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 Al Ain City it runs 65 km to Al Ain City; allow about 1 h 23 of riding. It goes by way of Hili Archaeological Park, Bidaa Bint Saud and back through Hili Archaeological Park. It crosses from United Arab Emirates into Oman - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 16 km this is Jebel Hafeet Mountain Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The road up Jebel Hafit is one of the best-known motorcycle climbs in the Gulf, and it is easy to understand why. It runs for about twelve kilometres, with dozens of well-surfaced bends and hairpins that wind up the flank of the mountain to a summit plateau at roughly 1,200 metres, and from there you can see the whole of Al Ain spread out below and the desert running into the haze. In a country of motorways and flat horizons, it is a gift.
Read the complete West Ridge Hafit Tombs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
West Ridge Hafit Tombs is where the day begins. Next is Hili Archaeological Park.
Five thousand years ago, people on the edge of the Arabian desert built beehive-shaped stone tombs on the ridge of Jebel Hafit, and the oasis town below them has been continuously lived in ever since. Hili is part of the Cultural Sites of Al Ain, and the park holds a grave of the Umm an-Nar culture, the Hili Grand Tomb, built of precisely cut stone with carved reliefs of human and animal figures on its entrance. Traces of a Bronze Age settlement, with circular towers and wells, add to the picture of a society that had learned to farm in a dry land through the falaj, the underground channels that bring water from the mountains.
Read the complete Hili Archaeological Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hili Archaeological Park comes up about 16 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bidaa Bint Saud.
Jebel Hafit rises out of the flat gravel desert near Al Ain like a lizard's back, a bare, folded limestone ridge about twelve hundred metres high that marks the border between the United Arab Emirates and Oman. It is the best-known landmark in the area, and the scatter of ancient sites around it tells the story of the people who lived here. On the lower slopes are about five thousand years old beehive-shaped stone tombs, the first examples of a type of grave that is now named after the mountain, and the Hafit period is a recognised phase of Bronze Age archaeology in south-east Arabia.
Read the complete Bidaa Bint Saud write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 33 km into the recorded legs you reach Bidaa Bint Saud. Next is back through Hili Archaeological Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hili Archaeological Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hili Archaeological Park, late in the day. Next is West Ridge Hafit Tombs.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete West Ridge Hafit Tombs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at West Ridge Hafit Tombs. That is the ride.
West Ridge Hafit Tombs → Hili Archaeological Park is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hili Archaeological Park → Bidaa Bint Saud is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bidaa Bint Saud → back through Hili Archaeological Park is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hili Archaeological Park → West Ridge Hafit Tombs is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.