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 Artesa de Segre it runs 322 km to Artesa de Segre; allow about 6 h 20 of riding. On the way it passes Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars, Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés, Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume and back through Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés. The line favours views over speed.
Artesa de Segre lies in the broad valley where the Noguera Pallaresa comes out of the Pre-Pyrenees, a market town of about three and a half thousand people with the long wall of the Montsec range blocking the northern horizon. The country is the Catalan interior in its most characteristic form, with wheat and barley on the flats, almond and olive on the lower slopes, and pine and oak where the hills become steep. Les Aparets, about five kilometres out, is one of the rock shelters of the region, and the rides tie it with the Cova dels Vilars, sometimes spelled Vilasos, and the Cova del Cogulló. These belong to the cluster of Levantine painted sites that reach into Catalonia, protected by UNESCO as part of the rock art of the Mediterranean basin in Spain. Further west in the same province lies the famous Roca dels Moros at El Cogul, with its scene of dancing women, which gives you a sense of how widespread the tradition once was.
Read the complete Les Aparets I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les Aparets I is where the day begins. Next is Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars.
Os de Balaguer is a small village on the edge of the pre-Pyrenean hills in the Noguera district of Lleida, and the Cova dels Vilasos, also known as the Cova dels Vilars, lies just outside it. The site is one of the painted rock shelters of Catalonia counted within the Mediterranean rock art group protected by UNESCO, and its figures are small and reddish, drawn by people who lived from hunting and gathering in what was then a far wilder landscape. Like its neighbours it is protected and rarely dramatic at first sight; give your eyes a moment in the shade and the shapes begin to come out of the stone.
Read the complete Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars comes up about 49 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés.
South of Lleida the irrigated orchards give way abruptly to dry, open steppe, and the little village of Alfés sits on the edge of that change. The Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés are rock paintings in a small sandstone shelter near the village, schematic designs in red pigment, mostly abstract lines, dots and simplified figures, that belong to the later, more symbolic phase of prehistoric art in eastern Spain, and they are included in the UNESCO listing of Mediterranean Basin rock art. They are modest to look at, but there is something powerful about seeing marks left by people thousands of years ago in such an open, wind-swept place.
Read the complete Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 110 km into the recorded legs you reach Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés. 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, about halfway. Next is back through Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés sits at 168 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars comes up about 273 km into the recorded legs. Next is Les Aparets I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Les Aparets I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les Aparets I closes the day.
Les Aparets I → Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars → Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés → Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abric del Barranc de Sant Jaume → back through Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés → back through Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars → Les Aparets I is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.