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 105 km round trip from Bárcabo - roughly 1 h 49 in the saddle. The stops in between: Cueva de Pacencia, Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña and back through Cueva de Pacencia. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
The most common name for a cave in the Spanish countryside is not the name of a saint or a landowner but the Cueva de los Moros, the Moors' Cave, and the Vero valley is full of them. When people did not know who had painted an overhang or dug a hollow in the rock, they said it was the work of the Moors, who left the peninsula in the fifteenth century but whose memory remained as a catch-all for the mysterious past. Buried treasures, enchanted princesses and secret passages feature in the tales, and several caves on these routes carry the name. Huerto Raso I, five kilometres from Alquézar, belongs to the real painted tradition, though, and not the legendary one.
Read the complete Huerto Raso I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Huerto Raso I is where the day begins. Next is Cueva de Pacencia.
The Sierra de Guara is the first big wrinkle of the Pyrenees north of Huesca, a block of limestone sliced into deep canyons by rivers like the Vero, the Alcanadre and the Mascún, and the Cueva de Pacencia sits in that broken country. The shelters along the Vero hold prehistoric paintings in several styles, from the lively Levantine hunters to much more abstract schematic signs, and they are part of the UNESCO Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin. The area is managed as the Río Vero Cultural Park, with an interpretation centre in Colungo and guided visits to the best-preserved shelters, which is the sensible way to see them.
Read the complete Cueva de Pacencia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva de Pacencia comes up about 17 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña.
Just north of Huesca, where the flat cereal land of the Hoya suddenly rears up into the first limestone walls of the Pre-Pyrenees, lies the little village of Nueno and, above it, the rock shelter named after Santa Eulalia de la Peña. This is the southern edge of the Sierra de Guara country, a landscape of gorges, conglomerate cliffs and scrub where griffon vultures ride the thermals and the light comes hard off pale stone.
Read the complete Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 53 km into the recorded legs you reach Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña. Next is back through Cueva de Pacencia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva de Pacencia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cueva de Pacencia, late in the day. Next is Huerto Raso I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Huerto Raso I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Huerto Raso I. That is the ride.
Huerto Raso I → Cueva de Pacencia is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva de Pacencia → Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña → back through Cueva de Pacencia is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cueva de Pacencia → Huerto Raso I is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.