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.
215 km from Ibăneşti to Ibăneşti, about 4 h 56 of riding. It goes by way of Brâncovenești - Castel, Lunca - La Bolovani, Livezile - Poderei and back through Lunca - La Bolovani. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Up the Gurghiu valley in Mureș County, the villages still wear wood: carved gates, shingled roofs, little wooden churches and stacks of firewood against every wall. Ibănești is one of the best known of them, a long village strung along the valley where traditional dress, music and crafts have hung on more stubbornly than in most of Transylvania. On a hill nearby, Cetățuia Mică, the little citadel, marks a point on the eastern frontier of Roman Dacia, where a chain of small forts and watchtowers looked toward the volcanic Gurghiu mountains and the lands beyond. These eastern posts are part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire listing for Dacia, added by UNESCO in 2024, though on the ground they are grassy earthworks rather than walls.
Read the complete Ibănești - Cetățuia Mică write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ibănești - Cetățuia Mică is where the day begins. Next is Brâncovenești - Castel.
Upstream from Reghin, where the Mureș leaves the mountains and widens into the Transylvanian hill country, the village of Brâncovenești stands beside a castle with round corner towers and a long, plain facade overlooking the river. Known in Hungarian as Marosvécs, it was rebuilt several times over the centuries, and in the twentieth century it belonged to the Kemény family. Between the two world wars, Baron János Kemény opened its doors to a circle of Hungarian writers from Transylvania, the Helikon group, who met here every summer to read, debate and plan their literary work. Those gatherings made a remote country house one of the liveliest literary addresses in the region for almost two decades.
Read the complete Brâncovenești - Castel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brâncovenești - Castel comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Lunca - La Bolovani.
La Bolovani means at the boulders, which tells you most of what a local would have said about this spot on the hills near the village of Lunca, between Monor and Șieuț on the eastern edge of the Transylvanian basin. Archaeologists know it as one of the sites along the Roman frontier of Dacia, a small watch post on a ridge commanding views east towards the Călimani and Gurghiu mountains, beyond which lay lands Rome never controlled. In 2024 it joined the World Heritage listing of the Dacian limes, though in the field you will find a quiet hill, sheep and very few signs.
Read the complete Lunca - La Bolovani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 67 km into the recorded legs you reach Lunca - La Bolovani. Next is Livezile - Poderei.
Leave Bistriţa eastwards on the DN17 and within minutes you are in Livezile, a long village strung out along the valley of the Bistriţa river where the Transylvanian hills start to bunch up towards the Eastern Carpathians. Poderei is the name of a hillside here where the Romans kept watch over the northern edge of their province of Dacia, and the site is one of the many small components of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire listed in Romania in 2024. There is nothing to visit in the sense of ruins; what you get is the hill, the view up the valley and the knowledge that legionaries stared at the same ridges.
Read the complete Livezile - Poderei write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Livezile - Poderei, about halfway. Next is back through Lunca - La Bolovani.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lunca - La Bolovani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Lunca - La Bolovani sits at 107 km, about halfway. Next is back through Brâncovenești - Castel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Brâncovenești - Castel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Brâncovenești - Castel comes up about 181 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ibănești - Cetățuia Mică.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ibănești - Cetățuia Mică write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ibănești - Cetățuia Mică closes the day.
Ibănești - Cetățuia Mică → Brâncovenești - Castel is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brâncovenești - Castel → Lunca - La Bolovani is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lunca - La Bolovani → Livezile - Poderei is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Livezile - Poderei → back through Lunca - La Bolovani is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lunca - La Bolovani → back through Brâncovenești - Castel is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Brâncovenești - Castel → Ibănești - Cetățuia Mică is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.