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.
A 95 km round trip from Redruth - roughly 1 h 59 in the saddle. It goes by way of Devoran and Perran, Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape and back through Devoran and Perran. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Cornwall's first railways were built to carry copper ore down to the sea and coal back up, and the Portreath branch of the Hayle Railway was one of the busiest. It opened in 1837, joining the mines around Redruth to the small harbour at Portreath on the north coast, where ore was loaded onto ships bound for the smelters of south Wales, and coal came in to feed the pumping engines. A tramroad had already done the same job here since the early nineteenth century, and the railway replaced it with steam power and heavier loads.
Read the complete Portreath Branch of the Hayle Railway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Portreath Branch of the Hayle Railway is where the day begins. Next is Devoran and Perran.
Devoran is a quiet village at the head of Restronguet Creek, a tidal arm of the Fal estuary south of Truro, and it takes a little imagination to see it as the busy industrial port it once was. In the nineteenth century, the Redruth and Chasewater Railway brought copper ore down from the mines to quays here, where ships loaded it for smelters in South Wales and returned with coal. The remains of the quays, ore hoppers and old warehouses are still visible along the shore, and the village is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, listed by UNESCO in 2006.
Read the complete Devoran and Perran write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Devoran and Perran comes up about 17 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape.
West Cornwall is the sort of place where a ruined engine house stands every few hundred metres, tall, square and roofless, with a chimney beside it. These are the remains of the tin and copper mines that made Cornwall one of the great industrial regions of the world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The beam engines in these houses pumped water out of mines that went down hundreds of metres, in some cases under the sea. Miners from Cornwall, known as Cousin Jacks, took their skills around the globe, to Mexico, Australia, South Africa and the American Midwest, and the pasty went with them.
Read the complete Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 48 km into the recorded legs you reach Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape. Next is back through Devoran and Perran.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Devoran and Perran write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Devoran and Perran, late in the day. Next is Portreath Branch of the Hayle Railway.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Portreath Branch of the Hayle Railway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Portreath Branch of the Hayle Railway. That is the ride.
Portreath Branch of the Hayle Railway → Devoran and Perran is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Devoran and Perran → Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape → back through Devoran and Perran is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Devoran and Perran → Portreath Branch of the Hayle Railway is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.