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 El Cazadero it runs 285 km to El Cazadero; allow about 4 h 07 of riding. On the way it passes Bridge of Atongo, Luis Barragán House and Studio and back through Bridge of Atongo. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,750 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
For almost three centuries, wagon trains loaded with silver rolled north and south along the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the royal road that linked Mexico City with the mining towns of the north and eventually with Santa Fe in what is now New Mexico. It was one of the longest trade routes in the Americas, carrying silver, mercury, goods, people and ideas across thousands of kilometres. In 2010 UNESCO listed a series of sites along the route, including stretches of the old road, bridges, haciendas and towns. This section, between Aculco and San Juan del Río, crosses the high plateau on the border between the State of Mexico and Querétaro.
Read the complete Stretch of the Camino Real between Aculco write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stretch of the Camino Real between Aculco is where the day begins. Next is Bridge of Atongo.
Silver came out of the mountains of the north, and everything else came back the other way: wine, cloth, tools, tobacco and soldiers. The Camino Real de Tierra Adentro was the road that carried it all, running from Mexico City to Santa Fe, and it opened in the late sixteenth century and remained in use for roughly three hundred years. It crossed rivers and ravines, and where it did, the Spanish built bridges, a number of which have survived. The bridge of Atongo is one of the stone bridges along the road in the state of Mexico, close to Jilotepec.
Read the complete Bridge of Atongo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bridge of Atongo comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Luis Barragán House and Studio.
From the street, Luis Barragán's house looks like nothing. A plain facade in Tacubaya, a mixed and busy neighbourhood of Mexico City, with a wooden door and a few windows, gives no hint of the colour behind it. Barragán, the Mexican architect who won the Pritzker Prize in 1980, built the house in 1948 as his own home and studio, and he lived and worked here until his death in 1988. The UNESCO listing of 2004 recognised it as one of the key works of modern architecture, in which light, colour, silence and simple geometry do all the talking.
Read the complete Luis Barragán House and Studio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 144 km into the recorded legs you reach Luis Barragán House and Studio. Next is back through Bridge of Atongo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bridge of Atongo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Bridge of Atongo, late in the day. Next is Stretch of the Camino Real between Aculco.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stretch of the Camino Real between Aculco write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Stretch of the Camino Real between Aculco. That is the ride.
Stretch of the Camino Real between Aculco → Bridge of Atongo is 62 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Bridge of Atongo → Luis Barragán House and Studio is 82 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Luis Barragán House and Studio → back through Bridge of Atongo is 80 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Bridge of Atongo → Stretch of the Camino Real between Aculco is 61 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.