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.
386 km from Gâlgău to Gâlgău, about 8 h 52 of riding. It goes by way of Negrilești - Negru Vodă, Salva - Dealul Dumbravă, Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 and Brâncovenești - Castel. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Strâmtură means a narrowing, and the name fits. Just outside Gâlgău, a small Sălaj village on the Someș, the valley pinches between wooded slopes, and the Roman frontier made use of exactly such pinch points to control movement along the river. The site listed as Valea Strâmturei belongs to that northern Dacian line, and like most of its neighbours it is earthwork and setting rather than standing masonry. You come for the geography and the sense of a border that ran through these quiet hills nearly two thousand years ago.
Read the complete Gâlgău - Valea Strâmturei write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gâlgău - Valea Strâmturei is where the day begins. Next is Negrilești - Negru Vodă.
Negrilești is a small village in Bistrița-Năsăud county, in the hills of northern Transylvania, near the valley of the Someș Mare. The name of the site, Negru Vodă, recalls the legendary founder of Wallachia, a figure from the Romanian chronicles who is said to have crossed the Carpathians in the thirteenth century to found the principality; whether he existed at all is still debated, and many places in Romania bear his name. The site itself is part of the UNESCO listing of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, Dacia, probably a watchtower or a small fortification on a hill, part of the northern frontier of the province. Little is visible, but the hills offer good views over the surrounding countryside.
Read the complete Negrilești - Negru Vodă write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Negrilești - Negru Vodă comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Salva - Dealul Dumbravă.
The Someșul Mare valley around Năsăud was a frontier long before the Habsburgs made it one again. The Romans built watchtowers on the hills here to guard the northern edge of Dacia, and Salva - Dealul Dumbravă, the hill of the oak grove near the village of Salva, is one of the sites included in the UNESCO listing of the Dacian frontier in 2024. Sixteen centuries later, the Habsburg empire turned the region into a military border district, and the Năsăud border regiment, made up of local Romanian peasants, guarded the Carpathian passes in return for privileges and education.
Read the complete Salva - Dealul Dumbravă write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 113 km into the recorded legs you reach Salva - Dealul Dumbravă. 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.
Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1, about halfway. 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 sits at 148 km, about halfway. 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.
back through Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 comes up about 239 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Salva - Dealul Dumbravă.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Salva - Dealul Dumbravă write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 272 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Salva - Dealul Dumbravă. Next is back through Negrilești - Negru Vodă.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Negrilești - Negru Vodă write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Negrilești - Negru Vodă, late in the day. Next is Gâlgău - Valea Strâmturei.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gâlgău - Valea Strâmturei write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 386 km.
Gâlgău - Valea Strâmturei → Negrilești - Negru Vodă is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Negrilești - Negru Vodă → Salva - Dealul Dumbravă is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Salva - Dealul Dumbravă → Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 → Brâncovenești - Castel is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brâncovenești - Castel → back through Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 is 47 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 - Dealul Dumbravă is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Salva - Dealul Dumbravă → back through Negrilești - Negru Vodă is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Negrilești - Negru Vodă → Gâlgău - Valea Strâmturei is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.