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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 311 km round trip from Bardon Mill - roughly 5 h 21 in the saddle. The stops in between: The vallum between the field boundary sout, Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou, Low Mire and Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house. It keeps close to the shore for long stretches.
Seatsides is a name on a map of fields, a spot where a Roman temporary camp is visible only as a faint square in the grass when the light is low. These camps were put up by marching armies, each night, with a ditch and a bank thrown around a regular rectangle, and some of them in the north of England survive as earthworks nearly two thousand years later. This one lies near Haltwhistle, in the Tyne Gap, the low pass that cuts between the Pennines and the Cheviot hills and has been the natural route from east to west across northern England since before the Romans.
Read the complete Seatsides 2 Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Seatsides 2 Roman temporary camp is where the day begins. Next is The vallum between the field boundary sout.
Not every stretch of Hadrian's Wall is the dramatic crag-top masonry of the postcards, and this is one of the quieter parts: a section of the vallum, the great ditch-and-mound earthwork the Romans dug behind the wall, running across farmland near Brampton in Cumbria. The stone wall here was largely robbed out long ago for farms and churches, so what survives is often a long, soft hollow in the grass, a line you only notice once someone points it out, and then can't stop seeing.
Read the complete The vallum between the field boundary sout write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The vallum between the field boundary sout comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou.
The vallum is the strangest part of Hadrian's Wall, and a good place to see it is on the flat ground near Bowness-on-Solway. It is a broad, deep ditch with a flat bottom, flanked by two mounds of earth set back from the edge, and it ran along the south side of the wall for its whole length. Nobody is certain what it was for, but the best theory is that it marked the rear boundary of a military zone, a line that civilians could cross only at controlled points, which fits with the idea of the wall as a border of customs and security as well as defence.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 62 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou. Next is Low Mire.
Low Mire lies in the quiet farmland behind the Cumbrian coast, near Dearham and Maryport, where the land slopes gently down to the Solway Firth and the hills of southern Scotland rise across the water. It is an area of small fields, hedges and scattered farms, with the Lake District fells visible to the south-east on clear days.
Read the complete Low Mire write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Low Mire, about halfway. Next is Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house.
Walls Castle is the odd name for a Roman bath house, and the building still stands to a height of about four metres, one of the tallest Roman structures in northern England. It stood outside the fort of Glannoventa at Ravenglass, a harbour station at the meeting of three rivers, the Irt, the Mite and the Esk, and in the dry shelter of the dunes it has survived because its walls were thick and well built. You can walk around it on a short path from the village, and see niches and a doorway in the thick walls. The fort itself lies mostly under farmland and the railway.
Read the complete Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house sits at 164 km, about halfway. Next is back through Low Mire.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Low Mire write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Low Mire comes up about 212 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 248 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou. Next is back through The vallum between the field boundary sout.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The vallum between the field boundary sout write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The vallum between the field boundary sout, late in the day. Next is Seatsides 2 Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Seatsides 2 Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 311 km.
Seatsides 2 Roman temporary camp → The vallum between the field boundary sout is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The vallum between the field boundary sout → Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou → Low Mire is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Low Mire → Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house → back through Low Mire is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Low Mire → back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou → back through The vallum between the field boundary sout is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The vallum between the field boundary sout → Seatsides 2 Roman temporary camp is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.