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 City of Westminster it runs 376 km to City of Westminster; allow about 7 h of riding. On the way it passes Blenheim Palace, Avebury and Associated Monuments and back through Blenheim Palace. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
The ride follows Blenheim Palace → Avebury and Associated Monuments for 88 km.
Few views in the world are photographed more often, and few are harder to enjoy from the saddle. The Palace of Westminster, rebuilt after the fire of 1834 by Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin in a Gothic style that deliberately looked backward, stands on the north bank of the Thames, with its famous clock tower at one end. The tower is properly called the Elizabeth Tower, and Big Ben is the name of the great bell inside it. Across the road is Westminster Abbey, where English and British monarchs have been crowned since William the Conqueror in 1066, and where many of them are buried, along with poets, scientists and the Unknown Warrior.
Read the complete Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbe write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbe is where the day begins. Next is Blenheim Palace.
Blenheim is what happens when a nation decides to say thank you with stone. After John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, beat the French and Bavarians at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704, Queen Anne granted him the royal manor of Woodstock, and Parliament voted funds for a palace to go on it. Sir John Vanbrugh designed it, with Nicholas Hawksmoor at his side, and the result is so theatrical, so heavy with towers, trophies and courtyards, that it still divides opinion three centuries later. Funding rows, a famous falling out between Vanbrugh and the Duchess Sarah, and decades of building followed.
Read the complete Blenheim Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Blenheim Palace comes up about 106 km into the recorded legs. Next is Avebury and Associated Monuments.
Avebury is the place where a village grew up inside a stone circle. The henge, a huge circular bank and ditch enclosing the largest stone circle in Britain, was built around four and a half thousand years ago, and the village, with its church, its manor house and its pub, sits partly within it, with a road running right through the middle. You can walk among the stones, touch them, sit beside them, and watch the sheep grazing around them, which is a very different experience from the controlled visits at Stonehenge, its more famous partner on the World Heritage list.
Read the complete Avebury and Associated Monuments write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 194 km into the recorded legs you reach Avebury and Associated Monuments. Next is back through Blenheim Palace.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Blenheim Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Blenheim Palace, late in the day. Next is Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbe.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbe write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbe. That is the ride.
Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbe → Blenheim Palace is 106 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Blenheim Palace → Avebury and Associated Monuments is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Avebury and Associated Monuments → back through Blenheim Palace is 75 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Blenheim Palace → Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbe is 106 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.