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 137 km round trip from Moratalla - roughly 3 h 42 in the saddle. The stops in between: Hondares, Las Casas de las Ingenieros I and back through Hondares. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,350 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 Hondares.
Hondares is a word on a map that barely registers, and that is exactly why people come. It lies in the high, dry country where the province of Murcia gives way to Albacete, between the Sierra de Segura foothills and the Segura river, which has carved a long valley here before it spills into the Fuensanta reservoir. Moratalla, the nearest real town, is about twelve kilometres away, and in this part of Spain that counts as close.
Read the complete Hondares write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hondares comes up about 17 km into the recorded legs. Next is Las Casas de las Ingenieros I.
The name points to engineers, and in this corner of Albacete the likeliest explanation is water. The upper Segura and Taibilla valleys feed reservoirs and canals that supply towns and farms far down toward Murcia and the coast, and the people who built and maintained that system needed houses in a remote landscape. Las Casas de los Ingenieros sits some distance from Nerpio, in a quiet valley of pine, scrub and farmland, with a rock shelter nearby, and the whole area is dotted with painted shelters from the prehistoric past. Other shelters in the area carry the names of the people who first recorded them, a reminder of how recently some of these sites were noticed.
Read the complete Las Casas de las Ingenieros I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 55 km into the recorded legs you reach Las Casas de las Ingenieros I. Next is back through Hondares.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hondares write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hondares, 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.
Back at Fuensanta II. That is the ride.
Fuensanta II → Hondares is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hondares → Las Casas de las Ingenieros I is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Las Casas de las Ingenieros I → back through Hondares is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hondares → Fuensanta II is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.