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.
199 km from Al Buraymī to Al Buraymī, about 3 h 52 of riding. The stops in between: Jebel Hafit Desert Park, Al Muwaiji Oasis, Cultural Sites of Al Ain and back through Al Muwaiji Oasis. It crosses from Oman into United Arab Emirates - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 35 km this is Jebel Hafeet Mountain Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Jebel Hafit is the mountain that dominates the skyline here, a long, jagged limestone ridge rising abruptly from the desert plain on the border between Oman and the Emirates. Its slopes are littered with beehive-shaped stone tombs, built about five thousand years ago, among the oldest of their kind in the Arabian Peninsula. Hili North Tomb B belongs to the same oasis landscape as the better-known Hili sites and is a short ride from Buraimi, with the mountain filling the horizon to the south.
Read the complete Hili North Tomb B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hili North Tomb B is where the day begins. Next is Jebel Hafit Desert Park.
For riders in the Gulf, there is a road that people talk about with real affection. Jebel Hafit, a long, rocky ridge that rises out of the flat gravel plain on the border between the United Arab Emirates and Oman, is about 1,240 metres high, and a smooth tarmac road snakes up its eastern flank in a long series of hairpins and bends to the top, a distance of about eleven kilometres. At the summit, a hotel and a viewing terrace look out over the oasis city of Al Ain, with the desert stretching away to the horizon, and at dusk the lights come on below like a field of stars. Motorcyclists and cyclists come here in the cooler months, usually early in the morning or at sunset, and the road is one of the best in the country.
Read the complete Jebel Hafit Desert Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jebel Hafit Desert Park comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Al Muwaiji Oasis.
Al Ain is called the Garden City, and the Al Muwaiji area gives you the reason. Inside a ring of mud-brick walls, date palms grow thick and tall, shading small plots of vegetables, citrus trees and fodder, watered by the old irrigation channels called aflaj. These are underground and open channels that bring water from the hills, some of them used for around three thousand years, and the system is still in use. UNESCO included the oases of Al Ain in its 2011 listing of the area's cultural sites, alongside the Bronze Age tombs of Hafit and Hili.
Read the complete Al Muwaiji Oasis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach Al Muwaiji Oasis. Next is Cultural Sites of Al Ain.
Al Ain is called the Garden City, and the name is earned. It is a large, spread-out oasis town at the foot of Jebel Hafit, close to the border with Oman, and its green roundabouts, date plantations and tree-lined avenues look like a deliberate argument against the desert. The UNESCO cultural sites here bundle together a handful of places: the Hafit tombs, the Hili archaeological park, the Bidaa bint Saud area, and the oases of the town itself. The theme is human life in a dry land, over a very long time.
Read the complete Cultural Sites of Al Ain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cultural Sites of Al Ain, about halfway. Next is back through Al Muwaiji Oasis.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Al Muwaiji Oasis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Al Muwaiji Oasis sits at 117 km, about halfway. Next is back through Jebel Hafit Desert Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jebel Hafit Desert Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Jebel Hafit Desert Park comes up about 161 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hili North Tomb B.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hili North Tomb B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hili North Tomb B closes the day.
Hili North Tomb B → Jebel Hafit Desert Park is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jebel Hafit Desert Park → Al Muwaiji Oasis is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Al Muwaiji Oasis → Cultural Sites of Al Ain is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cultural Sites of Al Ain → back through Al Muwaiji Oasis is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Al Muwaiji Oasis → back through Jebel Hafit Desert Park is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Jebel Hafit Desert Park → Hili North Tomb B is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.