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.
A 59 km round trip from Haltwhistle - roughly 49 min in the saddle. The stops in between: Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp, Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac and back through Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp. The line favours views over speed.
Around Haltwhistle the wall climbs on to the Whin Sill, a hard ridge of dark volcanic rock that runs across northern England like a spine, and the effect is among the most dramatic on the whole frontier. The wall rides the crest of crags, rising and falling over the rock, with a steep drop to the north and long views over moorland, and the Roman engineers made full use of the natural defence. The vallum, a broad flat-bottomed ditch with mounds on either side, runs in the valley to the south, and it marks the boundary of the military zone behind the wall.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the road write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the road is where the day begins. Next is Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp.
Look for a faint rectangle in the rough grass north of the Military Road, a few kilometres west of Chollerford, and you will have found Brown Dikes, one of a cluster of Roman temporary camps on the high ground above the North Tyne. Nothing stands here, no walls or gates, only low earthworks that the grazing sheep have softened over nearly two thousand years. But these camps are among the most evocative traces of the Roman army in Britain, because they mark where soldiers actually slept and worked while the frontier was being built and garrisoned.
Read the complete Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp comes up about 13 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac.
Just north of Hexham, the A road climbs out of the Tyne valley and meets the Roman frontier on a high, windy shoulder of Northumberland. Here, near Acomb, Wall and the crossing of the North Tyne at Chollerford, the line of Hadrian's Wall and its vallum runs across open farmland, sometimes visible as a low bank, sometimes followed by the road itself. Like every stretch of the frontier, it belongs to the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire, and this middle section is where the wall starts to feel serious, heading west into the wild central crags.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 29 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac. Next is back through Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp, late in the day. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the road.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the road write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the road. That is the ride.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the road → Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac → back through Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the road is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.