CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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A 521 km round trip from Gilău - roughly 11 h 32 in the saddle. On the way it passes Turda - Potaissa / Dealul Cetății, Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici, Village of Câlnic and Cugir - Bătrâna. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 39 km this is Romania Transalpina, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Gilau sits where the flat plain of the Somesul Mic river meets the first hills of the Apuseni mountains, about fifteen kilometres west of Cluj-Napoca, in Transylvania, and the hill called Dealul Cetatii, which simply means Fortress Hill, rises almost on the edge of the town, about a kilometre away. The town has nearly eight thousand people, and from the road you can see the high, forested ridges of the Apuseni to the west.
Read the complete Gilău - Dealul Cetății write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gilău - Dealul Cetății is where the day begins. Next is Turda - Potaissa / Dealul Cetății.
Turda sits on salt. Under the town, the Salina Turda, an old salt mine, has been converted into an extraordinary underground amusement park, with a Ferris wheel, a lake with rowing boats and a mini-golf course more than a hundred metres below the surface, inside vast chambers carved out over centuries. Above ground, on the hill called Dealul Cetății, the Romans built the camp of the Fifth Macedonian Legion, which moved here in the late second century to guard the heart of the province of Dacia. The legionary fortress of Potaissa, with its walls, gates and headquarters building, has been excavated, and it counts as one component of UNESCO's inscription of the Dacian frontier.
Read the complete Turda - Potaissa / Dealul Cetății write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Turda - Potaissa / Dealul Cetății comes up 52 km in. Next is Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici.
There is a hill above Ighiu called Măgulici, and from its slopes you look straight across the Mureș valley toward Alba Iulia, the old Roman Apulum. That view is the whole point. Apulum was the base of the Thirteenth Legion and the largest Roman centre in Dacia, and the hills around it were dotted with watch posts and small sites that kept an eye on the roads in and out. The frontier lists name a site on Dealul Măgulici, and while there is little to see on the ground beyond the lie of the land, standing there makes the Roman geography readable.
Read the complete Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
104 km in you reach Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici. Next is Village of Câlnic.
Câlnic, a small village south of Sebeș in Alba county, is home to one of the strangest fortresses among the Saxon sites of Transylvania. Unlike most of its neighbours, it began not as a fortified church but as a noble residence. In the thirteenth century a local count built a stone keep here, surrounded by walls and a moat. Later the villagers bought it, added a chapel and storerooms, and turned it into a peasant refuge, where families could shelter from raids behind the walls. The result, still ringed by water on parts of its perimeter, is part of the Villages with Fortified Churches in Transylvania World Heritage site.
Read the complete Village of Câlnic write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Village of Câlnic, about halfway. Next is Cugir - Bătrâna.
South of the town of Cugir, the land rises into the Șureanu mountains, a sprawling range of beech and spruce forests, high meadows and rounded summits in the heart of the Southern Carpathians. This is the country of the Dacians, the people who ruled much of present-day Romania before the Roman conquest in the early second century. Their capital, Sarmizegetusa Regia, and a ring of mountain fortresses lie in the Orăștie mountains to the west, and they are listed by UNESCO as the Dacian Fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains. Bătrâna, on the high ground above the Cugir valley, belongs to the network of ancient sites scattered across these hills, where Dacians and Romans watched each other across the ridges.
Read the complete Cugir - Bătrâna write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cugir - Bătrâna sits at 208 km, about halfway. Next is back through Village of Câlnic.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Village of Câlnic write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Village of Câlnic comes up 260 km in. Next is back through Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
312 km in you reach back through Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici. Next is back through Turda - Potaissa / Dealul Cetății.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Turda - Potaissa / Dealul Cetății write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Turda - Potaissa / Dealul Cetății, late in the day. Next is Gilău - Dealul Cetății.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gilău - Dealul Cetății write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 521 km.
Gilău - Dealul Cetății → Turda - Potaissa / Dealul Cetății is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Turda - Potaissa / Dealul Cetății → Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici → Village of Câlnic is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Village of Câlnic → Cugir - Bătrâna is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cugir - Bătrâna → back through Village of Câlnic is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Village of Câlnic → back through Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici → back through Turda - Potaissa / Dealul Cetății is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Turda - Potaissa / Dealul Cetății → Gilău - Dealul Cetății is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.