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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 71 km round trip from Velez Rubio - roughly 1 h 13 in the saddle. On the way it passes Gabar, Abrigo de los Gavilanes and back through Gabar. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Vélez-Blanco is a white village below a castle, and the hills around it hold some of the most celebrated prehistoric paintings in south-eastern Spain. Hoyos I is one of the painted shelters in the district, which sits in the Sierra María-Los Vélez, a natural park of limestone peaks on the northern edge of Almería province. The nearby Cueva de los Letreros is famous as the source of the Indalo, the little stick figure with an arc above its head that has become the symbol of Almería and appears on car stickers all over Spain. The shelter here belongs to the same tradition of painted art.
Read the complete Hoyos I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hoyos I is where the day begins. Next is Gabar.
High in the north of Almería province, far from the beaches most people associate with the name, the Sierra de María rises in grey limestone above a plateau of almond orchards and cereal fields. Gabar is a point in the hills between the villages of María and Vélez-Blanco, part of a cluster of rock-art shelters in the Los Vélez district. This corner of Spain is famous for one painted figure in particular: the Indalo, a little stick man holding an arc over his head, found in the Cueva de los Letreros just outside Vélez-Blanco. It has become the emblem of the whole province, painted on doors and sold as a lucky charm, which is a remarkable career for a prehistoric doodle.
Read the complete Gabar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gabar comes up about 17 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abrigo de los Gavilanes.
Gavilanes means sparrowhawks, and the name fits a shelter high on a limestone face above the dry country where Murcia meets Almería. The Abrigo de los Gavilanes lies in the hills west of Lorca, in an area scattered with painted shelters such as the Collado de la Cruz and Los Grajos, the jackdaws, and it is part of the World Heritage Site of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. The figures are small, red and schematic, painted by communities who farmed and herded here thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Abrigo de los Gavilanes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 36 km into the recorded legs you reach Abrigo de los Gavilanes. Next is back through Gabar.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gabar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Gabar, late in the day. Next is Hoyos I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hoyos I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Hoyos I. That is the ride.
Hoyos I → Gabar is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Gabar → Abrigo de los Gavilanes is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de los Gavilanes → back through Gabar is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Gabar → Hoyos I is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.