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 508 km round trip from Pola de Lena - roughly 7 h 59 in the saddle. On the way it passes Chemin Primitif, Las Médulas and back through Chemin Primitif. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
On a grassy knoll above the Lena valley, south of Oviedo, stands a tiny stone church that has watched over the main road between Asturias and Castile for more than a thousand years. Santa Cristina de Lena is one of the jewels of Asturian pre-Romanesque architecture, built in the ninth century when the little Christian kingdom of Asturias was the only part of Iberia outside Muslim rule. Its unusual plan, with a raised presbytery behind an arcade of carved arches, and its finely worked stone screens are unique. Together with Santa María del Naranco and San Miguel de Lillo in Oviedo, it is part of a World Heritage listing.
Read the complete Santa Cristina de Lena write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Santa Cristina de Lena is where the day begins. Next is Chemin Primitif.
Tineo stands on a hillside above the green valleys of western Asturias, and it is one of the main stops on the Camino Primitivo, the original Way of St James. According to tradition, it was King Alfonso II of Asturias who first walked from Oviedo to Santiago in the ninth century to see the tomb, newly found, of the apostle, and the route he took became the Primitivo. It is the hardest of the Caminos, crossing mountain after mountain, and the pilgrims you meet here, wet, muddy and cheerful, are a special breed.
Read the complete Chemin Primitif write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chemin Primitif comes up about 91 km into the recorded legs. Next is Las Médulas.
Walk into Las Médulas on a clear autumn morning and you meet a strange kind of silence. The red crags stand around you like the ruins of a cathedral built from clay, and the chestnut trees, some of them centuries old, drop their husks onto the path. It is a landscape made by an empire and then forgotten by it, left to grow over for nearly two thousand years.
Read the complete Las Médulas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 253 km into the recorded legs you reach Las Médulas. Next is back through Chemin Primitif.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chemin Primitif write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chemin Primitif, late in the day. Next is Santa Cristina de Lena.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Santa Cristina de Lena write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Santa Cristina de Lena. That is the ride.
Santa Cristina de Lena → Chemin Primitif is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Chemin Primitif → Las Médulas is 162 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Las Médulas → back through Chemin Primitif is 166 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Chemin Primitif → Santa Cristina de Lena is 90 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.