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.
A 519 km round trip from Beersheba - roughly 8 h 33 in the saddle. It goes by way of Mamshit, Masada, Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit and Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan. It crosses from Israel into Palestinian Territories - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The ride follows Masada → Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit for 61 km.
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.
Tel Beer Sheba 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 50 km in. Next is Masada.
The Dead Sea lies more than four hundred metres below sea level, the lowest point on land, and Masada rises above its western shore as a vast flat-topped rock with sheer cliffs on every side. King Herod built a palace fortress here in the first century BC, with storerooms, cisterns, bathhouses and a three-tiered palace hanging from the northern cliff. After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70, a group of Jewish rebels held out on the rock against the Roman army. The Romans built a siege ramp up the western side, and according to the historian Josephus, when the walls were breached, the defenders chose to die rather than be captured.
Read the complete Masada write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
101 km in you reach Masada. Next is Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit.
To enter the Church of the Nativity, you have to bow. The main door into the basilica was made smaller over the centuries, probably to stop people riding in on horseback, and the low opening is known as the Door of Humility. Inside, the church built by Justinian in the sixth century over an earlier fourth century basilica of Constantine is one of the oldest functioning churches in the world, and beneath its altar a stair leads down to the Grotto of the Nativity, where a silver star marks the place where tradition says Jesus was born. The church and the pilgrimage route through Bethlehem became a World Heritage Site in 2012.
Read the complete Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit, about halfway. Next is Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan.
Jericho is one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns on earth, and at Tell es-Sultan, on its northern edge, archaeologists have dug down through layers of settlement more than ten thousand years old. Among the finds is a great stone tower, built in the Neolithic, around eleven thousand years ago, long before writing, metal or the wheel, which is often called the oldest such tower in the world. The tell, with its trenches and mud brick walls, was listed as a World Heritage Site in 2023.
Read the complete Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan sits at 202 km, about halfway. Next is back through Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit comes up 252 km in. Next is back through Masada.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Masada write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
302 km in you reach back through Masada. 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 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.
The route ends here after 519 km.
Tel Beer Sheba → Mamshit is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mamshit → Masada is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Masada → Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit → Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan → back through Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativit → back through Masada is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Masada → back through Mamshit is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Mamshit → Tel Beer Sheba is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.