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.
73 km from Bardon Mill to Bardon Mill, about 1 h 13 of riding. It goes by way of Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel, Bewcastle Roman fort and back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel. The line favours views over speed.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 17 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
The South Tyne valley below Haydon Bridge is one of the best places in England to understand why the Romans chose this line. To the north rises the long whinstone crag, the Whin Sill, a hard dark rock that stands up in a series of cliffs facing north, and along its crest Hadrian's Wall once ran. South of it lies the valley, with the river, the old road called the Stanegate and a string of forts. A defended settlement and signal station here would have been part of this web, sitting on high ground where a fire or flag could pass news along the line in minutes.
Read the complete Defended settlement and Roman signal stati write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Defended settlement and Roman signal stati is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel.
Around Haltwhistle the wall country becomes the landscape everyone imagines: the Whin Sill, a long ridge of hard volcanic dolerite, rears up in a series of cliffs facing north, and the Romans used it as a ready-made rampart, running their stone wall along the very top. Between the crags and the road the vallum ditch runs across the fields as a broad, clear trench, and from any high point you can see the whole military system laid out: crag, wall, road and ditch side by side.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel comes up about 15 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bewcastle Roman fort.
Bewcastle is one of the loneliest places in Cumbria, and it has been for a very long time. Roman soldiers built an outpost fort here, about ten kilometres north of Hadrian's Wall, on a plateau whose shape the walls followed, giving it an unusual six-sided plan. It was a forward base for scouts watching the tribes beyond the frontier, and it was linked to the Wall at Birdoswald by a road. Later, a medieval castle was built into one corner of the old Roman defences, and its broken walls still stand above the beck.
Read the complete Bewcastle Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 37 km into the recorded legs you reach Bewcastle Roman fort. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel, late in the day. Next is Defended settlement and Roman signal stati.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Defended settlement and Roman signal stati write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Defended settlement and Roman signal stati. That is the ride.
Defended settlement and Roman signal stati → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel → Bewcastle Roman fort is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bewcastle Roman fort → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel → Defended settlement and Roman signal stati is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.