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 425 km round trip from Midreshet Ben-Gurion - roughly 6 h 41 in the saddle. On the way it passes Mamshit, Tel Beer Sheba, Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud and Area 1. It crosses from Israel into Palestinian Territories - carry ID and check the toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
There is no water at Shivta, and yet a town of some size thrived here, in the middle of the Negev desert, for several centuries. Its people collected every drop of rain that fell on the surrounding hills and channelled it into cisterns, and they grew grapes, wheat and olives in the dry valleys around. Shivta began as a Nabataean settlement on the trade routes between Arabia and the Mediterranean, and it reached its peak in the Byzantine period, when it had three churches, houses, wine presses and streets of stone. It is part of the Incense Route listed by UNESCO, with the desert cities of Avdat, Haluza and Mamshit.
Read the complete Shivta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shivta is where the day begins. Next is Mamshit.
Mamshit sits on a low spur above a dry riverbed in the northern Negev, a few kilometres east of Dimona, and from a distance it looks like nothing more than a heap of pale stones. Up close it becomes a town: streets, courtyards, staircases, arches, two Byzantine churches with mosaic floors and a set of large houses built by people who knew how to live comfortably in a hard place. This was Mampsis, a Nabataean settlement on the caravan routes that carried incense and spices from Arabia across the desert to the Mediterranean ports, and it shares a World Heritage inscription with Avdat, Haluza and Shivta as one of the desert cities of the Incense Route.
Read the complete Mamshit write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mamshit comes up about 70 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tel Beer Sheba.
Tel Beer Sheba is a mound on the edge of the modern city of Beersheba, in the northern Negev desert of southern Israel, and it holds the remains of an Iron Age town that has been excavated and partially reconstructed. With Megiddo and Hazor, it forms the UNESCO site of the Biblical Tels, recognized for their importance in understanding the cities of the biblical era. The name Beersheba appears many times in the Bible, associated with Abraham and the wells he dug in the desert.
Read the complete Tel Beer Sheba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 116 km into the recorded legs you reach Tel Beer Sheba. Next is Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud.
Beneath the low hills of the Judean lowlands, the Shephelah, lies a city of caves. Maresha was an important town of the Iron Age and the Hellenistic period, and its inhabitants carved thousands of chambers into the soft chalk beneath their houses: cisterns, olive presses, stables, quarries, burial caves and columbaria, rooms with hundreds of niches, probably used for raising pigeons. Nearby Bet Guvrin, known to the Romans as Eleutheropolis, became a major city in later centuries. The national park and its caves were listed by UNESCO in 2014 as a microcosm of the land of the caves.
Read the complete Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud, about halfway. Next is Area 1.
The hills south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem are older than most of the countries now claiming them, and the terraced slopes around Battir are among the best evidence. For centuries, perhaps for two thousand years, farmers here have built dry-stone terraces down the steep valley sides to grow olives, grapes, figs and vegetables, and the water that feeds them comes from springs and is shared out through channels according to a rota among local families. The system was recognised as a World Heritage landscape in 2014, under the title of the land of olives and vines in southern Jerusalem.
Read the complete Area 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Area 1 sits at 192 km, about halfway. Next is back through Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud comes up about 249 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Tel Beer Sheba.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tel Beer Sheba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 307 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Tel Beer Sheba. Next is back through Mamshit.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mamshit write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Mamshit, late in the day. Next is Shivta.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Shivta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 425 km.
Shivta → Mamshit is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mamshit → Tel Beer Sheba is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tel Beer Sheba → Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud → Area 1 is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Area 1 → back through Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Jud → back through Tel Beer Sheba is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tel Beer Sheba → back through Mamshit is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Mamshit → Shivta is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.