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.
395 km from Atlatlahucan to Atlatlahucan, about 6 h 25 of riding. It goes by way of Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew, Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan and back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
In the green valleys south of Mexico City, on the slopes below Popocatépetl, sixteenth-century friars built a chain of fortress-like monasteries, and the church and former convent of San Mateo at Atlatlahucan is one of them. The Augustinians arrived in the 1530s, after the Spanish conquest, and set about converting the local Nahua population, building enormous, thick-walled churches with open-air chapels where crowds could attend mass in the courtyard. The group of fourteen early monasteries on the slopes of the volcano was listed by UNESCO in 1994, and the architecture is a rare sight: plain, defensive on the outside, but inside the cloister are murals painted in black and white by indigenous artists under the friars' direction.
Read the complete Temple and Former Convent of Saint Mathhew write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint Mathhew is where the day begins. Next is Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew.
Calpan is a small town on the lower slopes of Popocatépetl, and in its centre stands a sixteenth-century Franciscan convent that is one of the masterpieces of early colonial art in Mexico. Built soon after the Spanish conquest, when friars were racing to convert the Indigenous population, the church is set within a huge walled atrium where crowds could gather for open-air Mass. In each corner of the atrium stands a posa, a small chapel used for processions, and the four posas at Calpan are covered in astonishing carved reliefs: the Last Judgment, the Annunciation, saints and symbols, carved by Indigenous craftsmen who mixed European designs with their own style.
Read the complete Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew comes up about 79 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan.
When the Aztecs came across Teotihuacan, centuries after it had been abandoned, they thought it must have been built by gods and named it the place where the gods were made. The city had reached its peak between about the first and sixth centuries, with perhaps well over a hundred thousand people, a grid of streets, apartment compounds and some of the largest pyramids in the Americas. The Pyramid of the Sun is a huge stepped mass, and the Pyramid of the Moon sits at the far end of the Avenue of the Dead, a long, broad processional road that makes the city feel grand even now.
Read the complete Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 199 km into the recorded legs you reach Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan. Next is back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew, late in the day. Next is Temple and Former Convent of Saint Mathhew.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Temple and Former Convent of Saint Mathhew write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Temple and Former Convent of Saint Mathhew. That is the ride.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint Mathhew → Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew → Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan is 120 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan → back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew is 116 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew → Temple and Former Convent of Saint Mathhew is 80 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.