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 Atlatlahucan it runs 395 km to Atlatlahucan; allow about 6 h 25 of riding. It goes by way of Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew, Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan and back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Popocatépetl is one of the highest volcanoes in North America, at about 5,400 metres, and it still smokes. From Mexico City on a clear winter day you can see the plume, and on the south side, in the state of Morelos, the foothills are dotted with the monasteries that the first Spanish friars built in the sixteenth century. They arrived in waves, Franciscans in 1524, Dominicans in 1526 and Augustinians in 1533, and in a few decades they converted and taught the people of the valleys, building fortress-like convents with open-air chapels, huge atria for crowds, and cloisters decorated with painted scenes. Eleven of them became a World Heritage group in 1994.
Read the complete Earliest 16th-Century Monasteries on the S write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Earliest 16th-Century Monasteries on the S is where the day begins. Next is Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew.
Calpan is a small town on the lower slopes of Popocatépetl, and in its centre stands a sixteenth-century Franciscan convent that is one of the masterpieces of early colonial art in Mexico. Built soon after the Spanish conquest, when friars were racing to convert the Indigenous population, the church is set within a huge walled atrium where crowds could gather for open-air Mass. In each corner of the atrium stands a posa, a small chapel used for processions, and the four posas at Calpan are covered in astonishing carved reliefs: the Last Judgment, the Annunciation, saints and symbols, carved by Indigenous craftsmen who mixed European designs with their own style.
Read the complete Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew comes up about 79 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan.
When the Aztecs came across Teotihuacan, centuries after it had been abandoned, they thought it must have been built by gods and named it the place where the gods were made. The city had reached its peak between about the first and sixth centuries, with perhaps well over a hundred thousand people, a grid of streets, apartment compounds and some of the largest pyramids in the Americas. The Pyramid of the Sun is a huge stepped mass, and the Pyramid of the Moon sits at the far end of the Avenue of the Dead, a long, broad processional road that makes the city feel grand even now.
Read the complete Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 199 km into the recorded legs you reach Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan. Next is back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew, late in the day. Next is Earliest 16th-Century Monasteries on the S.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Earliest 16th-Century Monasteries on the S write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Earliest 16th-Century Monasteries on the S. That is the ride.
Earliest 16th-Century Monasteries on the S → Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew → Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan is 120 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan → back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew is 116 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew → Earliest 16th-Century Monasteries on the S is 80 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.