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.
281 km from Bardon Mill to Bardon Mill, about 4 h 04 of riding. On the way it passes Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl, The English Lake District and back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl. Lakes are the scenery here.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 66 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
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 Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl.
West of Carlisle, Hadrian's Wall heads out across flat farmland toward the Solway Firth, and the closer you get to the estuary, the quieter it becomes. Along this stretch, the wall itself has largely gone, robbed for stone over the centuries, but the vallum, the wide ditch with its mounds that ran behind it, can still be traced in places, and the line passes the sites of Roman forts and the civilian settlements that grew up around them. At Stanwix, now a suburb on the north bank of the Eden, stood the largest fort on the whole wall, home to a cavalry regiment of a thousand men. Further west, at Burgh by Sands, another fort lies beneath the village and its fortified church, built partly with Roman stone.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl comes up about 52 km into the recorded legs. Next is The English Lake District.
Wordsworth wandered lonely as a cloud round here, and anybody who has ridden the Lake District on a wet bank holiday will understand the appeal of being lonely. The English Lake District, listed by UNESCO in 2017 as a cultural landscape, is a compact knot of mountains, lakes and valleys in Cumbria, shaped by glaciers and then by centuries of sheep farming, slate quarrying and, from the late eighteenth century, by poets, painters and tourists who came looking for the sublime.
Read the complete The English Lake District write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 141 km into the recorded legs you reach The English Lake District. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl, 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 → Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl → The English Lake District is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The English Lake District → back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl → Housesteads fort is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.