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 310 km round trip from Alquézar - roughly 5 h 14 in the saddle. The stops in between: El Remosillo, Les Coves, Cova del Tabac and back through Les Coves. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Barely five hundred metres from the centre of Alquézar, the Cueva Palomera takes its name from the doves that nested in it, a palomera being a dovecote. That makes it the closest of all the painted shelters on this list to a village, and the easiest to fit into a day of riding. The cave is among the sites catalogued in the Vero valley and falls within the UNESCO listing of the Mediterranean rock art of the Iberian Peninsula. Whether any paintings are visible, and whether the cave is open to visitors, you should check locally, because access rules change.
Read the complete Cueva Palomera write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva Palomera is where the day begins. Next is El Remosillo.
If you ride north from Barbastro toward Graus, the Ésera river eventually forces its way through a ridge of limestone, and the result is the Congosto de Olvena, a short, deep gorge with the road squeezed between rock and water. Up on the cliffs around here are rock shelters with prehistoric paintings, and El Remosillo is one of the best known in this corner of Aragón, between Estadilla, Graus and Fonz.
Read the complete El Remosillo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
El Remosillo comes up about 44 km into the recorded legs. Next is Les Coves.
The western edge of Catalonia, around Lleida, is fruit country. Irrigation canals bring water from the Pyrenean rivers to a broad, flat plain of orchards growing apples, pears and peaches, laid out in neat lines that stretch to the horizon. Les Coves lies in this area, close to the Aragonese border, between Alfarràs, Albelda and Algerri, where the valley of the Noguera Ribagorçana spills out of the hills and onto the plain.
Read the complete Les Coves write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 90 km into the recorded legs you reach Les Coves. Next is Cova del Tabac.
Above the village of Camarasa, where the Segre comes out of the pre-Pyrenean hills onto the plain of Lleida, a cave in the limestone holds some of the most interesting rock paintings in Catalonia. The Cova del Tabac, the tobacco cave, is a wide shelter with schematic paintings, simplified human figures, animals and symbols in red, and it is one of the sites included in the UNESCO listing of Mediterranean rock art on the Iberian Peninsula. A short walk leads up from the road to the shelter, which also offers a fine view over the valley, and on a clear day the Pyrenees rise white on the northern horizon.
Read the complete Cova del Tabac write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cova del Tabac, about halfway. Next is back through Les Coves.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Les Coves write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Les Coves sits at 146 km, about halfway. Next is back through El Remosillo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete El Remosillo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through El Remosillo comes up about 267 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cueva Palomera.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva Palomera write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva Palomera closes the day.
Cueva Palomera → El Remosillo is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
El Remosillo → Les Coves is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Les Coves → Cova del Tabac is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova del Tabac → back through Les Coves is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Les Coves → back through El Remosillo is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through El Remosillo → Cueva Palomera is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.