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 336 km round trip from Pratovecchio - roughly 6 h 53 in the saddle. The stops in between: Teatro Angelo Mariani, Evaporiti di San Leo, Gessi di Onferno and Historic Centre of Urbino. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Sasso Fratino is a forest you are not allowed to enter, and that is precisely the point. High on the Romagna side of the Apennine ridge, in the national park of the Casentino forests, it was declared Italy's first integral nature reserve in 1959, and since then nature has been left almost entirely to itself. Ancient beech woods cling to steep slopes, with silver fir, maple and ash mixed in, and dead trees are left to rot where they fall, feeding fungi, beetles and birds. In 2017 it became part of the transnational World Heritage listing of ancient beech forests of Europe.
Read the complete Sasso Fratino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sasso Fratino is where the day begins. Next is Teatro Angelo Mariani.
Sant'Agata Feltria is a small hill town in the upper Marecchia valley, with a castle on a rock, steep streets and one of the oldest wooden theatres in Italy. The Teatro Angelo Mariani dates from the early seventeenth century and has been rebuilt and restored over the centuries, with tiers of wooden boxes painted in soft colours around a small stage. It is named after Angelo Mariani, a nineteenth-century conductor who was a close collaborator of Verdi. The theatre is intimate, seating a few hundred at most, and it still hosts concerts and plays.
Read the complete Teatro Angelo Mariani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Teatro Angelo Mariani comes up about 69 km into the recorded legs. Next is Evaporiti di San Leo.
San Leo stands on a limestone block that rises sheer out of the Marecchia valley, and from a distance it looks like a fortress that nobody could possibly have captured. The ground under it tells a longer and stranger story. The evaporite rocks in this area, gypsum and associated salts, were laid down around six million years ago, when the Mediterranean nearly dried out in what geologists call the Messinian salinity crisis. Seawater evaporated, minerals crystallised, and the beds you see in the cuttings are the leftovers of that event.
Read the complete Evaporiti di San Leo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 93 km into the recorded legs you reach Evaporiti di San Leo. Next is Gessi di Onferno.
The hills behind Rimini hide a surprising piece of geology. Around the hamlet of Onferno, in the comune of Gemmano, the ground is made of gypsum, laid down when the Mediterranean dried out millions of years ago and then pushed up into these ridges. Water dissolves gypsum easily, so the landscape is pocked with sinkholes, blind valleys and caves, and the Grotta di Onferno winds for hundreds of metres beneath the village. The name is often linked to inferno, supposedly because vapour rising from the cave mouth in cold weather looked like the breath of hell.
Read the complete Gessi di Onferno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gessi di Onferno, about halfway. Next is Historic Centre of Urbino.
Urbino is a whole hill turned into an idea. In the fifteenth century Federico da Montefeltro, a professional soldier who earned a fortune leading other people's armies, used it to build one of the most refined courts in Renaissance Italy, and the town that grew around his palace is still almost entirely brick and stone of that age. It was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1998, and it remains a lively university town rather than a museum.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Urbino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Urbino sits at 108 km, about halfway. Next is back through Gessi di Onferno.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gessi di Onferno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Gessi di Onferno comes up about 206 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Evaporiti di San Leo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Evaporiti di San Leo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 244 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Evaporiti di San Leo. Next is back through Teatro Angelo Mariani.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Teatro Angelo Mariani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Teatro Angelo Mariani, late in the day. Next is Sasso Fratino.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sasso Fratino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 336 km.
Sasso Fratino → Teatro Angelo Mariani is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Teatro Angelo Mariani → Evaporiti di San Leo is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Evaporiti di San Leo → Gessi di Onferno is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Gessi di Onferno → Historic Centre of Urbino is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Urbino → back through Gessi di Onferno is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Gessi di Onferno → back through Evaporiti di San Leo is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Evaporiti di San Leo → back through Teatro Angelo Mariani is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Teatro Angelo Mariani → Sasso Fratino is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.