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.
A 130 km round trip from Torredembarra - roughly 2 h 23 in the saddle. The stops in between: Cova de Vallmajor, Abric de Can Castellvi and back through Cova de Vallmajor. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Some quarries are ugly scars, and this one is a lesson in what the Romans meant by planning. The Médol quarry, a few kilometres east of Tarragona near Altafulla and Torredembarra, supplied the golden sandstone that built much of Roman Tarraco, the capital of a huge province. Blocks were cut here, hauled to the coast and shipped or carted along the Via Augusta to build temples, walls and the amphitheatre. The quarry is part of the archaeological ensemble of Tarraco inscribed by UNESCO in 2000.
Read the complete Médol Quary write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Médol Quary is where the day begins. Next is Cova de Vallmajor.
Inland from the Costa Daurada, behind the beach towns of El Vendrell and Calafell, the land rises into the low hills of the Baix Penedès, a landscape of vineyards, almond and olive groves, pine woods and small villages. The Cova de Vallmajor, near Albinyana and Bonastre, is a rock shelter in these hills with prehistoric paintings, part of the Levantine rock art of the Mediterranean that is recognised as a World Heritage Site. The paintings are faint and the shelter is protected, so visits are usually by arrangement.
Read the complete Cova de Vallmajor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cova de Vallmajor comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abric de Can Castellvi.
The Penedès is wine country, and the landscape around Vilafranca del Penedès is a patchwork of vineyards rolling away toward the Montserrat massif in the north and the limestone hills of the Garraf in the south. Abric de Can Castellví is a small rock shelter in this landscape, one of the many sites of Levantine and schematic rock art scattered across Catalonia and included in the UNESCO serial site of the rock art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. Like many such sites, it is modest in appearance, a hollow in the rock where faint painted figures have survived thousands of years, and access is often limited to protect the art.
Read the complete Abric de Can Castellvi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach Abric de Can Castellvi. Next is back through Cova de Vallmajor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cova de Vallmajor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cova de Vallmajor, late in the day. Next is Médol Quary.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Médol Quary write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Médol Quary. That is the ride.
Médol Quary → Cova de Vallmajor is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova de Vallmajor → Abric de Can Castellvi is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abric de Can Castellví → back through Cova de Vallmajor is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cova de Vallmajor → Médol Quary is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.