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 Zaragoza it runs 325 km to Zaragoza; allow about 4 h 57 of riding. It goes by way of Iglesia de Santa María, Abside, Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros and back through Abside. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
The leaning towers of Aragon are a familiar sight in Teruel, but in Zaragoza the Mudéjar masterpiece is the tower of San Pablo, an octagonal brick shaft rising above the roofs of the Gancho district, west of the old centre. It is part of the Mudéjar Architecture of Aragon, a UNESCO listing that groups together churches, towers and ceilings built by Muslim craftsmen working for Christian patrons between the twelfth and the seventeenth centuries. The brick is the point. Aragon has little good building stone, and the masons made a virtue of necessity by laying bricks in patterns of lozenges and arches that look like lace.
Read the complete Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo is where the day begins. Next is Iglesia de Santa María.
Somewhere in the folds of the Sierra de Algairén, south-west of Zaragoza, a bell tower pokes up above a cluster of ochre roofs, and that is your Iglesia de Santa María. Half the villages of Aragon have a church of that name, and this one does the job the others do: it marks the middle of a small place where the shop, the bar and the plaza all orbit the same square of stone. The nearest neighbours on the map are Cosuenda, Almonacid de la Sierra and Alpartir, each a few hundred souls, each about nine kilometres off.
Read the complete Iglesia de Santa María write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Iglesia de Santa María comes up about 72 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abside.
The apse in question belongs to the collegiate church of Santa María in Calatayud, and it is one of the reasons UNESCO lists the Mudéjar architecture of Aragon as a whole. Mudéjar means the building style of Muslim craftsmen living under Christian rule after the reconquest, and in Calatayud they did wonderful things with humble brick: geometric patterns, lozenges and interlacing arches laid out in relief, glazed tiles catching the sun. Next to the apse rises an octagonal brick tower that is the town's signature, and behind it a cloister, all three named in the listing.
Read the complete Abside write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 107 km into the recorded legs you reach Abside. Next is Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros.
The prehistoric painters of eastern Spain had a thing for archers. Across hundreds of rock shelters from Catalonia to Andalusia, they painted small, dynamic human figures drawing bows, chasing deer and goats, sometimes fighting each other, and these scenes of the so-called Levantine style are part of the UNESCO listing of rock art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. Shelters with names like the Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros, the shelter of the black archers, are scattered through the limestone hills of the province of Teruel and its neighbours in Aragon, often in remote ravines and protected by grilles.
Read the complete Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros, about halfway. Next is back through Abside.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abside write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abside sits at 218 km, about halfway. Next is back through Iglesia de Santa María.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Iglesia de Santa María write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Iglesia de Santa María comes up about 252 km into the recorded legs. Next is Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo closes the day.
Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo → Iglesia de Santa María is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Iglesia de Santa María → Abside is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abside → Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros → back through Abside is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abside → back through Iglesia de Santa María is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Iglesia de Santa María → Torre e iglesia parroquial de San Pablo is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.