CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
A 440 km round trip from Petrila - roughly 13 h 33 in the saddle. It goes by way of Voineasa - Crac-Găuri, Monastery of Horezu, Păușa - Arutela / Poiana Bivolari and Stolniceni - Buridava Romană. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 35 km this is Romania Transalpina, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Petroșani is the capital of the Jiu valley, a long trench between the Retezat, Vâlcan, Parâng and Șureanu mountains in south-western Romania, and for most of the twentieth century it was the heart of the country's hard-coal industry. The hills around the town, including Dealul Botanilor, look down on a landscape of mining towns, pit heads and miners' housing, with the high mountains rising all around.
Read the complete Petroșani - Dealul Botanilor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Petroșani - Dealul Botanilor is where the day begins. Next is Voineasa - Crac-Găuri.
North of the Jiu Valley, the land rises steeply into the Șureanu and Parâng mountains, a wild region of high ridges, deep valleys, spruce forests and alpine meadows. Crac-Găuri lies up in this high country, linked by name to the old routes that crossed the mountains in Roman times, when Dacia was a province and soldiers watched the passes between the Transylvanian basin and the south. Little is visible today, and the remoteness is half the attraction: this is mountain land, where shepherds bring their flocks to high pastures in summer and the forest stretches for miles.
Read the complete Voineasa - Crac-Găuri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Voineasa - Crac-Găuri comes up 39 km in. Next is Monastery of Horezu.
Constantin Brâncoveanu, prince of Wallachia at the end of the seventeenth century, was a wealthy, cultured ruler who built churches, palaces and monasteries across his principality, and Horezu was his masterpiece. Founded in 1690, the monastery sits in a quiet valley in the foothills of the Căpățânii mountains, surrounded by walls, with a church at the centre of a courtyard lined with arcaded cells. It is the finest example of the Brâncovenesc style, a blend of Byzantine, Renaissance and Baroque, with carved stone, painted interiors and elegant porches, and it was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 1993. In 1714, Brâncoveanu and his four sons were executed by the Ottomans in Istanbul; the Romanian Orthodox Church later canonised them as martyrs.
Read the complete Monastery of Horezu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
78 km in you reach Monastery of Horezu. Next is Păușa - Arutela / Poiana Bivolari.
The Olt is the river that cuts through the Carpathians, and wherever a river does that, an army will want to sit beside it. At Păușa, near Călimănești, the Romans built a small fort called Arutela to guard the road through the Olt valley, part of the defensive line that protected their province of Dacia after Trajan's conquest at the start of the second century. The fort's remains lie by the river, partly lost to floods and later works, and are included in the Frontiers of the Roman Empire listing for Dacia, added by UNESCO in 2024.
Read the complete Păușa - Arutela / Poiana Bivolari write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Păușa - Arutela / Poiana Bivolari, about halfway. Next is Stolniceni - Buridava Romană.
South of Râmnicu Vâlcea the Olt river leaves the mountains and broadens across a valley of orchards and villages, and on the terraces above it at Stolniceni lie the remains of Buridava, a Roman military settlement whose name the Romans borrowed from an older Dacian centre nearby. It sat on the Limes Alutanus, the frontier road along the Olt that guarded the eastern edge of Roman Dacia, and soldiers stationed here left inscriptions, bricks stamped with unit marks and the foundations of baths. The site is part of the Dacian frontier listing inscribed by UNESCO in 2024.
Read the complete Stolniceni - Buridava Romană write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stolniceni - Buridava Romană sits at 157 km, about halfway. Next is back through Păușa - Arutela / Poiana Bivolari.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Păușa - Arutela / Poiana Bivolari write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Păușa - Arutela / Poiana Bivolari comes up 196 km in. Next is back through Monastery of Horezu.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monastery of Horezu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
235 km in you reach back through Monastery of Horezu. Next is back through Voineasa - Crac-Găuri.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Voineasa - Crac-Găuri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Voineasa - Crac-Găuri, late in the day. Next is Petroșani - Dealul Botanilor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Petroșani - Dealul Botanilor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 440 km.
Petroșani - Dealul Botanilor → Voineasa - Crac-Găuri is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Voineasa - Crac-Găuri → Monastery of Horezu is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monastery of Horezu → Păușa - Arutela / Poiana Bivolari is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Păușa - Arutela / Poiana Bivolari → Stolniceni - Buridava Romană is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stolniceni - Buridava Romană → back through Păușa - Arutela / Poiana Bivolari is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Păușa - Arutela / Poiana Bivolari → back through Monastery of Horezu is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monastery of Horezu → back through Voineasa - Crac-Găuri is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Voineasa - Crac-Găuri → Petroșani - Dealul Botanilor is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.