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.
From Velez Rubio it runs 71 km to Velez Rubio; allow about 1 h 13 of riding. It goes by way of 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. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Above the whitewashed roofs of Vélez-Blanco stands one of the most unexpected castles in Spain. It was built in the early sixteenth century for the first Marquis of Los Vélez, Pedro Fajardo, on a rocky spur, with a severe Gothic exterior and a Renaissance courtyard of astonishing delicacy inside. In the early twentieth century the owners sold the marble courtyard, which was taken down stone by stone and shipped abroad, and it now stands, reassembled, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. A later restoration left the castle itself with plain rooms, but it remains a splendid sight from the road.
Read the complete Hoyos II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hoyos II 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 II.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hoyos II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Hoyos II. That is the ride.
Hoyos II → 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 II is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.