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 360 km round trip from Nerpio - roughly 6 h 14 in the saddle. It goes by way of Abrigo de los Gavilanes, Los Grajos and back through Abrigo de los Gavilanes. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
A mill is a good reason to remember how much of the old Spanish countryside ran on water. Molino de las Fuentes lies close to Nerpio, in the same high valley of the Sierra de Segura, where springs rise from limestone and feed small channels that were once enough to turn a millstone. The name means the Mill of the Springs, and it is a suitable one in a landscape with plenty of them. Around the mill the land is a mixture of orchard and scrub, with poplars along the water and a sharp smell of damp earth and mint on summer evenings.
Read the complete molino de las fuentes I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
molino de las fuentes I is where the day begins. Next is Abrigo de los Gavilanes.
Gavilanes means sparrowhawks, and the name fits a shelter high on a limestone face above the dry country where Murcia meets Almería. The Abrigo de los Gavilanes lies in the hills west of Lorca, in an area scattered with painted shelters such as the Collado de la Cruz and Los Grajos, the jackdaws, and it is part of the World Heritage Site of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. The figures are small, red and schematic, painted by communities who farmed and herded here thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Abrigo de los Gavilanes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de los Gavilanes comes up about 90 km into the recorded legs. Next is Los Grajos.
Jackdaws gave this place its name, grajos in Spanish, and they still wheel and chatter around the limestone cliffs where prehistoric people once sheltered and painted. Los Grajos lies in the hills near Alhama de Murcia, in the valley of the Guadalentín, where dry mountains rise above a plain of orchards, greenhouses and towns. The rock shelters here hold paintings in the Levantine style, and access is generally restricted to protect them.
Read the complete Los Grajos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 181 km into the recorded legs you reach Los Grajos. Next is back through Abrigo de los Gavilanes.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo de los Gavilanes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abrigo de los Gavilanes, late in the day. Next is molino de las fuentes I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete molino de las fuentes I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at molino de las fuentes I. That is the ride.
molino de las fuentes I → Abrigo de los Gavilanes is 90 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de los Gavilanes → Los Grajos is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Los Grajos → back through Abrigo de los Gavilanes is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Abrigo de los Gavilanes → molino de las fuentes I is 91 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.