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.
326 km from Haydon Bridge to Haydon Bridge, about 4 h 24 of riding. It goes by way of Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2, Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End and back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Hadrian's Wall in its central section does what a good border should: it picks the best ridge in the country and sits on top of it. The wall was begun in AD 122, under the emperor Hadrian, and it runs for about eighty Roman miles, roughly 117 kilometres, from the Tyne to the Solway. In the middle stretch, between Haydon Bridge and Haltwhistle, it follows a line of crags called the Whin Sill, a hard, dark volcanic rock that breaks the Northumbrian moors into a series of cliffs, so that the wall looks as if it grew out of the stone.
Read the complete Roman camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roman camp is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2.
Most people picture Hadrian's Wall striding across lonely Northumberland crags. Wall mile 2 is the other end of the story: an urban stretch in the east of Newcastle upon Tyne, where the wall ran from the fort at Wallsend, Segedunum, westwards along the north bank of the Tyne towards the bridge and fort at Pons Aelius, beneath today's city centre. Very little of the wall itself is visible here; terraced houses, roads and shipyards have long since swallowed it. But you are standing on the first miles of a frontier that once ran coast to coast for about eighty Roman miles.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 comes up about 52 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 163 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2, late in the day. Next is Roman camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Roman camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Roman camp. That is the ride.
Roman camp → Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 → Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End is 111 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Hadrian's Wall vallum between West End → back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 is 111 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 → Roman camp is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.