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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From Roșia Montană it runs 524 km to Roșia Montană; allow about 16 h 17 of riding. It goes by way of Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici, Village of Câlnic, Cugir - Bătrâna and Voineasa - Crac-Găuri. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 39 km this is Romania Transalpina, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Gold has been mined at Roșia Montană, in the Apuseni mountains of western Romania, for over two thousand years. The Romans, who called the place Alburnus Maior, dug an extensive network of galleries into the mountains to extract the gold, and some of these galleries survive, along with wax tablets found in the mines, recording contracts and daily life. In 2021, after years of controversy, the mining landscape of Roșia Montană was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Roșia Montană Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roșia Montană Mining Landscape is where the day begins. Next is Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici.
There is a hill above Ighiu called Măgulici, and from its slopes you look straight across the Mureș valley toward Alba Iulia, the old Roman Apulum. That view is the whole point. Apulum was the base of the Thirteenth Legion and the largest Roman centre in Dacia, and the hills around it were dotted with watch posts and small sites that kept an eye on the roads in and out. The frontier lists name a site on Dealul Măgulici, and while there is little to see on the ground beyond the lie of the land, standing there makes the Roman geography readable.
Read the complete Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici comes up 44 km in. Next is Village of Câlnic.
Câlnic, a small village south of Sebeș in Alba county, is home to one of the strangest fortresses among the Saxon sites of Transylvania. Unlike most of its neighbours, it began not as a fortified church but as a noble residence. In the thirteenth century a local count built a stone keep here, surrounded by walls and a moat. Later the villagers bought it, added a chapel and storerooms, and turned it into a peasant refuge, where families could shelter from raids behind the walls. The result, still ringed by water on parts of its perimeter, is part of the Villages with Fortified Churches in Transylvania World Heritage site.
Read the complete Village of Câlnic write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
88 km in you reach Village of Câlnic. Next is Cugir - Bătrâna.
South of the town of Cugir, the land rises into the Șureanu mountains, a sprawling range of beech and spruce forests, high meadows and rounded summits in the heart of the Southern Carpathians. This is the country of the Dacians, the people who ruled much of present-day Romania before the Roman conquest in the early second century. Their capital, Sarmizegetusa Regia, and a ring of mountain fortresses lie in the Orăștie mountains to the west, and they are listed by UNESCO as the Dacian Fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains. Bătrâna, on the high ground above the Cugir valley, belongs to the network of ancient sites scattered across these hills, where Dacians and Romans watched each other across the ridges.
Read the complete Cugir - Bătrâna write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cugir - Bătrâna, about halfway. 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 sits at 176 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cugir - Bătrâna.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cugir - Bătrâna write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cugir - Bătrâna comes up 219 km in. Next is back through Village of Câlnic.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Village of Câlnic write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
263 km in you reach back through Village of Câlnic. Next is back through Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici, late in the day. Next is Roșia Montană Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Roșia Montană Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 524 km.
Roșia Montană Mining Landscape → Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici → Village of Câlnic is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Village of Câlnic → Cugir - Bătrâna is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cugir - Bătrâna → Voineasa - Crac-Găuri is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Voineasa - Crac-Găuri → back through Cugir - Bătrâna is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cugir - Bătrâna → back through Village of Câlnic is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Village of Câlnic → back through Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ighiu - Dealul Măgulici → Roșia Montană Mining Landscape is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.