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 436 km round trip from Santa Cruz Cabrália - roughly 10 h 58 in the saddle. It goes by way of Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves, Monte Pascoal National Park and back through Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves. The line favours views over speed.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 54 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
On 22 April 1500, a Portuguese fleet under Pedro Alvares Cabral anchored off this coast of Bahia, and the history of Brazil as a European colony began. The fleet was bound for India, and was blown far to the west, and the first mass in Brazil was held on shore a few days later. The area around Porto Seguro and Santa Cruz Cabralia is still called the Costa do Descobrimento, and the stretch of Atlantic Forest behind it is a UNESCO World Heritage listing, the Atlantic Forest Reserves of that same coast, one of the last pieces of lowland coastal forest in the north-east of the country. Veracruz Station is one of its protected areas.
Read the complete Veracruz Station write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Veracruz Station is where the day begins. Next is Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves.
In April of 1500 the Portuguese fleet under Pedro Álvares Cabral sighted a mountain on the Bahia coast, called it Monte Pascoal because it was Easter, and went ashore nearby. That is the usual start of Brazil's written history, and the stretch of coast around Porto Seguro and Santa Cruz Cabrália has been called the Costa do Descobrimento, the Coast of Finding, ever since. The Atlantic Forest reserves behind the beaches protect what is left of one of the most diverse and most reduced forests on Earth. Only a small fraction of the original Mata Atlântica remains, and the patches in southern Bahia are especially rich in plants and animals found nowhere else.
Read the complete Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves comes up about 90 km into the recorded legs. Next is Monte Pascoal National Park.
On Easter Sunday 1500 the lookouts of Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet saw a rounded mountain rising out of the Atlantic haze and called it Monte Pascoal, Easter Mountain. A few days later the Portuguese landed on the coast nearby, and the story of European Brazil began. The mountain still stands over the low forested coastline of southern Bahia, and the national park around it protects some of the last stretches of Atlantic forest in this region. It is part of the Atlantic forest reserves of the Costa do Descobrimento, listed by UNESCO in 1999.
Read the complete Monte Pascoal National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 218 km into the recorded legs you reach Monte Pascoal National Park. Next is back through Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves, late in the day. Next is Veracruz Station.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Veracruz Station write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Veracruz Station. That is the ride.
Veracruz Station → Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves is 90 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves → Monte Pascoal National Park is 128 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte Pascoal National Park → back through Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves is 128 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves → Veracruz Station is 90 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.