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.
A 341 km round trip from Negrilești - roughly 7 h 12 in the saddle. The stops in between: Salva - Roata lui Todoran, Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1, Brâncovenești - Castel and Eremitu - Dealul Tompa. The line favours views over speed.
Dumbrăveni sits in the quiet hill country above the Someş Mare, where the river curves west towards Dej and the land folds into low ridges, orchards and small woods of oak and hornbeam. Like several places on these rides, it marks a point on the old northern edge of Roman Dacia, one of the scattered watchtower and earthwork sites listed in 2024 as part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire. Expect a hill and a view rather than masonry, and enjoy the feeling of being somewhere few travellers bother to stop.
Read the complete Dumbrăveni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dumbrăveni is where the day begins. Next is Salva - Roata lui Todoran.
Salva is a railway village. Trains for the Maramureș line split off here from the route along the Someșul Mare, and the place has a slightly busy, crossroads feel for a commune of a little over four thousand people. The site called Roata lui Todoran, Todoran's wheel, sits right by the village in the Năsăud country of Bistrița-Năsăud, a region that marked the northern edge of Roman Dacia and later formed part of a Habsburg border regiment. Few places in Transylvania have been a frontier for quite so long.
Read the complete Salva - Roata lui Todoran write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Salva - Roata lui Todoran comes up about 48 km into the recorded legs. Next is Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1.
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.
about 83 km into the recorded legs you reach Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1. Next is Brâncovenești - Castel.
Upstream from Reghin, where the Mureș leaves the mountains and widens into the Transylvanian hill country, the village of Brâncovenești stands beside a castle with round corner towers and a long, plain facade overlooking the river. Known in Hungarian as Marosvécs, it was rebuilt several times over the centuries, and in the twentieth century it belonged to the Kemény family. Between the two world wars, Baron János Kemény opened its doors to a circle of Hungarian writers from Transylvania, the Helikon group, who met here every summer to read, debate and plan their literary work. Those gatherings made a remote country house one of the liveliest literary addresses in the region for almost two decades.
Read the complete Brâncovenești - Castel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brâncovenești - Castel, about halfway. Next is Eremitu - Dealul Tompa.
You are in Szekler country here, in the hills between the Niraj valley and the foot of the Gurghiu and Harghita mountains, a part of Transylvania where most villages have two names and the Hungarian one, Nyárádremete for Eremitu, is the one people use. Dealul Tompa means the blunt hill, and it matches the landscape: rounded, grassy and farmed, with beech woods on the higher ground and a patchwork of hay meadows below.
Read the complete Eremitu - Dealul Tompa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Eremitu - Dealul Tompa sits at 149 km, about halfway. Next is back through Brâncovenești - Castel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Brâncovenești - Castel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Brâncovenești - Castel comes up about 212 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through 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.
about 258 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1. Next is back through Salva - Roata lui Todoran.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Salva - Roata lui Todoran write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Salva - Roata lui Todoran, late in the day. Next is Dumbrăveni.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dumbrăveni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 341 km.
Dumbrăveni → Salva - Roata lui Todoran is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Salva - Roata lui Todoran → Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 → Brâncovenești - Castel is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brâncovenești - Castel → Eremitu - Dealul Tompa is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eremitu - Dealul Tompa → back through Brâncovenești - Castel is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Brâncovenești - Castel → back through Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 → back through Salva - Roata lui Todoran is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Salva - Roata lui Todoran → Dumbrăveni is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.