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.
A 72 km round trip from Velez Rubio - roughly 1 h 14 in the saddle. On the way it passes Gabar, Abrigo de los Gavilanes and back through Gabar. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
The north of Almería province is a different Spain from the sunburnt beach coast to the south. Here, around Vélez-Blanco and Vélez-Rubio, the land lifts to a high, cold plateau of almonds, cereal and pine woods, and the Sierra María-Los Vélez natural park rises above it, a rough limestone ridge with its summit above two thousand metres. Panal is a rock shelter in those hills, a short distance from Vélez-Blanco, and it belongs to the group of paintings recognised by UNESCO as the Mediterranean Basin rock art. Here the paintings are of the schematic kind, simple red signs and figures, rather than the lively hunting scenes found further north.
Read the complete Panal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Panal is where the day begins. Next is Gabar.
High in the north of Almería province, far from the beaches most people associate with the name, the Sierra de María rises in grey limestone above a plateau of almond orchards and cereal fields. Gabar is a point in the hills between the villages of María and Vélez-Blanco, part of a cluster of rock-art shelters in the Los Vélez district. This corner of Spain is famous for one painted figure in particular: the Indalo, a little stick man holding an arc over his head, found in the Cueva de los Letreros just outside Vélez-Blanco. It has become the emblem of the whole province, painted on doors and sold as a lucky charm, which is a remarkable career for a prehistoric doodle.
Read the complete Gabar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gabar comes up about 17 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 36 km into the recorded legs you reach Abrigo de los Gavilanes. Next is back through Gabar.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gabar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Gabar, late in the day. Next is Panal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Panal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Panal. That is the ride.
Panal → Gabar is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Gabar → Abrigo de los Gavilanes is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de los Gavilanes → back through Gabar is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Gabar → Panal is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.