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 331 km round trip from Teruel - roughly 6 h 17 in the saddle. On the way it passes Abrigo de la Paridera de las Tajadas, Cueva de la Peña de la morería, Castellón de los machos and back through Cueva de la Peña de la morería. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
The first thing to know about Teruel is that it is cold. At about nine hundred metres on a high, bare plateau of eastern Spain, it has a reputation as one of the chilliest provincial capitals in the country, and in the winter of 1937 and 1938 the bitter weather turned the battle of Teruel, one of the bloodiest of the Civil War, into a freezing ordeal. The town is also one of the loveliest in Aragón, famous for its Mudéjar towers, brick-and-tile belfries built by Muslim craftsmen working for Christian patrons in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and listed by UNESCO. The ride starts at one of them, the label Torre simply meaning the tower, and then heads out to the Ceja de Piezarrodilla and the Peña del Castellar, where rock art is found in the hills outside the city.
Read the complete Torre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Torre is where the day begins. Next is Abrigo de la Paridera de las Tajadas.
Red sandstone is the first thing you notice. Between Albarracín, Bezas and Gea de Albarracín the ground turns the colour of rust, broken into towers, corridors and rounded boulders under a dense cover of maritime pine. This is the Pinares de Rodeno, a protected landscape in the Sierra de Albarracín, and its overhangs shelter some of the best-known Levantine rock paintings in Aragon, including pale and red bulls that seem far too large for the shallow hollows that hold them. The Abrigo de la Paridera de las Tajadas is one of these shelters, its name borrowed from the shepherds' pens, parideras, where ewes were brought to lamb under the rock.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Paridera de las Tajadas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de la Paridera de las Tajadas comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cueva de la Peña de la morería.
The Sierra de Albarracín is a high, cold, empty land of pine forests, red sandstone and limestone, at well over a thousand metres, and it hides some of the most interesting prehistoric rock art in Spain. The Pinares de Rodeno, a protected landscape of pine forests and red sandstone outcrops near Albarracín, has shelters with paintings of bulls, deer and human figures, included in UNESCO's inscription of the rock art of the Mediterranean Basin. The Cueva de la Peña de la Morería is one of the sites in this region, near the villages of Bronchales and Orihuela del Tremedal, at the foot of the mountains.
Read the complete Cueva de la Peña de la morería write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach Cueva de la Peña de la morería. Next is Castellón de los machos.
High in the Serranía de Cuenca, among pine woods and sandstone outcrops near the village of Villar del Humo, prehistoric hunters painted figures on the rock shelters thousands of years ago. The site called Castellón de los Machos is one of a cluster in this area that belongs to the vast UNESCO listing of rock art of the Mediterranean Basin of the Iberian Peninsula, which covers hundreds of painted shelters from Catalonia to Andalusia. The images here are small, reddish and stylised, and finding them takes patience and good eyes.
Read the complete Castellón de los machos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castellón de los machos, about halfway. Next is back through Cueva de la Peña de la morería.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva de la Peña de la morería write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cueva de la Peña de la morería sits at 161 km, about halfway. Next is back through Abrigo de la Paridera de las Tajadas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Paridera de las Tajadas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abrigo de la Paridera de las Tajadas comes up about 305 km into the recorded legs. Next is Torre.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Torre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Torre closes the day.
Torre → Abrigo de la Paridera de las Tajadas is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de la Paridera de las Tajadas → Cueva de la Peña de la morería is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva de la Peña de la morería → Castellón de los machos is 90 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castellón de los machos → back through Cueva de la Peña de la morería is 100 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cueva de la Peña de la morería → back through Abrigo de la Paridera de las Tajadas is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abrigo de la Paridera de las Tajadas → Torre is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.