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 309 km round trip from Spermezeu - roughly 6 h 36 in the saddle. On the way it passes Church of the Holy Archangels, Kuziy - Trybushany and back through Church of the Holy Archangels. It crosses from Romania into Ukraine - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 80 km this is Romania Maramures Wooden Churches Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
On a hilltop near the village of Spermezeu, in the Someș hills of Bistrița-Năsăud county in northern Romania, a small watchtower once stood guard over the northern edge of the Roman Empire. When the emperor Trajan conquered Dacia in the early second century, the Romans built a frontier around their new province, the Dacian limes, a chain of forts, watchtowers and earthworks running along the Carpathians and through the hills. Vârful Sitii, the summit of Sita, was one of the observation points, chosen because from here soldiers could watch the valleys to the north and send signals to the forts behind them.
Read the complete Sita - Vârful Sitii write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sita - Vârful Sitii is where the day begins. Next is Church of the Holy Archangels.
Șurdești is a small village in the hills of Maramureș, in the north of Romania, and its wooden church of the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel is famous for its spire. Built in the eighteenth century from oak logs, the church has a steep double roof covered in shingles and a slender tower that rises far above the trees, among the tallest wooden church towers in the region. It is one of eight wooden churches of Maramureș listed by UNESCO in 1999, each a masterpiece of local carpentry, built by village craftsmen using traditional techniques.
Read the complete Church of the Holy Archangels write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of the Holy Archangels comes up about 75 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kuziy - Trybushany.
The river Tisza runs fast and green out of the Ukrainian Carpathians, and for many kilometres it forms the border between Romania and Ukraine. On the Ukrainian bank, the forests of Kuziy and Trybushany are among the primeval beech woods protected in the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve and listed by UNESCO as part of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe. From the Romanian side, around Valea Vișeului, you look across the river at steep, wooded slopes where the trees have grown and died without interference for centuries.
Read the complete Kuziy - Trybushany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 155 km into the recorded legs you reach Kuziy - Trybushany. Next is back through Church of the Holy Archangels.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church of the Holy Archangels write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Church of the Holy Archangels, late in the day. Next is Sita - Vârful Sitii.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sita - Vârful Sitii write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Sita - Vârful Sitii. That is the ride.
Sita - Vârful Sitii → Church of the Holy Archangels is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Church of the Holy Archangels → Kuziy - Trybushany is 80 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kuziy - Trybushany → back through Church of the Holy Archangels is 80 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Church of the Holy Archangels → Sita - Vârful Sitii is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.