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.
141 km from Porthmadog to Porthmadog, about 2 h 32 of riding. It goes by way of Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries, Penrhyn Slate Quarry and Bethesda and back through Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 27 km this is Snowdonia Llanberis Pass, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
High above Porthmadog, in the empty upland between Cwm Pennant and Cwmystradllyn, two abandoned slate quarries sit like ruined castles on the hillside. Gorseddau and the Prince of Wales quarry are part of the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales, which UNESCO listed in 2021, and they tell a story of big hopes and quick failure. Gorseddau in particular was developed in the 1850s with money and ambition, a tramway and a grand multi-storey mill at Ynys-y-Pandy whose roofless stone shell still looks like an abbey. The slate turned out to be poor, and within a couple of decades the whole enterprise had wound down.
Read the complete Gorseddau and Prince of Wales Slate Quarri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gorseddau and Prince of Wales Slate Quarri is where the day begins. Next is Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries.
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 comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Penrhyn Slate Quarry and Bethesda.
The Penrhyn Quarry is a hole you can see from a long way off. For much of the nineteenth century it was the biggest slate quarry in the world, a huge series of grey terraces cut into the mountain above Bethesda, and the roofs of half of Britain and of cities as far away as Hamburg after its great fire came from here. Its owner, Lord Penrhyn, was a rich and stubborn man, and in 1900 his quarrymen began a strike that lasted three years, one of the longest and bitterest labour disputes in British history. The community of Bethesda, named after a chapel, was split by it, and the memories are still sensitive. The whole slate landscape of north-west Wales was listed by UNESCO in 2021.
Read the complete Penrhyn Slate Quarry and Bethesda write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 70 km into the recorded legs you reach Penrhyn Slate Quarry and Bethesda. Next is back through 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 through Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries, late in the day. Next is Gorseddau and Prince of Wales Slate Quarri.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gorseddau and Prince of Wales Slate Quarri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Gorseddau and Prince of Wales Slate Quarri. That is the ride.
Gorseddau and Prince of Wales Slate Quarri → Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries → Penrhyn Slate Quarry and Bethesda is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Penrhyn Slate Quarry and Bethesda → back through Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ffestiniog: its Slate Mines and Quarries → Gorseddau and Prince of Wales Slate Quarri is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.