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 Villafranca del Cid it runs 329 km to Villafranca del Cid; allow about 7 h 07 of riding. It goes by way of Cova de Gargán, Castell de Villafamés, Abric del mas dels Ous and back through Castell de Villafamés. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. mas d'en Badenes
This is a thinly populated landscape of limestone plateaus, stone-walled terraces, holm oaks and old farmhouses, a world away from the beach resorts an hour to the east.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
mas d'en Badenes is where the day begins. Next is Cova de Gargán.
2. Cova de Gargán
High in the interior of Castellón, where the coastal orange groves are long forgotten and the land climbs toward the Penyagolosa massif, the shelter known as Cova de Gargán sits in a country of limestone ledges, holm oak and dry-stone terraces. Vistabella del Maestrazgo is the nearest village, a handful of kilometres away on its high plateau, with Villahermosa del Río down in its valley to the other side and Lucena del Cid a little further south. It is quiet up here in a way that the coast never is.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cova de Gargán comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Castell de Villafamés.
3. Castell de Villafamés
Villafamés announces itself from a long way off: a village of white and ochre houses stacked up a hill of reddish rock, with the remains of a castle crowning the top. It stands a little inland from the coast of Castellón, roughly between Borriol, Cabanes and the beach town of Benicàssim, close enough to the sea that you can smell salt on a westerly breeze turning, yet already in that rumpled hill country that leads up into the Maestrat.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 104 km into the recorded legs you reach Castell de Villafamés. Next is Abric del mas dels Ous.
4. Abric del mas dels Ous
Xert is the kind of village you pass through on the way to somewhere else and then wonder why you did not stop. It lies in the Baix Maestrat in northern Castellón, below a ridge of bare limestone, with the old village climbing the slope and a newer part down by the road. The shelter called the Abric del Mas dels Ous, the shelter of the farmhouse of the eggs, is out in the dry hills nearby, between Xert, Canet lo Roig and Rosell.