CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
355 km from Rillo de Gallo to Rillo de Gallo, about 5 h 28 of riding. The stops in between: Cañada de marco, Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros, Iglesia de Santa María and Abside. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Rillo lies close to the river Gallo, and the Gallo has cut the Barranco de la Hoz, one of the great surprises of the Señorío de Molina. A flat, windswept plateau suddenly splits open into a canyon of pale rock, and tucked into the cleft is the sanctuary of the Virgen de la Hoz, a small shrine with a long tradition of pilgrimage. The Rillo II shelter lies on the plateau above, a little under seven kilometres from Molina de Aragón and a short distance from Corduente, which is the village closest to the gorge.
Read the complete Rillo II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rillo II is where the day begins. Next is Cañada de marco.
Calamocha has a reputation in Spain, and it is not for its nightlife. This town in the Jiloca valley of Teruel province is one of the coldest places in the country in winter, a high, open basin where the air pools at night and frost bites hard. In summer that same altitude makes it pleasant when the coast is sweltering. The Cañada de Marco is a site in the hills just outside town, and the name hints at the old drove roads, the cañadas, that once carried flocks of sheep across Aragon between summer and winter pastures.
Read the complete Cañada de marco write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cañada de marco comes up 40 km in. Next is Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros.
The prehistoric painters of eastern Spain had a thing for archers. Across hundreds of rock shelters from Catalonia to Andalusia, they painted small, dynamic human figures drawing bows, chasing deer and goats, sometimes fighting each other, and these scenes of the so-called Levantine style are part of the UNESCO listing of rock art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. Shelters with names like the Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros, the shelter of the black archers, are scattered through the limestone hills of the province of Teruel and its neighbours in Aragon, often in remote ravines and protected by grilles.
Read the complete Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
80 km in you reach Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros. Next is Iglesia de Santa María.
Somewhere in the folds of the Sierra de Algairén, south-west of Zaragoza, a bell tower pokes up above a cluster of ochre roofs, and that is your Iglesia de Santa María. Half the villages of Aragon have a church of that name, and this one does the job the others do: it marks the middle of a small place where the shop, the bar and the plaza all orbit the same square of stone. The nearest neighbours on the map are Cosuenda, Almonacid de la Sierra and Alpartir, each a few hundred souls, each about nine kilometres off.
Read the complete Iglesia de Santa María write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Iglesia de Santa María, about halfway. Next is Abside.
The apse in question belongs to the collegiate church of Santa María in Calatayud, and it is one of the reasons UNESCO lists the Mudéjar architecture of Aragon as a whole. Mudéjar means the building style of Muslim craftsmen living under Christian rule after the reconquest, and in Calatayud they did wonderful things with humble brick: geometric patterns, lozenges and interlacing arches laid out in relief, glazed tiles catching the sun. Next to the apse rises an octagonal brick tower that is the town's signature, and behind it a cloister, all three named in the listing.
Read the complete Abside write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abside sits at 161 km, about halfway. Next is back through Iglesia de Santa María.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Iglesia de Santa María write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Iglesia de Santa María comes up 201 km in. Next is back through Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
241 km in you reach back through Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros. Next is back through Cañada de marco.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cañada de marco write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cañada de marco, late in the day. Next is Rillo II.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rillo II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 355 km.
Rillo II → Cañada de marco is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cañada de marco → Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros → Iglesia de Santa María is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Iglesia de Santa María → Abside is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abside → back through Iglesia de Santa María is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Iglesia de Santa María → back through Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros → back through Cañada de marco is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cañada de marco → Rillo II is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.