The best gravel rides around Santa Cruz De La Zarza

A good place to have a coffee with some good porras…

Very compact cycle track

Villatobas is a municipality with a rich history that dates back to ancient times. Archaeological studies indicate that the area was inhabited from the 4th or 3rd century BC by various peoples. The first written record of Villatobas appears in the charter of Montealegre in 1219, where it is mentioned as "Villa de Tobas" Villatobas was also the scene of important events during the War of Independence in the 19th century. Over the centuries, it has managed to preserve its historical heritage, including its parish church dedicated to San Juan Bautista and the ruins of its 13th-century castle.

The white and blue signs of the Camino de Uclés are paired with the yellow arrows of the Camino de Santiago de Uclés, one of the variants of the Jacobean routes that leaves for Santiago de Compostela from the Monastery of Uclés, one of the heads (Caput Ordinis) of the Order of Santiago from the 13th century.

The hermitage of San Jorge dates back to the first half of the 16th century. In the 1970s, the hermitage was practically in ruins, so it was rebuilt thanks to the neighbours of the Arrabal area. This devotion to San Jorge is possibly due to the ancient tradition that said that this saint protected the population from epidemics, diseases and plagues, so common and deadly in the Middle Ages. In addition to the hermitage of San Jorge, Villatobas has other hermitages such as those of Jesús Nazareno, Santa Ana, Santa Catalina, San Cristóbal, San José, and the parish of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, all of them from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Statue carved in stone placed in this strategic place near Santa Cruz de la Zarza

In the agricultural wastelands of Valdaracete, a striking journey towards the Tagus River begins through a curious landscape of clay hills and whitish marls in a desert and steppe environment, especially in the hard slides of Cerro de la Muela, a desert in Las Vegas, where the gypsum gullies that can become hell for pedaling on rainy days. The sensation of navigating a bicycle through distant and exotic latitudes ends when the road leaves the valley of the Valle stream, passes through the A-3 tunnel and ends in Fuentidueña de Tajo.

The Cañada Real Soriana Oriental runs through the north of the municipality of Brea de Tajo through a landscape of crops and pastures of oaks with abundant stands of kermes oaks and gall oaks, making up a territory of great environmental quality of ocher and red hills populated by some centenary specimens. The route of the livestock route is integrated into several local hiking routes, it has rest areas, a point of interest with interpretive panels and several cabins from the glorious era of the Concejo de la Mesta, used for centuries by shepherds on long migratory journeys. . On the side of the road appears the Cabaña del Quiñonero, which has been rehabilitated and shows the main elements of pastoral constructions, with one floor covered by a conical vault and another rectangular room that was used to store livestock. The path crosses the Orusco de Tajuña highway and enters a terrain of slides populated by dense forests of oaks and gall oaks of monumental size on Mount El Robledal. In one of the valleys appears the Pozo de la Yesera, an old traditional well used by herds as a resting place. And shortly after, at the end of the next slope, are the old Corrales del Calero, like sentinels at the top of a solitary hill adorned with an ancient almond tree. By bicycle the path passes quickly, crosses the Cordel de las Merinas and immediately crosses the Carabaña road and the 40 Days Train, in this section converted into a Greenway. At the intersection there is a small rest area and an information panel. The 40 Day Train was a military railway line built in record time during the Civil War between Tarancón and Torrejón de Ardoz to supply the Republican troops fighting in the trenches of the capital. In reality, it took one hundred days to launch the line and it was known as Vía Negrín after the head of the government who ordered the construction in 1937.