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 343 km round trip from Zacatecas - roughly 5 h 42 in the saddle. On the way it passes Sanctuary of Plateros, Wixárika Route through Sacred Sites to Wir and back through Sanctuary of Plateros. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Silver built Zacatecas, and you can see it in every street. The city lies in a narrow ravine at around 2,400 metres on the high plateau of north-central Mexico, founded in the 1540s after Spanish prospectors found rich silver veins in the surrounding hills. For centuries the mines here poured wealth into the Spanish crown, and the miners and merchants spent their share on churches, mansions and plazas of pinkish quarried stone. The centre became a World Heritage Site in 1993, and the city is also on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the long colonial road that ran from Mexico City to New Mexico.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Zacatecas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Zacatecas is where the day begins. Next is Sanctuary of Plateros.
Plateros is a small town on the edge of the high desert plateau in Zacatecas, a few kilometres from the silver city of Fresnillo, and it exists, more or less, because of one small figure on an altar. The Santo Nino de Atocha, a child dressed as a pilgrim and carrying a basket and a staff, is revered here as a protector of travellers, prisoners and the sick. The devotion came from Spain, where the original image belongs to the shrine of Atocha in Madrid, and it was carried across the Atlantic by the Spanish miners who came for Zacatecas silver. The sanctuary at Plateros became one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Mexico.
Read the complete Sanctuary of Plateros write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sanctuary of Plateros comes up about 65 km into the recorded legs. Next is Wixárika Route through Sacred Sites to Wir.
West of Jerez, in Zacatecas, the land starts to fold into the long ridges of the Sierra Madre Occidental, and somewhere in these hills runs the path that Wixárika pilgrims follow from their homeland in the mountains of Jalisco and Nayarit toward Wirikuta, their sacred desert far to the east. The route, listed by UNESCO in 2025, is not a road in the usual sense but a chain of sacred places, springs, hills and caves where the pilgrims stop to pray, leave offerings and remember the journey of their ancestors, who according to tradition walked this way at the beginning of the world.
Read the complete Wixárika Route through Sacred Sites to Wir write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 171 km into the recorded legs you reach Wixárika Route through Sacred Sites to Wir. Next is back through Sanctuary of Plateros.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sanctuary of Plateros write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sanctuary of Plateros, late in the day. Next is Historic Centre of Zacatecas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Zacatecas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Historic Centre of Zacatecas. That is the ride.
Historic Centre of Zacatecas → Sanctuary of Plateros is 65 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sanctuary of Plateros → Wixárika Route through Sacred Sites to Wir is 106 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Wixárika Route through Sacred Sites to Wir → back through Sanctuary of Plateros is 106 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Sanctuary of Plateros → Historic Centre of Zacatecas is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.