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 379 km round trip from La Roca del Vallès - roughly 6 h 00 in the saddle. On the way it passes Crypt at the Colònia Güell, Cova dels Segarulls, Triumphal Arch of Berá and Britus Il. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 47 km this is Monserrat Mountain Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
La Pedra de les Orenetes, the Swallows' Stone, is a granite boulder in the hills above La Roca del Vallès, and its surface is covered with small carved hollows and other marks left by people in prehistory. Nobody knows exactly what they meant; such engraved rocks are found across Catalonia, and theories range from ritual offerings to maps of the stars. The rock sits among cork oaks and pines in the Serralada Litoral, the coastal range that separates the Vallès plain from the sea, and the walk to reach it is short and pleasant, through scented forest with views over the plain.
Read the complete La Pedra de les Orenetes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Pedra de les Orenetes is where the day begins. Next is Crypt at the Colònia Güell.
Few people ride out of Barcelona expecting to find Gaudí in a mill village, but that is exactly what waits at Santa Coloma de Cervelló, a short hop up the Llobregat from Sant Boi. The Colònia Güell was a textile colony founded by the industrialist Eusebi Güell, who moved his cotton works out of the city in the 1890s and built housing, a school, shops and a theatre for the workers around the factory. He asked his friend Antoni Gaudí for a church. Gaudí spent about ten years on the design and its foundations, and when money and the Güell family's enthusiasm ran out around 1914, only the lower level had been finished. That crypt is what you come to see.
Read the complete Crypt at the Colònia Güell write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Crypt at the Colònia Güell comes up about 47 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cova dels Segarulls.
The vineyards of the Penedès roll out in every direction from Vilafranca, and the Cova dels Segarulls lies among them, a few kilometres outside the town in the low hills toward the coastal range.
Read the complete Cova dels Segarulls write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 94 km into the recorded legs you reach Cova dels Segarulls. Next is Triumphal Arch of Berá.
For centuries traffic on the main coastal road of Catalonia drove straight through a Roman triumphal arch. The Arc de Berà stands on the line of the Via Augusta, the great Roman road from the Pyrenees to Cádiz, about twenty kilometres northeast of Tarragona, and until the road was diverted around it in the late twentieth century, cars and trucks passed under its single span. It was built at the end of the first century BC, and an inscription records that it was erected according to the will of Lucius Licinius Sura, a figure whose identity historians still discuss. It is part of the UNESCO listing for the Roman remains of Tarraco.
Read the complete Triumphal Arch of Berá write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Triumphal Arch of Berá, about halfway. Next is Britus Il.
What matters is the country around it, which is some of the finest in inland Catalonia. You are in the Conca de Barberà, the basin of the Francolí river, a few kilometres from the walled town of Montblanc and the village of Alcover, with the wooded wall of the Serra de Prades rising to the west. The area is dotted with prehistoric rock shelters, part of the great arc of Mediterranean rock art that runs down eastern Spain, and many of the site names along these rides are exactly that: a ledge of sandstone or limestone where hunters painted deer and archers thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Britus Il write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Britus Il sits at 163 km, about halfway. Next is back through Triumphal Arch of Berá.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Triumphal Arch of Berá write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Triumphal Arch of Berá comes up about 252 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Cova dels Segarulls.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cova dels Segarulls write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 285 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Cova dels Segarulls. Next is back through Crypt at the Colònia Güell.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Crypt at the Colònia Güell write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Crypt at the Colònia Güell, late in the day. Next is La Pedra de les Orenetes.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Pedra de les Orenetes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 379 km.
La Pedra de les Orenetes → Crypt at the Colònia Güell is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Crypt at the Colònia Güell → Cova dels Segarulls is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova dels Segarulls → Triumphal Arch of Berá is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Triumphal Arch of Berá → Britus Il is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Britus Il → back through Triumphal Arch of Berá is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Triumphal Arch of Berá → back through Cova dels Segarulls is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cova dels Segarulls → back through Crypt at the Colònia Güell is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Crypt at the Colònia Güell → La Pedra de les Orenetes is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.