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 276 km round trip from Velez Rubio - roughly 4 h 09 in the saddle. The stops in between: Cueva de la Plata, Cueva de la Higuera and back through Cueva de la Plata. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
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 Cueva de la Plata.
Aledo is a tiny village on a rocky spur in the hills of Murcia, a place that punches well above its weight in history. In the eleventh century, it was a fortress on the frontier between Christian Castile and the Muslim taifa kingdoms, and the siege of Aledo in 1088 was a major episode in the struggle for the peninsula. A tower still stands above the village. The Cueva de la Plata, the silver cave, lies in the hills nearby, between Aledo, Totana and Alhama de Murcia.
Read the complete Cueva de la Plata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva de la Plata comes up about 78 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cueva de la Higuera.
Mazarrón has always been about what lies under the ground. Roman miners dug silver and lead from these dry hills, and later generations extracted alum and ochre, and the coast near the town still shows the scars and the rust-coloured earth of that trade. Two Phoenician ships from about the seventh century BC were found wrecked on the nearby shore, an astonishing find for archaeologists. The Cueva de la Higuera lies inland from the coast in the arid hills of the Región de Murcia, and its name means the cave of the fig tree, a small mark of green in a very dry place.
Read the complete Cueva de la Higuera write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 139 km into the recorded legs you reach Cueva de la Higuera. Next is back through Cueva de la Plata.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva de la Plata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cueva de la Plata, 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.
Back at Las Covachas. That is the ride.
Las Covachas → Cueva de la Plata is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cueva de la Plata → Cueva de la Higuera is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva de la Higuera → back through Cueva de la Plata is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cueva de la Plata → Las Covachas is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.