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 198 km round trip from Moratalla - roughly 5 h 40 in the saddle. It goes by way of Abrigo de Zaén II, Cavidad V, Las Covachicas and Cavidad VI. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Moratalla is the kind of hill town that looks as though it was poured down a slope: white houses tumbling below a castle tower, narrow lanes too steep for comfort, church bells echoing off the hills. Ten kilometres out, in the rugged country of north-west Murcia, the shelter of Las Cazuelas holds prehistoric paintings, part of the region's contribution to the UNESCO-listed Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin. The paintings are fragile and protected, and access is usually by guided visit, arranged in Moratalla or through the regional authorities.
Read the complete Las Cazuelas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Las Cazuelas is where the day begins. Next is Abrigo de Zaén II.
Zaén is a quiet valley in the north-western corner of the Murcia region, in the municipality of Moratalla, where pine-covered sierras close in and the streams run clear and cold. The Abrigo de Zaén II is one of several painted rock shelters here, and like the others it belongs to the World Heritage Site of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin, inscribed in 1998. Levantine art, found along the eastern side of the Iberian Peninsula, shows lively figures of humans and animals, often in scenes of hunting, gathering and, sometimes, conflict.
Read the complete Abrigo de Zaén II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de Zaén II comes up about 31 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cavidad V.
Nerpio is about as far from anywhere as you can get in mainland Spain. This village of around sixteen hundred people sits in the Sierra del Segura, in the far south-west of Albacete province, close to the borders of Murcia and Andalusia, and the surrounding hills are dotted with shelters containing prehistoric paintings. The numbered sites around here, Cavidad V among them, are part of the UNESCO-listed Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin, and the Nerpio area is one of the richest concentrations of Levantine art in Spain, with hunting scenes, archers and animals painted thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Cavidad V write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 53 km into the recorded legs you reach Cavidad V. Next is Las Covachicas.
The Sierra del Segura, in the far south of Albacete province, is a world of its own: deep valleys, rivers lined with poplars, terraces of olive and almond trees, and white villages that look more Andalusian than Castilian. Letur is one of the most beautiful, a village of Moorish origin built on a rock above a stream, with narrow alleys, arches and gardens watered by old irrigation channels. Las Covachicas, a group of shelters, lies in the hills nearby, between Letur, Socovos and Férez.
Read the complete Las Covachicas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Las Covachicas, about halfway. Next is Cavidad VI.
Nerpio is a village of sixteen hundred people at more than a thousand metres in south-west Albacete, and the area is among the richest in Spain for prehistoric painting. The shelter at Cavidad VI is one of dozens, in the Levantine tradition protected by UNESCO as part of the Mediterranean rock art of Spain, and the ride links it with a site called Las Cazuelas, the Cooking Pots, and a cave named for a Gypsy, Cueva del Gitano, a name that probably recalls a squatter or a shepherd rather than any famous event. The label Cavidad, meaning a cavity, tells you something about the people who numbered these places. They were archaeologists with a long list of holes in the rock.
Read the complete Cavidad VI write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cavidad VI sits at 68 km, about halfway. Next is back through Las Covachicas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Las Covachicas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Las Covachicas comes up about 120 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Cavidad V.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cavidad V write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 139 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Cavidad V. Next is back through Abrigo de Zaén II.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo de Zaén II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abrigo de Zaén II, late in the day. Next is Las Cazuelas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Las Cazuelas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 198 km.
Las Cazuelas → Abrigo de Zaén II is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de Zaén II → Cavidad V is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cavidad V → Las Covachicas is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Las Covachicas → Cavidad VI is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cavidad VI → back through Las Covachicas is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Las Covachicas → back through Cavidad V is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cavidad V → back through Abrigo de Zaén II is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abrigo de Zaén II → Las Cazuelas is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.