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 329 km round trip from Tepeji del Río de Ocampo - roughly 5 h 35 in the saddle. On the way it passes Town of Aculco, Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve and back through Town of Aculco. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,750 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Tepeji del Río is a busy town in the state of Hidalgo, on the old road north from Mexico City, and at its heart stands a sixteenth-century Franciscan convent, one of the many fortress-like monasteries built by the friars in the first decades after the Spanish conquest to evangelise the indigenous population. The church has a sober façade, a large open atrium where crowds of converts once gathered for mass, and a cloister with traces of mural paintings. The convent stands on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of that route. Like many of these early convents, it combines European Gothic and Renaissance forms with the work of indigenous craftsmen, whose hand can be seen in the carvings and paintings.
Read the complete Former convent of San Francisco in Tepeji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Former convent of San Francisco in Tepeji is where the day begins. Next is Town of Aculco.
Aculco is a quiet stone town in the northwest of the State of Mexico, on the high plateau at well over two thousand metres, where the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the colonial road to the north, passed through on its way from Mexico City. The town was a staging post, and its well-preserved centre, with a broad plaza, the Franciscan church and convent of San Jerónimo and old houses built of pinkish stone, is part of the UNESCO listing for the route. It was here, in November 1810, that royalist troops defeated Miguel Hidalgo's insurgent army, an early setback in the War of Independence that people still mention with a kind of local pride.
Read the complete Town of Aculco write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Town of Aculco comes up about 63 km into the recorded legs. Next is Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve.
Between November and March, the fir forests on the mountains of central Mexico turn orange. Millions of monarch butterflies, which have flown some four thousand kilometres from Canada and the northern United States, cluster on the oyamel firs at about three thousand metres, hanging in dense clusters that bend the branches. In the warmth of the sun they open their wings and fly, and the air fills with soft movement, a sound like rain falling on leaves. Nobody knows exactly how they find the place, since the generation that arrives has never made the trip before, and the mystery adds to the wonder. The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, on the border of Michoacan and the State of Mexico, protects the wintering grounds and was listed as a World Heritage site in 2008.
Read the complete Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 165 km into the recorded legs you reach Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Next is back through Town of Aculco.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Town of Aculco write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Town of Aculco, late in the day. Next is Former convent of San Francisco in Tepeji.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Former convent of San Francisco in Tepeji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Former convent of San Francisco in Tepeji. That is the ride.
Former convent of San Francisco in Tepeji → Town of Aculco is 63 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Town of Aculco → Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve is 102 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve → back through Town of Aculco is 102 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Town of Aculco → Former convent of San Francisco in Tepeji is 62 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.