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.
From Haydon Bridge it runs 132 km to Haydon Bridge; allow about 2 h 02 of riding. It goes by way of Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank, Roman fort and back through Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Roman marching camps look like nothing, and yet they tell you almost everything about how the legions worked. At the end of each day's march, the soldiers dug a ditch, threw up a rampart of turf and put up their leather tents inside, in a regular plan. The camps at Coesike West, two of them side by side, were built on the moorland north of Hadrian's Wall, and they probably date from the period of campaigns in the north, before or around the time the frontier was fixed. They are only low banks and ditches now, but from the air or in low light the outline is clear.
Read the complete Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Roman fort.
At the mouth of the Tyne, on a rise above the river, stands a reconstructed Roman gateway that looks surprisingly new. It belongs to Arbeia, the Roman fort at South Shields, which supplied the soldiers along Hadrian's Wall and was built, strategically, to guard the entrance to the river. Ships unloaded grain and other goods here, and the stores were carried along the Wall's line, so this was the logistical heart of the frontier. Reconstructed buildings, including the gatehouse, a barrack and a commander's house, show how it looked, and the museum holds finds from the site.
Read the complete Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 66 km into the recorded legs you reach Roman fort. 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, late in the day. Next is Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2. That is the ride.
Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 → Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank → Roman fort is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roman fort → back through Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank → Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.