CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 349 km round trip from Villar del Humo - roughly 7 h 50 in the saddle. The stops in between: Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón, Abrigo del Huerto de las Tajadas, Cerrada del Tío Jorge and Abrigo Contiguo a la Paridera de las Tajad. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
The Serranía de Cuenca does not advertise itself, and that is half its appeal. Marmalo lies in the south-eastern corner of Cuenca province, where the high limestone plateau begins to break up into pine-covered ridges and gorges as it falls toward the Cabriel river and the border with Valencia. Villar del Humo, a village of only a few hundred people, is the nearest settlement of any note, and the shelters around it hold Levantine rock paintings, small, vivid figures of hunters and animals in red, a tradition UNESCO lists among Europe's major rock art. Marmalo I is one of several sites here, and there are more nearby.
Read the complete marmalo I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
marmalo I is where the day begins. Next is Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón.
Paridera is a shepherd's word: a stone pen where ewes give birth, sheltered from the wind. Above Tormón, a tiny village in the southern Sierra de Albarracín, one such overhang has given its name to a rock shelter with prehistoric paintings, the Abrigo de la Paridera, part of the Levantine rock art sites the Iberian Peninsula shares under one UNESCO listing. The cliff here is rodeno, the red sandstone that gives this corner of Teruel its startling colour, eroded into towers, arches and overhangs among the pine trees.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón comes up 27 km in. Next is Abrigo del Huerto de las Tajadas.
Albarracín is one of the loveliest villages in Spain, a town of pink-ochre houses on a rock bend above the Guadalaviar river, with medieval walls climbing the hill behind. The Sierra de Albarracín around it is high and cold, at about 1,200 metres, a land of pine forest, red sandstone outcrops called rodeno, and wide empty plateaus. The Guadalaviar, which becomes the Turia in Valencia, rises in these hills, and the Tagus and the Júcar are not far from their sources. The rock shelters of this region, including the Huerto de las Tajadas, hold some of the oldest paintings of the Levantine and Schematic styles, and they are part of the Mediterranean-arc group UNESCO listed in 1998.
Read the complete Abrigo del Huerto de las Tajadas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
54 km in you reach Abrigo del Huerto de las Tajadas. Next is Cerrada del Tío Jorge.
A cerrada, in the dry uplands of Teruel and Cuenca, is a place where the land closes in: a narrow gorge, a pinch in the valley wall, the sort of spot where a shepherd could shut a flock in for the night and be done. Tío Jorge, Uncle George, is one of those anonymous local names that outlast any record of who he was.
Read the complete Cerrada del Tío Jorge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cerrada del Tío Jorge, about halfway. Next is Abrigo Contiguo a la Paridera de las Tajad.
Albarracín is the town every Spaniard has a photograph of, and with good reason. Its pink-ochre walls climb a rocky spur above a bend in the Guadalaviar river, a medieval fortress-town whose streets are so narrow and steep that cars were long ago banished from the old quarter. Not far off, the Pinares de Rodeno, a forest of pines growing on red sandstone, hides dozens of shelters with prehistoric paintings, also on the World Heritage list. The paridera of the label is a shepherd's stone pen, a humble relic of a pastoral world that endured in these hills for centuries.
Read the complete Abrigo Contiguo a la Paridera de las Tajad write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo Contiguo a la Paridera de las Tajad sits at 109 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cerrada del Tío Jorge.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cerrada del Tío Jorge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cerrada del Tío Jorge comes up 136 km in. Next is back through Abrigo del Huerto de las Tajadas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo del Huerto de las Tajadas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
163 km in you reach back through Abrigo del Huerto de las Tajadas. Next is back through Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón, late in the day. Next is marmalo I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete marmalo I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 349 km.
marmalo I → Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón → Abrigo del Huerto de las Tajadas is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo del Huerto de las Tajadas → Cerrada del Tío Jorge is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cerrada del Tío Jorge → Abrigo Contiguo a la Paridera de las Tajad is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo Contiguo a la Paridera de las Tajad → back through Cerrada del Tío Jorge is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cerrada del Tío Jorge → back through Abrigo del Huerto de las Tajadas is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abrigo del Huerto de las Tajadas → back through Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abrigo de la Paridera de Tormón → marmalo I is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.