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 338 km round trip from Anógeia - roughly 5 h 57 in the saddle. The stops in between: Phaistos, Malia and back through Phaistos. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Zominthos is a mountain meadow on the north-eastern shoulder of Mount Psiloritis, or Ida, the highest peak in Crete at 2,456 metres, and at about twelve hundred metres altitude it is cool, green and silent even in August. It was the site of a Minoan settlement, a large two-storey building of the middle Bronze Age, excavated from 1982 by the archaeologist Yiannis Sakellarakis, and the stone walls and rooms still stand among the grass. It was probably a way station on the path to the sacred Idaean Cave, where legend says the infant Zeus was hidden from his father Kronos and raised by nymphs and goats. A pilgrim route ran through here for thousands of years.
Read the complete Zominthos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Zominthos is where the day begins. Next is Phaistos.
The Messara is Crete's largest plain, a broad, fertile trough between the Psiloritis range to the north and the low Asterousia hills to the south, and at its western end a long ridge rises above the valley of the Geropotamos river. On that ridge stood Phaistos, one of the great palaces of the Minoan civilisation, the culture that flourished in Crete in the second millennium BC. The first palace was built around 1900 BC and destroyed by an earthquake, and the second, rebuilt on top, was a larger and more graceful construction, with a broad staircase to the west court, storerooms, royal apartments and a central courtyard. The view alone makes the climb worth it, with Mount Ida snowy in spring on one side and the blue haze of the Libyan Sea on the other.
Read the complete Phaistos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Phaistos comes up about 76 km into the recorded legs. Next is Malia.
Mália is two things in Crete at once: a beach resort known for loud nights, and the site of a Minoan palace that is nearly four thousand years old. The first palace was built around 1900 BC, destroyed by an earthquake or invaders, rebuilt about 1650 BC and then destroyed again around 1450 BC, the same wave of disasters that ended Minoan power across the island. It was excavated by French archaeologists from the 1920s, after a local scholar, Joseph Hatzidakis, had begun work in 1915. It is the third in size of Crete's great palaces, after Knossos and Phaistos.
Read the complete Malia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 168 km into the recorded legs you reach Malia. Next is back through Phaistos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Phaistos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Phaistos, late in the day. Next is Zominthos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zominthos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Zominthos. That is the ride.
Zominthos → Phaistos is 76 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Phaistos → Malia is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Mália → back through Phaistos is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Phaistos → Zominthos is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.