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.
279 km from Velez Rubio to Velez Rubio, about 4 h 16 of riding. It goes by way of Cueva de la Plata, Cueva de la Higuera and back through Cueva de la Plata. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 Cueva de la Plata.
Aledo is a tiny village on a rocky spur in the hills of Murcia, a place that punches well above its weight in history. In the eleventh century, it was a fortress on the frontier between Christian Castile and the Muslim taifa kingdoms, and the siege of Aledo in 1088 was a major episode in the struggle for the peninsula. A tower still stands above the village. The Cueva de la Plata, the silver cave, lies in the hills nearby, between Aledo, Totana and Alhama de Murcia.
Read the complete Cueva de la Plata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva de la Plata comes up about 80 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cueva de la Higuera.
Mazarrón has always been about what lies under the ground. Roman miners dug silver and lead from these dry hills, and later generations extracted alum and ochre, and the coast near the town still shows the scars and the rust-coloured earth of that trade. Two Phoenician ships from about the seventh century BC were found wrecked on the nearby shore, an astonishing find for archaeologists. The Cueva de la Higuera lies inland from the coast in the arid hills of the Región de Murcia, and its name means the cave of the fig tree, a small mark of green in a very dry place.
Read the complete Cueva de la Higuera write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 141 km into the recorded legs you reach Cueva de la Higuera. Next is back through Cueva de la Plata.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva de la Plata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cueva de la Plata, 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 → Cueva de la Plata is 80 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cueva de la Plata → Cueva de la Higuera is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva de la Higuera → back through Cueva de la Plata is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cueva de la Plata → Hoyos I is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.