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.
166 km from Maryport to Maryport, about 2 h 52 of riding. On the way it passes Palisade ditches, Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End, The vallum between the field boundary sout and back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End. The line favours views over speed.
Maryport is a harbour town on the Cumbrian coast, a place of Georgian terraces, fishing boats and a long quay, with the Solway Firth and the hills of Galloway across the water. The town was laid out in the 1750s by Humphrey Senhouse, who named it for his wife Mary, and it grew on coal, shipbuilding and trade. Thomas Ismay, the founder of the White Star Line that later built the Titanic, was born here in 1837, and Fletcher Christian of the Bounty came from nearby Cockermouth. The harbour has been restored, with a maritime museum, a row of old boats, and a pleasant waterfront to walk.
Read the complete Maryport write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Maryport 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 22 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End.
Out on the Solway plain the land flattens, the sky gets enormous, and the sea is never far off even when you cannot see it. The stretch of the vallum near West End lies between Carlisle and the village of Burgh by Sands, on the last run of Hadrian's Wall towards its western end at Bowness-on-Solway. Here the Roman frontier ran along the edge of the marshes and the estuary, where the tide sweeps in across vast sands and salt marsh. Nothing of the Wall stands above ground in this section, but the line is clear on the map, and the country around has a strange, quiet beauty.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 56 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End. Next is The vallum between the field boundary sout.
Not every stretch of Hadrian's Wall is the dramatic crag-top masonry of the postcards, and this is one of the quieter parts: a section of the vallum, the great ditch-and-mound earthwork the Romans dug behind the wall, running across farmland near Brampton in Cumbria. The stone wall here was largely robbed out long ago for farms and churches, so what survives is often a long, soft hollow in the grass, a line you only notice once someone points it out, and then can't stop seeing.
Read the complete The vallum between the field boundary sout write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The vallum between the field boundary sout, about halfway. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End sits at 105 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 145 km into the recorded legs. Next is Maryport.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Maryport write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Maryport closes the day.
Maryport → Palisade ditches is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Palisade ditches → Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End → The vallum between the field boundary sout is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The vallum between the field boundary sout → back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End → back through Palisade ditches is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Palisade ditches → Maryport is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.