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 351 km round trip from Ayna - roughly 6 h 27 in the saddle. It goes by way of Las Cazuelas, Cueva de la Plata and back through Las Cazuelas. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Ayna is a village of white houses clinging to the walls of a deep gorge carved by the Mundo river, in the Sierra de Alcaraz in the southwest of Albacete province. Its setting is so dramatic that it is sometimes called the Little Switzerland of La Mancha, and it was the backdrop for the cult Spanish film Amanece, que no es poco, a surreal comedy shot here in the late 1980s. A few kilometres away, in a rocky ravine, the Cueva del Niño holds something rare for this part of Spain: Palaeolithic paintings of deer, ibex and horses, much older than the Levantine figures painted later on the same walls. It is part of the UNESCO listing of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula, and access is restricted to protect the paintings.
Read the complete Cueva del Niño write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva del Niño is where the day begins. Next is Las Cazuelas.
Moratalla is the kind of hill town that looks as though it was poured down a slope: white houses tumbling below a castle tower, narrow lanes too steep for comfort, church bells echoing off the hills. Ten kilometres out, in the rugged country of north-west Murcia, the shelter of Las Cazuelas holds prehistoric paintings, part of the region's contribution to the UNESCO-listed Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin. The paintings are fragile and protected, and access is usually by guided visit, arranged in Moratalla or through the regional authorities.
Read the complete Las Cazuelas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Las Cazuelas comes up about 84 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cueva de la Plata.
Aledo is a tiny village on a rocky spur in the hills of Murcia, a place that punches well above its weight in history. In the eleventh century, it was a fortress on the frontier between Christian Castile and the Muslim taifa kingdoms, and the siege of Aledo in 1088 was a major episode in the struggle for the peninsula. A tower still stands above the village. The Cueva de la Plata, the silver cave, lies in the hills nearby, between Aledo, Totana and Alhama de Murcia.
Read the complete Cueva de la Plata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 175 km into the recorded legs you reach Cueva de la Plata. Next is back through Las Cazuelas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Las Cazuelas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Las Cazuelas, late in the day. Next is Cueva del Niño.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva del Niño write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cueva del Niño. That is the ride.
Cueva del Niño → Las Cazuelas is 84 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Las Cazuelas → Cueva de la Plata is 91 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva de la Plata → back through Las Cazuelas is 91 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Las Cazuelas → Cueva del Niño is 84 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.