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 616 km to Artesa de Segre; allow about 11 h 08 of riding. On the way it passes Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros, Balma de les Ovelles, El Remosillo and Corral de la Gascona. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,550 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. 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 Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros.
Where the Segre comes down from the Pyrenees towards the plains of Lleida, it squeezes through a gap at Oliana, held back by a dam and a reservoir that fills the valley above. On the slopes nearby, Roc del Rumbau, also called the Roca dels Moros, the Moors' rock, is a shelter with prehistoric paintings, one of the Catalan sites of the World Heritage Site of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin. The name is a common one in Catalonia and Spain: local people often attributed anything ancient and mysterious to the Moors.
Read the complete Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros comes up about 50 km into the recorded legs. Next is Balma de les Ovelles.
The Balma de les Ovelles, the Sheep's Shelter, lies in the high country where Catalonia meets Aragon, between the valleys of the Noguera Ribagorçana and the Noguera Pallaresa. This is the southern edge of the Pyrenees, a land of limestone ridges, deep gorges, reservoirs and scattered villages, many of them half empty. Rock shelters like this one, used by shepherds and their flocks for thousands of years, are found throughout the region, and some hold traces of prehistoric painting or occupation. The name tells you what it was most recently used for, and the landscape around still carries the sound of sheep bells.
Read the complete Balma de les Ovelles write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 165 km into the recorded legs you reach Balma de les Ovelles. Next is El Remosillo.
If you ride north from Barbastro toward Graus, the Ésera river eventually forces its way through a ridge of limestone, and the result is the Congosto de Olvena, a short, deep gorge with the road squeezed between rock and water. Up on the cliffs around here are rock shelters with prehistoric paintings, and El Remosillo is one of the best known in this corner of Aragón, between Estadilla, Graus and Fonz.
Read the complete El Remosillo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
El Remosillo, about halfway. Next is Corral de la Gascona.
Alquézar is one of the most dramatic villages in Spain: a cluster of ochre houses piled on a rocky spur above the canyon of the Vero river, crowned by a castle and a collegiate church built on the site of a Moorish fortress. It lies at the southern edge of the Sierra de Guara, a limestone range in Aragon cut by deep canyons, and the area is famous across Europe for canyoning, with people abseiling, jumping and swimming through the narrow gorges in summer. The Corral de la Gascona is one of the rock-art sites in the Vero canyon and its surroundings, part of the UNESCO-listed rock art of the Mediterranean Basin.
Read the complete Corral de la Gascona write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Corral de la Gascona sits at 205 km, about halfway. Next is back through El Remosillo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete El Remosillo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through El Remosillo comes up about 360 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Balma de les Ovelles.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Balma de les Ovelles write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 450 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Balma de les Ovelles. Next is back through Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros, late in the day. 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.
The route ends here after 616 km.
Les Aparets I → Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros → Balma de les Ovelles is 115 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Balma de les Ovelles → El Remosillo is 91 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
El Remosillo → Corral de la Gascona is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Corral de la Gascona → back through El Remosillo is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through El Remosillo → back through Balma de les Ovelles is 90 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Balma de les Ovelles → back through Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros is 115 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros → Les Aparets I is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.