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.
From Maleján it runs 469 km to Maleján; allow about 7 h 08 of riding. On the way it passes Iglesia parroquial de Santa Tecla, Iglesia de Santa María, Abside and Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Borja is a town of four thousand people in the Ebro valley, but its name is known far beyond Spain, because it is the origin of the Borgia family. Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI, took his surname from this place, and the family's later fame in Italy, for poison, politics and portraits, makes a curious footnote to a quiet farming town. More recently, Borja became famous for a fresco. In 2012, an elderly parishioner's attempt to restore a painting of Christ in the nearby Sanctuary of Mercy turned it into an internet sensation, and visitors have come to see it ever since.
Read the complete Cueva de moncín I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva de moncín I is where the day begins. Next is Iglesia parroquial de Santa Tecla.
Cervera de la Cañada is a village of a few hundred people in the hills south of the Jalón valley, in the province of Zaragoza, with a church of Santa Tecla whose brick apse is one of the finest examples of Mudéjar work in Aragon. The label puts you right in the village, and the town of Calatayud lies twelve kilometres away to the north-east, on the main road between Madrid and Zaragoza.
Read the complete Iglesia parroquial de Santa Tecla write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Iglesia parroquial de Santa Tecla comes up about 98 km into the recorded legs. Next is Iglesia de Santa María.
Somewhere in the folds of the Sierra de Algairén, south-west of Zaragoza, a bell tower pokes up above a cluster of ochre roofs, and that is your Iglesia de Santa María. Half the villages of Aragon have a church of that name, and this one does the job the others do: it marks the middle of a small place where the shop, the bar and the plaza all orbit the same square of stone. The nearest neighbours on the map are Cosuenda, Almonacid de la Sierra and Alpartir, each a few hundred souls, each about nine kilometres off.
Read the complete Iglesia de Santa María write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 144 km into the recorded legs you reach Iglesia de Santa María. Next is Abside.
The apse in question belongs to the collegiate church of Santa María in Calatayud, and it is one of the reasons UNESCO lists the Mudéjar architecture of Aragon as a whole. Mudéjar means the building style of Muslim craftsmen living under Christian rule after the reconquest, and in Calatayud they did wonderful things with humble brick: geometric patterns, lozenges and interlacing arches laid out in relief, glazed tiles catching the sun. Next to the apse rises an octagonal brick tower that is the town's signature, and behind it a cloister, all three named in the listing.
Read the complete Abside write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abside, about halfway. Next is Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros.
The prehistoric painters of eastern Spain had a thing for archers. Across hundreds of rock shelters from Catalonia to Andalusia, they painted small, dynamic human figures drawing bows, chasing deer and goats, sometimes fighting each other, and these scenes of the so-called Levantine style are part of the UNESCO listing of rock art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. Shelters with names like the Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros, the shelter of the black archers, are scattered through the limestone hills of the province of Teruel and its neighbours in Aragon, often in remote ravines and protected by grilles.
Read the complete Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros sits at 196 km, about halfway. Next is back through Abside.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abside write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abside comes up about 290 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Iglesia de Santa María.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Iglesia de Santa María write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 325 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Iglesia de Santa María. Next is back through Iglesia parroquial de Santa Tecla.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Iglesia parroquial de Santa Tecla write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Iglesia parroquial de Santa Tecla, late in the day. Next is Cueva de moncín I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva de moncín I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 469 km.
Cueva de moncín I → Iglesia parroquial de Santa Tecla is 98 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Iglesia parroquial de Santa Tecla → Iglesia de Santa María is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Iglesia de Santa María → Abside is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abside → Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros → back through Abside is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abside → back through Iglesia de Santa María is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Iglesia de Santa María → back through Iglesia parroquial de Santa Tecla is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Iglesia parroquial de Santa Tecla → Cueva de moncín I is 97 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.