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.
From Alquézar it runs 239 km to Alquézar; allow about 4 h 40 of riding. On the way it passes Cueva de Pacencia, Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña and back through Cueva de Pacencia. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Where the Vero canyon opens out above Alquézar, the land is partitioned into dry terraces that once held wheat and olives, and one of those fields or slopes carried the name Quizáns. The shelter listed as Quizáns I is the first of its group, a little over three kilometres from the village and twenty from Barbastro. It belongs to the family of painted shelters of the Aragonese Pre-Pyrenees, which are part of the Levantine art that UNESCO listed in 1998, and in this area it often means lines of tiny archers and animals in a dull red pigment.
Read the complete Quizáns I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Quizáns I is where the day begins. Next is Cueva de Pacencia.
The Sierra de Guara is the first big wrinkle of the Pyrenees north of Huesca, a block of limestone sliced into deep canyons by rivers like the Vero, the Alcanadre and the Mascún, and the Cueva de Pacencia sits in that broken country. The shelters along the Vero hold prehistoric paintings in several styles, from the lively Levantine hunters to much more abstract schematic signs, and they are part of the UNESCO Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin. The area is managed as the Río Vero Cultural Park, with an interpretation centre in Colungo and guided visits to the best-preserved shelters, which is the sensible way to see them.
Read the complete Cueva de Pacencia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva de Pacencia comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña.
Just north of Huesca, where the flat cereal land of the Hoya suddenly rears up into the first limestone walls of the Pre-Pyrenees, lies the little village of Nueno and, above it, the rock shelter named after Santa Eulalia de la Peña. This is the southern edge of the Sierra de Guara country, a landscape of gorges, conglomerate cliffs and scrub where griffon vultures ride the thermals and the light comes hard off pale stone.
Read the complete Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 118 km into the recorded legs you reach Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña. Next is back through Cueva de Pacencia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva de Pacencia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cueva de Pacencia, late in the day. Next is Quizáns I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Quizáns I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Quizáns I. That is the ride.
Quizáns I → Cueva de Pacencia is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva de Pacencia → Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña is 81 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña → back through Cueva de Pacencia is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cueva de Pacencia → Quizáns I is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.