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 Velez Rubio it runs 104 km to Velez Rubio; allow about 3 h 41 of riding. The stops in between: Yedra, Izquierda E. de Santonje and back through Yedra. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
The name Las Covaticas means the little caves, and the whole area south of Vélez Blanco is a country of small hollows in the rock. The ground rises from the plain of Vélez Rubio to the long ridges of the Sierra de María, where pine forests and bare slopes meet wide sky, and the air at more than a thousand metres feels cool and thin. Vélez Rubio, a town of about 7,000 people 15 km away, is the largest place in the area, with a grand baroque church that seems too big for its surroundings. The Renaissance castle of Vélez Blanco stands nearby on its crag.
Read the complete Las Covaticas I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Las Covaticas I is where the day begins. Next is Yedra.
In the souvenir shops of Almería there is a little stick figure with outstretched arms and a rainbow arching over his head, and it comes from here. This is the Indalo, a prehistoric painting found in the Cueva de los Letreros near Vélez-Blanco, and it has become the emblem of the whole province, painted on houses and doors and carved on bracelets. Nobody knows quite what it meant, though some say it was a charm against storms. Yedra is a nearby shelter, a short drive from the village, and belongs to the same group of rock art sites that UNESCO lists as part of the Mediterranean Basin tradition.
Read the complete Yedra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yedra comes up about 31 km into the recorded legs. Next is Izquierda E. de Santonje, 18 km on.
The Indalo is everywhere in Almería: a little stick figure holding an arc over its head, painted on houses, sold as a souvenir and used as the symbol of the province. It comes from a rock shelter near Vélez-Blanco, the Cueva de los Letreros, where it was painted in prehistoric times, and the area around the village is rich in rock art, part of the World Heritage rock art of the Mediterranean. The shelters around Santonje, near the villages of María and Vélez-Blanco, are among them.
Read the complete Izquierda E. de Santonje write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 51 km into the recorded legs you reach Izquierda E. de Santonje. Next is back through Yedra.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yedra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Yedra, late in the day. Next is Las Covaticas I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Las Covaticas I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Las Covaticas I. That is the ride.
Las Covaticas I → Yedra is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yedra → Izquierda E. de Santonje is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Izquierda E. de Santonje → back through Yedra is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Yedra → Las Covaticas I is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.