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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
213 km from Carlisle to Carlisle, about 3 h 45 of riding. It goes by way of Palisade ditches, Burrow Walls Roman fort, Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house and back through Burrow Walls Roman fort. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
West of Carlisle the Eden slows and starts to meander, swinging in wide loops through flat meadows on its way to the Solway, and here at Grinsdale Hadrian's Wall ran along the high ground above the river. It is a gentle, almost secret stretch of countryside, only a few miles from the city but feeling much further. The tiny hamlet of Grinsdale has a church dedicated to St Kentigern, an early saint associated with this region, and a scatter of farms. The Wall has gone, robbed for building stone centuries ago, but the line it followed is clear in the field boundaries and the lie of the land.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between Grinsdale and the f write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall between Grinsdale and the f is where the day begins. Next is Palisade ditches.
Hadrian's Wall did not simply stop at the edge of the Solway. Beyond its western end at Bowness, the Romans continued the frontier down the Cumbrian coast with a chain of milefortlets and towers, and in places with ditches and palisades, to watch over the shoreline and guard against raids across the firth from what is now south west Scotland. The palisade ditches near Silloth are part of that coastal system, faint traces in the flat land behind the dunes, and they are a reminder that the Roman frontier was a complex network that stretched far beyond the famous stone wall.
Read the complete Palisade ditches write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Palisade ditches comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Burrow Walls Roman fort.
On the northern edge of Workington, near the mouth of the river Derwent, a fragment of stone wall stands alone in a field, a jagged piece of masonry rising above the grass. It is part of Burrow Walls, a Roman fort that guarded the Cumbrian coast, one of the chain of defences that extended from the western end of Hadrian's Wall down the shore to watch for raiders crossing from Scotland and Ireland. Much of the fort's stone was reused in a medieval building on the site, and what survives today is modest, but it is part of the Hadrian's Wall World Heritage site and has a lonely charm, with views over the sea and the river.
Read the complete Burrow Walls Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 63 km into the recorded legs you reach Burrow Walls Roman fort. Next is Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house.
Walls Castle is the odd name for a Roman bath house, and the building still stands to a height of about four metres, one of the tallest Roman structures in northern England. It stood outside the fort of Glannoventa at Ravenglass, a harbour station at the meeting of three rivers, the Irt, the Mite and the Esk, and in the dry shelter of the dunes it has survived because its walls were thick and well built. You can walk around it on a short path from the village, and see niches and a doorway in the thick walls. The fort itself lies mostly under farmland and the railway.
Read the complete Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house, about halfway. Next is back through Burrow Walls Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Burrow Walls Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Burrow Walls Roman fort sits at 156 km, about halfway. Next is back through Palisade ditches.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Palisade ditches write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Palisade ditches comes up about 178 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall between Grinsdale and the f.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between Grinsdale and the f write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall between Grinsdale and the f closes the day.
Hadrian's Wall between Grinsdale and the f → Palisade ditches is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Palisade ditches → Burrow Walls Roman fort is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Burrow Walls Roman fort → Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house → back through Burrow Walls Roman fort is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Burrow Walls Roman fort → back through Palisade ditches is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Palisade ditches → Hadrian's Wall between Grinsdale and the f is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.