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.
A 514 km round trip from Albocàsser - roughly 14 h 11 in the saddle. The stops in between: La Roca del migdia, Castell de Villafamés, Cova de Gargán and La Joquera. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The high, folded country behind the Valencian coast, the Maestrat, has long been a land of isolated farms, stone walls and windy ridges, and it is one of the least known parts of eastern Spain. La Cova dels Tolls Alts lies five kilometres from Albocàsser, in limestone hills dotted with holm oak, pine and almond, where the ravines run down toward the lowlands and the sea. The name means cave of the high pools, a reminder that water, even in this dry region, is what makes a place habitable.
Read the complete La Cova dels Tolls Alts write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Cova dels Tolls Alts is where the day begins. Next is La Roca del migdia.
The inland hills of Castellón are some of the emptiest in eastern Spain. Behind the orange groves and resorts of the coast the land rises into the Maestrat, a high, stony country of plateaus, gorges and stone-walled fields, where villages of a few hundred people cluster around fortified churches and the horizon is crowned by the bulk of Penyagolosa, nearly 1,800 metres high. Villafranca del Cid, Culla and Benassal lie in this landscape, and the Roca del Migdia, the Noon Rock, is a shelter in a limestone face that was painted in prehistory.
Read the complete La Roca del migdia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Roca del migdia comes up about 64 km into the recorded legs. Next is Castell de Villafamés.
Villafamés announces itself from a long way off: a village of white and ochre houses stacked up a hill of reddish rock, with the remains of a castle crowning the top. It stands a little inland from the coast of Castellón, roughly between Borriol, Cabanes and the beach town of Benicàssim, close enough to the sea that you can smell salt on a westerly breeze turning, yet already in that rumpled hill country that leads up into the Maestrat.
Read the complete Castell de Villafamés write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 157 km into the recorded legs you reach Castell de Villafamés. Next is Cova de Gargán.
High in the interior of Castellón, where the coastal orange groves are long forgotten and the land climbs toward the Penyagolosa massif, the shelter known as Cova de Gargán sits in a country of limestone ledges, holm oak and dry-stone terraces. Vistabella del Maestrazgo is the nearest village, a handful of kilometres away on its high plateau, with Villahermosa del Río down in its valley to the other side and Lucena del Cid a little further south. It is quiet up here in a way that the coast never is.
Read the complete Cova de Gargán write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cova de Gargán, about halfway. Next is La Joquera.
Just behind Castelló de la Plana, where the coastal plain meets the first hills, the ravine of La Joquera cuts into the limestone near the village of Borriol. Its shelters hold prehistoric paintings, part of the UNESCO-listed rock art of the Mediterranean basin, and the area has been studied for its archaeology for decades. It is unusual to find such ancient art so close to a large modern city, and the contrast between the busy plain below, with its orange groves, factories and motorways, and the quiet hills above is striking.
Read the complete La Joquera write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Joquera sits at 156 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cova de Gargán.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cova de Gargán write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cova de Gargán comes up about 311 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Castell de Villafamés.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castell de Villafamés write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 354 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Castell de Villafamés. Next is back through La Roca del migdia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Roca del migdia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La Roca del migdia, late in the day. Next is La Cova dels Tolls Alts.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Cova dels Tolls Alts write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 514 km.
La Cova dels Tolls Alts → La Roca del migdia is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Roca del migdia → Castell de Villafamés is 93 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castell de Villafamés → Cova de Gargán is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova de Gargán → La Joquera is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Joquera → back through Cova de Gargán is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cova de Gargán → back through Castell de Villafamés is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Castell de Villafamés → back through La Roca del migdia is 86 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La Roca del migdia → La Cova dels Tolls Alts is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.