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.
360 km from Bonansa to Bonansa, about 7 h 40 of riding. The stops in between: Balma de les Ovelles, Cova del Cogulló, Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars and back through Cova del Cogulló. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 38 km this is Ruta del Cares · N-260, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Taüll is a mountain village at roughly fifteen hundred metres in the Vall de Boí, one of the high Pyrenean valleys in Catalonia, and the church of Santa Maria is one of nine Romanesque churches here that UNESCO lists together. It was consecrated in the early twelfth century, and its square tower rises beside a plain stone nave in the way that many valley churches do, with Lombard bands along the walls. Inside, the apse paintings that made the valley famous are, in the main, copies: the originals were moved in the 1920s to the museum in Barcelona. The reproductions, projected and painted in place, give you the sense of the original even so.
Read the complete Eglésia de Santa Maria write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Eglésia de Santa Maria is where the day begins. Next is Balma de les Ovelles.
The Balma de les Ovelles, the Sheep's Shelter, lies in the high country where Catalonia meets Aragon, between the valleys of the Noguera Ribagorçana and the Noguera Pallaresa. This is the southern edge of the Pyrenees, a land of limestone ridges, deep gorges, reservoirs and scattered villages, many of them half empty. Rock shelters like this one, used by shepherds and their flocks for thousands of years, are found throughout the region, and some hold traces of prehistoric painting or occupation. The name tells you what it was most recently used for, and the landscape around still carries the sound of sheep bells.
Read the complete Balma de les Ovelles write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Balma de les Ovelles comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cova del Cogulló.
Between the plains of Lleida and the first serious mountains of the Pyrenees there is a band of country that most people cross without noticing, and it is a mistake. The Cova del Cogulló lies here, in the hills of the Noguera between Artesa de Segre and the Montsec, a long limestone wall that rises abruptly from the farmland. Rock shelters in these hills carry prehistoric paintings, part of the Mediterranean rock art tradition that runs all along eastern Spain, and the region's churches add a medieval layer, small Romanesque buildings in nearly every village.
Read the complete Cova del Cogulló write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 120 km into the recorded legs you reach Cova del Cogulló. Next is Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars.
Os de Balaguer is a small village on the edge of the pre-Pyrenean hills in the Noguera district of Lleida, and the Cova dels Vilasos, also known as the Cova dels Vilars, lies just outside it. The site is one of the painted rock shelters of Catalonia counted within the Mediterranean rock art group protected by UNESCO, and its figures are small and reddish, drawn by people who lived from hunting and gathering in what was then a far wilder landscape. Like its neighbours it is protected and rarely dramatic at first sight; give your eyes a moment in the shade and the shapes begin to come out of the stone.
Read the complete Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars, about halfway. Next is back through Cova del Cogulló.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cova del Cogulló write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cova del Cogulló sits at 170 km, about halfway. Next is back through Balma de les Ovelles.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Balma de les Ovelles write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Balma de les Ovelles comes up about 321 km into the recorded legs. Next is Eglésia de Santa Maria.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Eglésia de Santa Maria write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Eglésia de Santa Maria closes the day.
Eglésia de Santa Maria → Balma de les Ovelles is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Balma de les Ovelles → Cova del Cogulló is 82 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova del Cogulló → Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars → back through Cova del Cogulló is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cova del Cogulló → back through Balma de les Ovelles is 81 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Balma de les Ovelles → Eglésia de Santa Maria is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.