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.
432 km from Velez Rubio to Velez Rubio, about 10 h 07 of riding. On the way it passes Letreros de los mártires, Zona 1, Las Covachicas and Canalejas de Abajo. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Los Vélez is a district of its own, a high, dry corner of northern Almería where the province meets Murcia and Granada, and the title of its old masters, the Marquises of Los Vélez, still hangs over it. Las Covachas is a rock shelter about four kilometres from Vélez-Blanco and a bit more from Vélez Rubio, and it belongs to a rich local group of painted sites that includes the famous Cueva de los Letreros. The paintings are in the Levantine style, protected as part of the UNESCO rock art of the Mediterranean basin in Spain. Other shelters have stronger images, so treat this as part of a pattern, not a highlight.
Read the complete Las Covachas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Las Covachas is where the day begins. Next is Letreros de los mártires.
Out in the high north-east of Granada province, Huéscar feels a long way from the Alhambra and the beaches of the Costa Tropical. This is the altiplano, a broad upland of wheat fields, almond trees and pale badlands at around a thousand metres, ringed by mountains, with the great limestone hump of La Sagra rising to the north. The rock shelter called Letreros de los Mártires lies in this country, a dozen or so kilometres from the town.
Read the complete Letreros de los mártires write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Letreros de los mártires comes up about 88 km into the recorded legs. Next is Zona 1.
Nerpio is about as far from anywhere as you can get in mainland Spain. The village lies in the southwestern corner of Albacete province, close to the borders of Murcia, Granada and Jaén, in a high, wild landscape of limestone ridges, pine forest and deep river valleys. The area is known for two things: walnuts, which grow in huge old trees along the Taibilla river and are celebrated in local cooking, and one of the densest concentrations of prehistoric rock art in the Iberian Peninsula, part of the UNESCO-listed rock art of the Mediterranean Basin. The generic label Zona 1 points at the hills near the village, where rock shelters with painted figures are scattered across the cliffs.
Read the complete Zona 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 138 km into the recorded legs you reach Zona 1. 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 Canalejas de Abajo.
Canalejas de Abajo is a name on the map rather than a place with a church and a bar: a scattering of farms and old cortijos in the upper valley of the Taibilla river, south of Nerpio, in the mountains where Albacete, Jaén and Granada meet. The Sierra de Segura and the Sierra de las Cabras rise all around, high limestone country cut by deep valleys, and the region is known among archaeologists for its painted rock shelters. The Abrigo del Sabinar and others along the same valley hold some of the most important prehistoric paintings of the Spanish south east, drawn on the soft overhangs that the river and the wind have shaped.
Read the complete Canalejas de Abajo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Canalejas de Abajo sits at 161 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 253 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Zona 1.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zona 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 294 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Zona 1. Next is back through Letreros de los mártires.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Letreros de los mártires write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Letreros de los mártires, late in the day. Next is Las Covachas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Las Covachas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 432 km.
Las Covachas → Letreros de los mártires is 88 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Letreros de los mártires → Zona 1 is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zona 1 → Las Covachicas is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Las Covachicas → Canalejas de Abajo is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Canalejas de Abajo → back through Las Covachicas is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Las Covachicas → back through Zona 1 is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Zona 1 → back through Letreros de los mártires is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Letreros de los mártires → Las Covachas is 89 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.