CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
417 km from Dej to Dej, about 5 h of riding. The stops in between: Dobricel - Vârful Lazului, Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci, Church of Saint Nicholas and Kuziy - Trybushany. It crosses from Romania into Ukraine - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 37 km this is Romania Maramures Wooden Churches Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
On a terrace above the river Someș, near the village of Cășeiu, a few kilometres from Dej in northern Transylvania, the Romans built a fort they called Samum. It guarded the northern edge of their province of Dacia, which they conquered in the early second century after two hard wars against the Dacian king Decebalus. The fort controlled the valley and the routes into the province, and today its outline can still be traced in the fields, with low walls and earthworks where archaeologists have uncovered gates, towers and barracks. In 2024 the Dacian frontier was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list as part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire.
Read the complete Cășeiu - Cetățele / Samvm Cășeiu -Samum - write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cășeiu - Cetățele / Samvm Cășeiu -Samum - is where the day begins. Next is Dobricel - Vârful Lazului.
Spermezeu is the kind of place a road atlas barely notices: a commune of scattered villages in the hills of Bistrița-Năsăud, in northern Transylvania, between the upper Someș valley and the Țibleș mountains. The site of Dobricel, on the hilltop known as Vârful Lazului, is one of the many archaeological places recorded in the area, a high point above the valleys where traces of earlier inhabitants have been noted. There is not much to see without an archaeologist's eye, but the hilltop and the country around it are a good excuse for a ride through a region few foreigners ever visit.
Read the complete Dobricel - Vârful Lazului write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dobricel - Vârful Lazului comes up 36 km in. Next is Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci.
The Țibleș massif rises like a dark green wall between Maramureș and the Bistrița country of northern Romania, an old volcanic range topped by the Țibleș peak at around eighteen hundred metres. On its southern flanks, above the village of Groșii Țibleșului, lie the forests of Preluci, part of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe that UNESCO has protected as one sprawling, multi-country site. These are woods left largely to themselves, where old beeches grow huge, fall, rot and feed the next generation without a forester in sight.
Read the complete Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
73 km in you reach Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci. Next is Church of Saint Nicholas.
Budești is one of the old villages of the Cosău valley in Maramureș, the far northern corner of Romania, where traditional life has survived longer than almost anywhere else in Europe. Its wooden church of St Nicholas, built in the seventeenth century, is a masterpiece of the local carpentry tradition: a dark timber body with a tall, steep shingled roof and a slender spire that seems to pierce the sky. Inside, the walls are covered with painted scenes from the Bible, and among the church's treasures is a coat of chain mail said to have belonged to Pintea the Brave, a legendary outlaw hero of the region. The church is one of eight in the UNESCO listing of the Wooden Churches of Maramureș.
Read the complete Church of Saint Nicholas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of Saint Nicholas, about halfway. Next is Kuziy - Trybushany.
The river Tisza runs fast and green out of the Ukrainian Carpathians, and for many kilometres it forms the border between Romania and Ukraine. On the Ukrainian bank, the forests of Kuziy and Trybushany are among the primeval beech woods protected in the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve and listed by UNESCO as part of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe. From the Romanian side, around Valea Vișeului, you look across the river at steep, wooded slopes where the trees have grown and died without interference for centuries.
Read the complete Kuziy - Trybushany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kuziy - Trybushany sits at 145 km, about halfway. Next is back through Church of Saint Nicholas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church of Saint Nicholas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Church of Saint Nicholas comes up 181 km in. Next is back through Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
218 km in you reach back through Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci. Next is back through Dobricel - Vârful Lazului.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dobricel - Vârful Lazului write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dobricel - Vârful Lazului, late in the day. Next is Cășeiu - Cetățele / Samvm Cășeiu -Samum -.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cășeiu - Cetățele / Samvm Cășeiu -Samum - write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 417 km.
Cășeiu - Cetățele / Samvm Cășeiu -Samum - → Dobricel - Vârful Lazului is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dobricel - Vârful Lazului → Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci → Church of Saint Nicholas is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Church of Saint Nicholas → Kuziy - Trybushany is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kuziy - Trybushany → back through Church of Saint Nicholas is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Church of Saint Nicholas → back through Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci → back through Dobricel - Vârful Lazului is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Dobricel - Vârful Lazului → Cășeiu - Cetățele / Samvm Cășeiu -Samum - is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.