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 Blaenau-Ffestiniog it runs 281 km to Blaenau-Ffestiniog; allow about 4 h 24 of riding. It goes by way of Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal, Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City and back through Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 74 km this is Evo Triangle, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 74 km into the recorded legs. Next is Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City.
Liverpool turned its back on the land and faced the sea, and the waterfront shows it. The Pier Head is dominated by three great buildings, the Royal Liver Building with its two clock towers topped by mythical Liver Birds, the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building, known as the Three Graces, built in the early twentieth century when the city was one of the richest ports in the world. Behind them the docks, warehouses and merchants' houses of the old town tell the story of a city that grew from trade in cotton, sugar, tobacco and, painfully, enslaved people.
Read the complete Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 140 km into the recorded legs you reach Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City. Next is back through Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal, late in the day. Next is 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 at Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries. That is the ride.
Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries → Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal → Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City → back through Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal → Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.