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 270 km round trip from Lillerød - roughly 4 h 16 in the saddle. On the way it passes Kronborg Castle, Roskilde Cathedral, Borgring and back through Roskilde Cathedral. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 31 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
North of Copenhagen the royal family once hunted on a scale that reshaped the landscape, and Store Dyrehave, the Great Deer Park, near Hillerød, is a piece of that design. The forest is cut by straight rides, long avenues that radiate like the spokes of a wheel, so that horsemen and hounds could follow a stag at speed without losing sight of it. This kind of hunting, called par force, was fashionable at European courts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the Danish kings built an entire landscape for it, now recognised by UNESCO as the Par Force Hunting Landscape in North Zealand.
Read the complete Store Dyrehave write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Store Dyrehave is where the day begins. Next is Kronborg Castle.
Hamlet never lived at Kronborg, but Shakespeare put him there, and the castle has been Elsinore in the imagination of the world ever since. It stands on a point of land at Helsingør where the Øresund narrows to about four kilometres, with Sweden clearly visible across the water, and for centuries it controlled one of the most important shipping lanes in Europe. King Frederik II built the castle in its Renaissance form in the 1570s and 1580s, and every ship passing through the strait had to stop and pay the Sound Dues, a toll that made the Danish crown rich for over four hundred years until it was abolished in 1857. Kronborg was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2000.
Read the complete Kronborg Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kronborg Castle comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Roskilde Cathedral.
Roskilde Cathedral is where Denmark keeps its kings. Since the fifteenth century, almost every Danish monarch has been buried here, and the chapels and crypts hold around forty kings and queens, from medieval stone tombs to ornate baroque sarcophagi and modern designs. The cathedral itself, begun in the late twelfth century under Bishop Absalon, the warrior-churchman who also founded Copenhagen, was one of the first big brick Gothic churches in Scandinavia, and it set the style for church building across the region. UNESCO listed it in 1995. Inside, look for the clock with the figure of St George slaying the dragon, which strikes the hour, and the pillar where royal visitors have marked their height.
Read the complete Roskilde Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 108 km into the recorded legs you reach Roskilde Cathedral. Next is Borgring.
In 2014, archaeologists using laser scanning of the landscape noticed a faint circle in a field near Køge, on the Danish island of Zealand, about forty kilometres south-west of Copenhagen. Excavations confirmed what they had hoped: it was a Viking ring fortress, one of a small group of perfectly circular fortresses built in Denmark in the late tenth century, probably under King Harald Bluetooth. It was named Borgring, and it was the first new ring fortress to be found in Denmark in over sixty years.
Read the complete Borgring write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Borgring, about halfway. Next is back through Roskilde Cathedral.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Roskilde Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Roskilde Cathedral sits at 176 km, about halfway. Next is back through Kronborg Castle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kronborg Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kronborg Castle comes up about 235 km into the recorded legs. Next is Store Dyrehave.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Store Dyrehave write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Store Dyrehave closes the day.
Store Dyrehave → Kronborg Castle is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kronborg Castle → Roskilde Cathedral is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Roskilde Cathedral → Borgring is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Borgring → back through Roskilde Cathedral is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Roskilde Cathedral → back through Kronborg Castle is 76 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Kronborg Castle → Store Dyrehave is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.