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.
595 km from Moratalla to Moratalla, about 12 h 57 of riding. The stops in between: Abrigo de la Viñuela, Letreros de los mártires, Cañada de la Cruz and Abrigo del.melgar. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Fuensanta II is the sort of name only an archaeologist could love, a numbered rock shelter in the hills of northwest Murcia where prehistoric painters left a handful of figures on the stone. It is one of the hundreds of sites grouped under UNESCO's listing of rock art in the Mediterranean Basin of the Iberian Peninsula, and the Moratalla area is unusually rich in them. The paintings are small, faint to the untrained eye and protected, so the real value of coming is to understand the landscape that drew people here thousands of years ago: springs, shelter and game in rough, broken country.
Read the complete Fuensanta II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fuensanta II is where the day begins. Next is Abrigo de la Viñuela.
Segura de la Sierra is a village that looks like a stage set, and it is real. It sits on a conical hill above the olive groves of the upper Guadalimar valley, crowned by a castle, with narrow lanes of whitewashed houses winding up to the walls, and from the top the view takes in miles of olives, pine-covered ridges and distant sierras. The castle was a stronghold of the Order of Santiago, the knightly order that held much of this frontier in the Middle Ages. It has a Moorish bath house, restored and open to the public, a bullring built into the rock, and a medieval keep.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Viñuela write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de la Viñuela comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. Next is Letreros de los mártires.
Out in the high north-east of Granada province, Huéscar feels a long way from the Alhambra and the beaches of the Costa Tropical. This is the altiplano, a broad upland of wheat fields, almond trees and pale badlands at around a thousand metres, ringed by mountains, with the great limestone hump of La Sagra rising to the north. The rock shelter called Letreros de los Mártires lies in this country, a dozen or so kilometres from the town.
Read the complete Letreros de los mártires write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 88 km into the recorded legs you reach Letreros de los mártires. Next is Cañada de la Cruz.
The Cañada de la Cruz is a high valley or drovers' pasture in the Segura mountains; cañada is the word for the traditional livestock routes and grazing grounds used by shepherds moving their flocks between summer and winter pastures, and this part of Spain has a long history of transhumance.
Read the complete Cañada de la Cruz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cañada de la Cruz, about halfway. Next is Abrigo del.melgar, 41 km on.
Quesada is a white town at the foot of the Sierra de Cazorla, in the province of Jaén, surrounded by an ocean of olive trees. The groves stretch to the horizon in every direction, a landscape that makes Jaén the world's largest producer of olive oil. Behind the town, the mountains rise steeply, with pine forest and limestone cliffs, and the Guadalquivir river has its source not far away. The Abrigo del Melgar lies in the hills just outside the town.
Read the complete Abrigo del.melgar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo del.melgar sits at 164 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cañada de la Cruz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cañada de la Cruz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cañada de la Cruz comes up about 433 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Letreros de los mártires.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Letreros de los mártires write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 502 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Letreros de los mártires. Next is back through Abrigo de la Viñuela.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Viñuela write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abrigo de la Viñuela, late in the day. Next is Fuensanta II.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fuensanta II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 595 km.
Fuensanta II → Abrigo de la Viñuela is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de la Viñuela → Letreros de los mártires is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Letreros de los mártires → Cañada de la Cruz is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cañada de la Cruz → Abrigo del.melgar is 128 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo del.melgar → back through Cañada de la Cruz is 145 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cañada de la Cruz → back through Letreros de los mártires is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Letreros de los mártires → back through Abrigo de la Viñuela is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abrigo de la Viñuela → Fuensanta II is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.