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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Al Muharraq it runs 934 km to Al Muharraq; allow about 17 h 05 of riding. It goes by way of Al Zubarah Archaeological Site and back through Al Zubarah Archaeological Site. It crosses from Bahrain into Qatar - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Climate is the strongest force in Bahrain, and the Murad Majlis, a guest room in the old merchant quarter of Muharraq, is a good place to think about it. The island lies in the shallow western Gulf, where the sea is warm as a bath, the air is thick with moisture and summer temperatures routinely pass forty degrees. Before air conditioning, the buildings of Muharraq were the response: thick walls, shaded courtyards, tall rooms, and lanes narrow enough that the sun rarely touched the ground.
Read the complete Murad Majlis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Murad Majlis is where the day begins. Next is Al Zubarah Archaeological Site.
Out on the north-west coast of Qatar, where the desert slides into a shallow turquoise sea, stand the low ruins of Al Zubarah, once one of the busiest pearling and trading towns in the Gulf. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the town thrived on pearls dived from the oyster beds offshore, traded on to India, Persia and beyond. Then it declined, was abandoned in the early twentieth century, and the sand covered it. Archaeologists have since uncovered streets, houses, a souk, mosques and a long town wall running in an arc around the old harbour. UNESCO inscribed the site in 2013.
Read the complete Al Zubarah Archaeological Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Al Zubarah Archaeological Site comes up about 471 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hayr Bū-l-Thāmah.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Al Zubarah Archaeological Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Al Zubarah Archaeological Site, late in the day. Next is Murad Majlis.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Murad Majlis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Murad Majlis. That is the ride.
Murad Majlis → Al Zubarah Archaeological Site is 471 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Al Zubarah Archaeological Site → back through Al Zubarah Archaeological Site is 0 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Al Zubarah Archaeological Site → Murad Majlis is 471 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.