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.
From el Cogul it runs 483 km to el Cogul; allow about 8 h 59 of riding. It goes by way of Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume, Mallata C, El Remosillo and Corral de la Gascona. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
El Cogul is a village of a few dozen houses in Les Garrigues, the low, stony plateau of western Catalonia where the whole landscape seems to be one big olive grove. Just outside it, a wall of rock above a small valley holds one of the most important prehistoric paintings in the country. The shelter is known as the Roca dels Moros, the Moors' Rock, which is simply the Catalan habit of attributing anything old and mysterious to the Moors, and it was brought to scientific attention in the early twentieth century by a local priest.
Read the complete La Roca dels moros write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Roca dels moros is where the day begins. Next is Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume.
Mequinenza had to move. In the 1960s and 1970s, two dams built on the Ebro created a huge reservoir known as the Mar de Aragón, and the old town at the meeting of the Ebro and the Segre was abandoned and largely demolished, its people resettled in a new town above. The story is told in the town's museums and in the novels of Jesús Moncada, who grew up in the old Mequinenza. In a ravine nearby, the Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume holds prehistoric paintings, part of the World Heritage Site of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin.
Read the complete Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume comes up about 57 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mallata C.
Ontiñena is a small farming village on the Alcanadre river, at the edge of the Monegros, the dry, wind-scoured steppe of central Aragón. Out in the ravines around it, prehistoric people left painted figures in rock shelters, among them the site labelled Mallata C, one of the many small components of the UNESCO listing of Mediterranean rock art. The paintings are small, simple and best seen with a local guide, and the walk there crosses a landscape that seems built for epic films: gypsum hills, eroded gullies and wide skies.
Read the complete Mallata C write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 113 km into the recorded legs you reach Mallata C. Next is El Remosillo.
If you ride north from Barbastro toward Graus, the Ésera river eventually forces its way through a ridge of limestone, and the result is the Congosto de Olvena, a short, deep gorge with the road squeezed between rock and water. Up on the cliffs around here are rock shelters with prehistoric paintings, and El Remosillo is one of the best known in this corner of Aragón, between Estadilla, Graus and Fonz.
Read the complete El Remosillo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
El Remosillo, about halfway. Next is Corral de la Gascona.
Alquézar is one of the most dramatic villages in Spain: a cluster of ochre houses piled on a rocky spur above the canyon of the Vero river, crowned by a castle and a collegiate church built on the site of a Moorish fortress. It lies at the southern edge of the Sierra de Guara, a limestone range in Aragon cut by deep canyons, and the area is famous across Europe for canyoning, with people abseiling, jumping and swimming through the narrow gorges in summer. The Corral de la Gascona is one of the rock-art sites in the Vero canyon and its surroundings, part of the UNESCO-listed rock art of the Mediterranean Basin.
Read the complete Corral de la Gascona write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Corral de la Gascona sits at 196 km, about halfway. Next is back through El Remosillo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete El Remosillo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through El Remosillo comes up about 293 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Mallata C.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mallata C write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 361 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Mallata C. Next is back through Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume, late in the day. Next is La Roca dels moros.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Roca dels moros write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 483 km.
La Roca dels moros → Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume → Mallata C is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mallata C → El Remosillo is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
El Remosillo → Corral de la Gascona is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Corral de la Gascona → back through El Remosillo is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through El Remosillo → back through Mallata C is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Mallata C → back through Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume → La Roca dels moros is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.