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 518 km round trip from Coxcatlán - roughly 7 h 42 in the saddle. It goes by way of San Juan Raya, Historic Centre of Puebla and back through San Juan Raya. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,500 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
A wide dry valley, forests of cactus and, hidden among them, one of the oldest dams in the Americas. Purron is the name of a huge earthen embankment in the Tehuacan-Cuicatlan valley of southern Puebla, built perhaps two and a half thousand years ago, and over the centuries it grew to be one of the largest dams of ancient Mesoamerica, holding water for fields in a land that gets little rain. It does not look like much from the road: a long, low ridge of earth and stone, covered in scrub. But it is a testament to the farmers who lived here, in a valley where agriculture was already old when the Egyptians were building pyramids, and where early maize was grown thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Purrón write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Purrón is where the day begins. Next is San Juan Raya.
San Juan Raya is a village in a dry valley in the state of Puebla, and it is famous for two reasons that sit oddly together: a ruined sixteenth-century chapel and the sea. The sea part is ancient. The hills around the village are made of rock laid down in a shallow marine basin more than a hundred million years ago, and they are full of fossil snails and other shells, so many that you can find them on the ground. A small local museum, run by the community, shows the best of them. The valley is part of the Tehuacan-Cuicatlan Biosphere Reserve, listed by UNESCO in 2018, partly because this is one of the places where maize and other crops were first domesticated, thousands of years ago.
Read the complete San Juan Raya write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
San Juan Raya comes up about 89 km into the recorded legs. Next is Historic Centre of Puebla.
Puebla was founded in 1531 as a Spanish city from the start, laid out on a grid between the volcanoes and the road from Veracruz to Mexico City, and it grew into one of the richest towns of New Spain. Its historic centre is a World Heritage site, and walking through it you see why: dozens of churches, palaces and mansions, many covered in the hand-painted Talavera tiles for which the city is still famous. The cathedral, with its two tall towers, dominates the main square, and a few blocks away the Rosary Chapel of the church of Santo Domingo is a dazzling space of gilded stucco and carved angels that has to be seen to be believed.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Puebla write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 259 km into the recorded legs you reach Historic Centre of Puebla. Next is back through San Juan Raya.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete San Juan Raya write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through San Juan Raya, late in the day. Next is Purrón.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Purrón write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Purrón. That is the ride.
Purrón → San Juan Raya is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
San Juan Raya → Historic Centre of Puebla is 170 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Historic Centre of Puebla → back through San Juan Raya is 169 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through San Juan Raya → Purrón is 90 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.