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.
From Moratalla it runs 80 km to Moratalla; allow about 2 h 01 of riding. On the way it passes Fuensanta II, friso de los Gitanos o Abrigo del Cazador and back through Fuensanta II. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Fuensanta II.
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 comes up about 16 km into the recorded legs. Next is friso de los Gitanos o Abrigo del Cazador.
Nerpio sits at about a thousand metres in the Sierra de Segura foothills, at the far south-west corner of Albacete province, in a high valley that feels closer to Andalusia than to La Mancha. It is an out-of-the-way place, with orchards of apples, almond and walnut trees in the valley bottoms and bare limestone peaks above. The area is famous among specialists for its rock art: dozens of shelters in the surrounding gorges hold paintings of the Levantine and Schematic styles, and they are part of the Mediterranean-arc group UNESCO listed in 1998. The Friso de los Gitanos, the Gypsies' Frieze, is one of the better known, and the name tells you that locals have been looking at it for a long time.
Read the complete friso de los Gitanos o Abrigo del Cazador write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 38 km into the recorded legs you reach friso de los Gitanos o Abrigo del Cazador. Next is back through 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 through Fuensanta II, late in the day. Next is 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 at Hondares. That is the ride.
Hondares → Fuensanta II is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuensanta II → friso de los Gitanos o Abrigo del Cazador is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
friso de los Gitanos o Abrigo del Cazador → back through Fuensanta II is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fuensanta II → Hondares is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.