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.
From Holmes Chapel it runs 404 km to Holmes Chapel; allow about 5 h 55 of riding. On the way it passes Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal, Ironbridge Gorge and back through Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
You see the dish long before you arrive. The Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank rises out of the flat Cheshire farmland like something from a science fiction film, a white steel bowl seventy six metres across, tilting slowly to follow its targets across the sky. When it was completed in 1957 it was the largest steerable radio telescope in the world, and one of its first tasks was tracking the rocket that carried Sputnik into orbit. The observatory, founded by Bernard Lovell after the Second World War, has been at the forefront of radio astronomy ever since, and it was listed by UNESCO in 2019 for its role in the development of the science.
Read the complete Jodrell Bank Observatory write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jodrell Bank Observatory is where the day begins. Next is Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City.
Liverpool turned its back on the land and faced the sea, and the waterfront shows it. The Pier Head is dominated by three great buildings, the Royal Liver Building with its two clock towers topped by mythical Liver Birds, the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building, known as the Three Graces, built in the early twentieth century when the city was one of the richest ports in the world. Behind them the docks, warehouses and merchants' houses of the old town tell the story of a city that grew from trade in cotton, sugar, tobacco and, painfully, enslaved people.
Read the complete Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City comes up about 69 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal.
You hear it before you understand it: water running in an iron trough thirty-eight metres above the River Dee, on stone piers so slender they look drawn rather than built. Thomas Telford and William Jessop finished the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in 1805 to carry what is now the Llangollen Canal across the valley, and more than two centuries later narrowboats still glide over it, steered by people trying very hard not to look down. There is a towpath on one side with railings; on the other side there is only the edge of the trough and air. Walk across if you have a head for heights. It is one of the strangest and best ten minutes in Wales.
Read the complete Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 135 km into the recorded legs you reach Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal. Next is Ironbridge Gorge.
An iron bridge does not sound like much until you realise it was the first of its kind. In 1779, over the River Severn in Shropshire, the world's first major cast-iron bridge was completed, spanning thirty metres in a single semicircular arch, assembled with joints borrowed from carpentry. It was designed by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard and built by Abraham Darby III, whose grandfather, Abraham Darby I, had pioneered smelting iron with coke at nearby Coalbrookdale in 1709. That innovation lit the fuse of the Industrial Revolution, and the gorge that holds the works became one of its birthplaces. UNESCO listed the site in 1986.
Read the complete Ironbridge Gorge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ironbridge Gorge, about halfway. Next is back through Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal sits at 279 km, about halfway. Next is back through Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City comes up about 334 km into the recorded legs. Next is Jodrell Bank Observatory.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jodrell Bank Observatory write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jodrell Bank Observatory closes the day.
Jodrell Bank Observatory → Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City → Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal → Ironbridge Gorge is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Ironbridge Gorge → back through Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal is 67 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal → back through Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City → Jodrell Bank Observatory is 70 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.