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.
375 km from María to María, about 10 h 06 of riding. On the way it passes Letreros de los mártires, Zona 1, Las Covachicas and Canalejas de Abajo. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
The far north of Almería surprises people who think the province is all desert and greenhouses. Up here, around the villages of María and Vélez-Blanco, you are in the Sierra de María-Los Vélez natural park, a range of limestone mountains covered with pine and holm oak, with snow in winter and cool nights even in August. The site recorded on the map simply as Queso sits in the hills south of María, among the cluster of prehistoric shelters for which this corner of Andalusia is known.
Read the complete Queso write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Queso is where the day begins. Next is Letreros de los mártires.
Out in the high north-east of Granada province, Huéscar feels a long way from the Alhambra and the beaches of the Costa Tropical. This is the altiplano, a broad upland of wheat fields, almond trees and pale badlands at around a thousand metres, ringed by mountains, with the great limestone hump of La Sagra rising to the north. The rock shelter called Letreros de los Mártires lies in this country, a dozen or so kilometres from the town.
Read the complete Letreros de los mártires write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Letreros de los mártires comes up about 60 km into the recorded legs. Next is Zona 1.
Nerpio is about as far from anywhere as you can get in mainland Spain. The village lies in the southwestern corner of Albacete province, close to the borders of Murcia, Granada and Jaén, in a high, wild landscape of limestone ridges, pine forest and deep river valleys. The area is known for two things: walnuts, which grow in huge old trees along the Taibilla river and are celebrated in local cooking, and one of the densest concentrations of prehistoric rock art in the Iberian Peninsula, part of the UNESCO-listed rock art of the Mediterranean Basin. The generic label Zona 1 points at the hills near the village, where rock shelters with painted figures are scattered across the cliffs.
Read the complete Zona 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 110 km into the recorded legs you reach Zona 1. Next is Las Covachicas.
The Sierra del Segura, in the far south of Albacete province, is a world of its own: deep valleys, rivers lined with poplars, terraces of olive and almond trees, and white villages that look more Andalusian than Castilian. Letur is one of the most beautiful, a village of Moorish origin built on a rock above a stream, with narrow alleys, arches and gardens watered by old irrigation channels. Las Covachicas, a group of shelters, lies in the hills nearby, between Letur, Socovos and Férez.
Read the complete Las Covachicas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Las Covachicas, about halfway. Next is Canalejas de Abajo.
Canalejas de Abajo is a name on the map rather than a place with a church and a bar: a scattering of farms and old cortijos in the upper valley of the Taibilla river, south of Nerpio, in the mountains where Albacete, Jaén and Granada meet. The Sierra de Segura and the Sierra de las Cabras rise all around, high limestone country cut by deep valleys, and the region is known among archaeologists for its painted rock shelters. The Abrigo del Sabinar and others along the same valley hold some of the most important prehistoric paintings of the Spanish south east, drawn on the soft overhangs that the river and the wind have shaped.
Read the complete Canalejas de Abajo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Canalejas de Abajo sits at 155 km, about halfway. Next is back through Las Covachicas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Las Covachicas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Las Covachicas comes up about 225 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Zona 1.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zona 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 266 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Zona 1. Next is back through Letreros de los mártires.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Letreros de los mártires write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Letreros de los mártires, late in the day. Next is Queso.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Queso write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 375 km.
Queso → Letreros de los mártires is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Letreros de los mártires → Zona 1 is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zona 1 → Las Covachicas is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Las Covachicas → Canalejas de Abajo is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Canalejas de Abajo → back through Las Covachicas is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Las Covachicas → back through Zona 1 is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Zona 1 → back through Letreros de los mártires is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Letreros de los mártires → Queso is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.