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.
369 km from Caernarfon to Caernarfon, about 5 h 32 of riding. On the way it passes Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries, Conwy Castle and Town Walls, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal and back through Conwy Castle and Town Walls. The line favours views over speed.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 37 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Edward I built Caernarfon to be unmistakable. Begun in 1283, after his conquest of Wales, the castle rises beside the Menai Strait with polygonal towers and bands of coloured stone that echo, it is said, the walls of Constantinople, a deliberate reference to imperial power. The King wanted a seat of government as well as a fortress, and the town walls were built to enclose a planted English borough, so the whole thing was an act of colonisation in stone. UNESCO listed Edward's castles and town walls in Gwynedd in 1986, together with Conwy, Harlech and Beaumaris, and Caernarfon is the grandest of them.
Read the complete Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in G write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in G is where the day begins. Next is Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries.
Blaenau Ffestiniog is a town built on, among and out of slate. Great grey tips of waste rock tumble down the mountainsides around it, old quarry inclines climb the slopes, and the houses, chapels and walls are all made of the same dark stone. For a century and more this was one of the slate capitals of the world, roofing houses from London to Melbourne, and since 2021 it has been part of the UNESCO-listed Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales. It is not pretty in the conventional sense, but it is magnificent, and on a day of sun breaking through rain clouds it can look like a lunar landscape lit by spotlights.
Read the complete Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries comes up about 50 km into the recorded legs. Next is Conwy Castle and Town Walls.
Edward I built Conwy Castle in just four years, from 1283 to 1287, as part of his campaign to subdue the Welsh, and the result is one of the most impressive medieval fortresses in Europe. Designed by the master mason James of St George, it stands on a rock above the estuary of the Conwy river, with eight massive towers and high curtain walls, and the town below is still enclosed by its original walls, with twenty-one towers and three gateways. Walking along the walls gives superb views of the town, the castle, the estuary and the mountains of Snowdonia. The castles and town walls of King Edward in Gwynedd were inscribed on the UNESCO list in 1986.
Read the complete Conwy Castle and Town Walls write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 93 km into the recorded legs you reach Conwy Castle and Town Walls. Next is Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal.
You hear it before you understand it: water running in an iron trough thirty-eight metres above the River Dee, on stone piers so slender they look drawn rather than built. Thomas Telford and William Jessop finished the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in 1805 to carry what is now the Llangollen Canal across the valley, and more than two centuries later narrowboats still glide over it, steered by people trying very hard not to look down. There is a towpath on one side with railings; on the other side there is only the edge of the trough and air. Walk across if you have a head for heights. It is one of the strangest and best ten minutes in Wales.
Read the complete Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal, about halfway. Next is back through Conwy Castle and Town Walls.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Conwy Castle and Town Walls write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Conwy Castle and Town Walls sits at 217 km, about halfway. Next is back through Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries comes up about 320 km into the recorded legs. Next is Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in G.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in G write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in G closes the day.
Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in G → Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries → Conwy Castle and Town Walls is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Conwy Castle and Town Walls → Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal is 94 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal → back through Conwy Castle and Town Walls is 90 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Conwy Castle and Town Walls → back through Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries → Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in G is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.