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.
211 km from Nerpio to Nerpio, about 5 h 05 of riding. It goes by way of Fuensanta II, Solana del molinico, Cueva del Niño and back through Solana del molinico. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Nerpio is the place the road seems to forget. It lies in the far south-west of Albacete province, tucked against the Sierra de Segura and the Murcian border, in a high valley where the headwaters of the Taibilla and other streams gather. It has fewer than two thousand residents and one of the densest clusters of prehistoric rock paintings in Spain, dozens of shelters scattered through the surrounding crags. These are part of the Levantine and schematic traditions, painted in red and black, and covered by the same World Heritage listing as the painted caves of the Levante coast.
Read the complete Prado del Tornero I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Prado del Tornero I is where the day begins. Next is Fuensanta II.
Fuensanta II is the sort of name only an archaeologist could love, a numbered rock shelter in the hills of northwest Murcia where prehistoric painters left a handful of figures on the stone. It is one of the hundreds of sites grouped under UNESCO's listing of rock art in the Mediterranean Basin of the Iberian Peninsula, and the Moratalla area is unusually rich in them. The paintings are small, faint to the untrained eye and protected, so the real value of coming is to understand the landscape that drew people here thousands of years ago: springs, shelter and game in rough, broken country.
Read the complete Fuensanta II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fuensanta II comes up about 30 km into the recorded legs. Next is Solana del molinico.
Socovos is the sort of village you only find by getting a little lost: a cluster of white houses below a ruined castle in the far southeast of Albacete province, where the plains of La Mancha give way to the tangled ridges of the Sierra de Segura. Solana del Molinico, close by, is one of the rock-art shelters in this corner of Spain that belong to the UNESCO listing for Levantine rock art. The word solana means a sun-facing slope, and many of these painted overhangs face south, catching the warmth on winter days just as they must have done when hunters and gatherers sheltered here.
Read the complete Solana del molinico write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 63 km into the recorded legs you reach Solana del molinico. Next is Cueva del Niño.
Ayna is a village of white houses clinging to the walls of a deep gorge carved by the Mundo river, in the Sierra de Alcaraz in the southwest of Albacete province. Its setting is so dramatic that it is sometimes called the Little Switzerland of La Mancha, and it was the backdrop for the cult Spanish film Amanece, que no es poco, a surreal comedy shot here in the late 1980s. A few kilometres away, in a rocky ravine, the Cueva del Niño holds something rare for this part of Spain: Palaeolithic paintings of deer, ibex and horses, much older than the Levantine figures painted later on the same walls. It is part of the UNESCO listing of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula, and access is restricted to protect the paintings.
Read the complete Cueva del Niño write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva del Niño, about halfway. Next is back through Solana del molinico.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Solana del molinico write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Solana del molinico sits at 125 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fuensanta II.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fuensanta II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fuensanta II comes up about 180 km into the recorded legs. Next is Prado del Tornero I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Prado del Tornero I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Prado del Tornero I closes the day.
Prado del Tornero I → Fuensanta II is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuensanta II → Solana del molinico is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Solana del molinico → Cueva del Niño is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva del Niño → back through Solana del molinico is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Solana del molinico → back through Fuensanta II is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fuensanta II → Prado del Tornero I is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.