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 57 km round trip from Newcastle upon Tyne - roughly 53 min in the saddle. On the way it passes Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc, The vallum between Oatens Bank, Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank and Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 21 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
The Tyne is crossed by a remarkable set of bridges within a short walk of each other. The Tyne Bridge, a green steel arch opened in 1928, is the one on the postcards, but the High Level Bridge, designed by Robert Stephenson and opened in 1849 with a road below and a railway above, is the older marvel, and the little Swing Bridge, which opens by pivoting on a central pier, comes from the industrial age as well. Together they show how the city was built on coal, shipbuilding and engineering, and then rebuilt itself on culture, music and a fierce sense of humour.
Read the complete Newcastle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Newcastle is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc.
Most people meet Hadrian's Wall in the wild middle section around Housesteads, where it rides the crags of the Whin Sill. Out here at the eastern end, a few miles from Newcastle, it is a quieter, more domestic affair, and that is part of its charm. Heddon on the Wall, four kilometres away, keeps one of the longest surviving stretches of the wall's full broad foundation on this side of the country, a solid run of masonry beside the road, and the ground around it preserves the vallum, the great flat-bottomed ditch with banks on either side that the Romans dug just south of the wall to mark the military zone. Begun under the emperor Hadrian in AD 122, the whole frontier ran from the Tyne to the Solway, and it is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc comes up about 19 km into the recorded legs. Next is The vallum between Oatens Bank.
Look south of the road near Oatens Bank, just west of Heddon on the Wall, and you will see it: a broad, flat-bottomed ditch running across the fields, with a low mound on either side. That is the vallum, and it is one of the strangest and most debated elements of Hadrian's Wall. It runs parallel to the wall, a short distance to the south, along most of its length, and it seems to have marked the rear edge of the military zone, controlling access from the south rather than defending against attack from the north. Crossings were limited to causeways opposite the forts, which suggests a kind of customs line.
Read the complete The vallum between Oatens Bank write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least about 21 km into the recorded legs you reach The vallum between Oatens Bank. Next is Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank.
The road west from Heddon-on-the-Wall runs straight as a ruler, and there is a reason for that. The B6318, known locally as the Military Road, was built by General Wade's engineers after the Jacobite rising of 1745 so that troops could move quickly between Newcastle and Carlisle, and for long stretches they laid it right on top of Hadrian's Wall, using the Roman stones as foundation. At Oatens Bank, just beyond Heddon, you ride with the Wall beneath your tyres and the ditch and vallum still visible in the fields beside you, two thousand years of frontier engineering compressed into a few metres.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank, about halfway. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630.
Out at the eastern end of the frontier, the Wall leaves the moors behind and runs through gentle farmland toward Newcastle, and most of what survives here is not stone but earth: the vallum, a broad ditch flanked by banks that the Romans dug just south of the Wall along almost its entire length. Between the Tyne and the Military Road, near Heddon-on-the-Wall and Rudchester, the vallum can be traced in the fields as a long hollow, and the Wall itself lies largely under the road or as low courses in the grass. Its purpose is still debated, but most scholars see it as a boundary marking the military zone, controlling who could approach the Wall.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 sits at 28 km, about halfway. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank comes up about 32 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through The vallum between Oatens Bank.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The vallum between Oatens Bank write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 33 km into the recorded legs you reach back through The vallum between Oatens Bank. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc, late in the day. Next is Newcastle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Newcastle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 57 km.
Newcastle → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc → The vallum between Oatens Bank is 2 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 is 7 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 → back through Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The vallum between Oatens Bank → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc is 7 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc → Newcastle is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.