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 58 km round trip from Bardon Mill - roughly 53 min in the saddle. The stops in between: The Roman fort, Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 and back through The Roman fort. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Of all the forts on Hadrian's Wall, Housesteads is the one that most people picture. It stands on the edge of the Whin Sill, high above the moors, with long grey walls running along the ridge on either side and an enormous view in every direction. The Romans called it Vercovicium, and from the road it takes about ten minutes to walk up the hill from the car park and museum to the gate, with the wind in your face.
Read the complete Housesteads fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Housesteads fort is where the day begins. Next is The Roman fort.
Down by the North Tyne, where the river runs fast over stones under a canopy of trees, a Roman cavalry regiment once kept its horses and its very comfortable bath house. Chesters, the fort the Romans called Cilurnum, sat astride Hadrian's Wall near the village of Walwick, guarding the bridge that carried the wall across the river. It is one of the best preserved forts along the wall, with the headquarters building, the commander's house and the bath house still standing to knee or shoulder height, and the remains of the bridge abutment visible on the far bank.
Read the complete The Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Roman fort comes up about 14 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630.
Out at the eastern end of the frontier, the Wall leaves the moors behind and runs through gentle farmland toward Newcastle, and most of what survives here is not stone but earth: the vallum, a broad ditch flanked by banks that the Romans dug just south of the Wall along almost its entire length. Between the Tyne and the Military Road, near Heddon-on-the-Wall and Rudchester, the vallum can be traced in the fields as a long hollow, and the Wall itself lies largely under the road or as low courses in the grass. Its purpose is still debated, but most scholars see it as a boundary marking the military zone, controlling who could approach the Wall.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 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 B630. Next is back through The Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Roman fort, late in the day. Next is Housesteads fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Housesteads fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Housesteads fort. That is the ride.
Housesteads fort → The Roman fort is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Roman fort → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 → back through The Roman fort is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Roman fort → Housesteads fort is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.