: honey-coloured stone, arcaded squares, a big baroque church and grand old houses with carved doorways, all perched on a ridge in the Matarraña, the corner of Teruel where Aragón meets Catalonia and Valencia. A few kilometres from it lies the Cueva de Mas del Abogat, one of the painted rock shelters that belong to the UNESCO listing of prehistoric art in the Mediterranean Basin of the Iberian Peninsula. As with its sisters across eastern Spain, the paintings are small and often hard to read; the setting is what you take away.
Read the complete Cueva de mas del Abogat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva de mas del Abogat is where the day begins. Next is Val del Charco del Agua Amarga.
Around ten kilometres from Alcañiz, in a dry ravine among olive groves and limestone ledges, a rock shelter holds one of the most celebrated scenes of Levantine rock art in Spain. The paintings at Val del Charco del Agua Amarga show archers in motion, hunting and perhaps fighting, their thin bodies drawn with a few confident strokes in red. Many experts consider it one of the finest examples in the UNESCO listing of Mediterranean rock art, and seeing it, even protected behind a fence, gives a real jolt of connection to people who lived here several thousand years ago.
Read the complete Val del Charco del Agua Amarga write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Val del Charco del Agua Amarga comes up 31 km in. Next is Val de mamet I.
The Ebro river cuts through Aragon in a wide, dry valley, and where it meets its tributaries the Segre and Cinca around Mequinenza it was dammed in the twentieth century to make long, narrow lakes among bare hills. Val de Mamet is a dry side valley in this country, with a shelter that holds prehistoric paintings. The surroundings are arid and open, with low limestone cliffs, thyme and rosemary scrub, and scattered pines and almonds, and the silence is broken mostly by the wind and the occasional hawk.
Read the complete Val de mamet I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
61 km in you reach Val de mamet I. Next is Roca de marta.
Mequinenza lies where the Segre river meets the Ebro, and the town you see today is not the one that stood here before the 1960s. When a dam was built downstream on the Ebro, the old town was flooded by the reservoir, known as the Mar de Aragón, and its people moved to a new settlement on higher ground. The old castle still sits above the water, and the reservoir stretches in long fingers between bare, ochre hills. It is a landscape both beautiful and a little melancholy, and the lake is famous among anglers for enormous catfish.
Read the complete Roca de marta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roca de marta, about halfway. Next is back through Val de mamet I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Val de mamet I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Val de mamet I sits at 123 km, about halfway. Next is back through Val del Charco del Agua Amarga.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Val del Charco del Agua Amarga write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Val del Charco del Agua Amarga comes up 153 km in. Next is Cueva de mas del Abogat.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva de mas del Abogat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva de mas del Abogat closes the day.
Cueva de mas del Abogat → Val del Charco del Agua Amarga is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Val del Charco del Agua Amarga → Val de mamet I is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Val de mamet I → Roca de marta is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roca de marta → back through Val de mamet I is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Val de mamet I → back through Val del Charco del Agua Amarga is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Val del Charco del Agua Amarga → Cueva de mas del Abogat is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.