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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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 478 km round trip from Bystrytsya - roughly 11 h 26 in the saddle. On the way it passes Svydovets, Kuziy - Trybushany, Church of Saint Nicholas and Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Ukraine into Romania - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 37 km this is Romania Maramures Wooden Churches Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The Gorgany are the wildest part of the Ukrainian Carpathians, a range of sandstone peaks rising above dense forests in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. What makes them unusual are the gorgany themselves, the fields of loose stone blocks that cover the upper slopes and summits, formed by frost shattering the rock. Walking across them is slow and tiring, and the forests below, of spruce, beech and Swiss stone pine, are among the most pristine in Ukraine, with brown bears, wolves, lynx and red deer. The Gorgany nature reserve protects a part of this landscape.
Read the complete Gorgany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gorgany is where the day begins. Next is Svydovets.
The Svydovets is a long, high ridge in the Ukrainian Carpathians, rising above the upper Tisza valley near the town of Rakhiv in Zakarpattia. Its southern and northern slopes hold some of the wildest primeval beech forest left in Europe, protected as part of the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve and included in the UNESCO site of Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe. Above the trees lie broad alpine meadows, the polonyna, where Hutsul shepherds traditionally drove their flocks each summer, with glacial lakes tucked below the ridge.
Read the complete Svydovets write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Svydovets comes up 39 km in. Next is Kuziy - Trybushany.
The river Tisza runs fast and green out of the Ukrainian Carpathians, and for many kilometres it forms the border between Romania and Ukraine. On the Ukrainian bank, the forests of Kuziy and Trybushany are among the primeval beech woods protected in the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve and listed by UNESCO as part of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe. From the Romanian side, around Valea Vișeului, you look across the river at steep, wooded slopes where the trees have grown and died without interference for centuries.
Read the complete Kuziy - Trybushany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
78 km in you reach Kuziy - Trybushany. Next is Church of Saint Nicholas.
Budești is one of the old villages of the Cosău valley in Maramureș, the far northern corner of Romania, where traditional life has survived longer than almost anywhere else in Europe. Its wooden church of St Nicholas, built in the seventeenth century, is a masterpiece of the local carpentry tradition: a dark timber body with a tall, steep shingled roof and a slender spire that seems to pierce the sky. Inside, the walls are covered with painted scenes from the Bible, and among the church's treasures is a coat of chain mail said to have belonged to Pintea the Brave, a legendary outlaw hero of the region. The church is one of eight in the UNESCO listing of the Wooden Churches of Maramureș.
Read the complete Church of Saint Nicholas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of Saint Nicholas, about halfway. Next is Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci.
The Țibleș massif rises like a dark green wall between Maramureș and the Bistrița country of northern Romania, an old volcanic range topped by the Țibleș peak at around eighteen hundred metres. On its southern flanks, above the village of Groșii Țibleșului, lie the forests of Preluci, part of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe that UNESCO has protected as one sprawling, multi-country site. These are woods left largely to themselves, where old beeches grow huge, fall, rot and feed the next generation without a forester in sight.
Read the complete Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci sits at 156 km, about halfway. Next is back through Church of Saint Nicholas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church of Saint Nicholas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Church of Saint Nicholas comes up 194 km in. Next is back through Kuziy - Trybushany.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kuziy - Trybushany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
233 km in you reach back through Kuziy - Trybushany. Next is back through Svydovets.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Svydovets write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Svydovets, late in the day. Next is Gorgany.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gorgany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 478 km.
Gorgany → Svydovets is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Svydovets → Kuziy - Trybushany is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kuziy - Trybushany → Church of Saint Nicholas is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Church of Saint Nicholas → Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Groșii Țibleșului - Preluci → back through Church of Saint Nicholas is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Church of Saint Nicholas → back through Kuziy - Trybushany is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kuziy - Trybushany → back through Svydovets is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Svydovets → Gorgany is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.