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.
84 km from Bistriţa to Bistriţa, about 1 h 58 of riding. The stops in between: Sântioana - Vârful Mortila, Lunca - La Bolovani and back through Sântioana - Vârful Mortila. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Bram Stoker sent Jonathan Harker to Bistritz, and the town of Bistrița, just a few kilometres from here, has never quite escaped the vampire. In the novel, Harker spends a night at the Golden Krone hotel before setting off towards the Borgo Pass and Count Dracula's castle, and today the town has a hotel of that name and the pass a hotel built to look like a castle. The real history is more interesting. Bistrița was one of the seven Saxon cities that gave Transylvania its German name, Siebenbürgen, a rich trading town with a big Gothic church, arcaded merchants' houses and a ring of walls, much of which has been lost.
Read the complete Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 is where the day begins. Next is Sântioana - Vârful Mortila.
Sântioana sits in rolling country on the edge of the Transylvanian Plain, in Bistrița-Năsăud county, a gentle landscape of low hills, fields, orchards and scattered woods. The hilltop of Vârful Mortila, above the village, is one of the many archaeological places recorded in this part of Transylvania, a high point that would have made a natural lookout or settlement site for earlier peoples. There is little to see on the surface, but the view from the top gives a fine sense of the landscape, with the Transylvanian hills rolling away in every direction and the mountains rising on the horizon.
Read the complete Sântioana - Vârful Mortila write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sântioana - Vârful Mortila comes up about 23 km into the recorded legs. Next is Lunca - La Bolovani.
La Bolovani means at the boulders, which tells you most of what a local would have said about this spot on the hills near the village of Lunca, between Monor and Șieuț on the eastern edge of the Transylvanian basin. Archaeologists know it as one of the sites along the Roman frontier of Dacia, a small watch post on a ridge commanding views east towards the Călimani and Gurghiu mountains, beyond which lay lands Rome never controlled. In 2024 it joined the World Heritage listing of the Dacian limes, though in the field you will find a quiet hill, sheep and very few signs.
Read the complete Lunca - La Bolovani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 42 km into the recorded legs you reach Lunca - La Bolovani. Next is back through Sântioana - Vârful Mortila.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sântioana - Vârful Mortila write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sântioana - Vârful Mortila, late in the day. Next is Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1. That is the ride.
Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 → Sântioana - Vârful Mortila is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sântioana - Vârful Mortila → Lunca - La Bolovani is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lunca - La Bolovani → back through Sântioana - Vârful Mortila is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sântioana - Vârful Mortila → Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.