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.
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 341 km round trip from Băiuţ - roughly 8 h 22 in the saddle. It goes by way of Wooden Churches of Maramureş, Maramarosh, Chornohora and back through Maramarosh. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Romania into Ukraine - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 28 km this is Romania Maramures Wooden Churches Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Maramureș is a part of Romania where wooden building became an art. The county in the far north, tucked against the Ukrainian border and ringed by forested mountains, has hundreds of timber churches, and eight of them were listed by UNESCO in 1999. The one at Strâmbu, in the Băiuț area, belongs to the Nativity of the Virgin and dates from the eighteenth century, built of oak logs with a steep, double-tiered shingle roof and a tall slender spire. It looks like a church that has learned to float, with a roof that sheds the heavy snow and a tower that reaches for the sky.
Read the complete Strimbu Băiuț write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Strimbu Băiuț is where the day begins. Next is Wooden Churches of Maramureş.
Maramureș is a region in the far north of Romania, along the Ukrainian border, where traditions have survived more strongly than almost anywhere else in Europe. Its villages are known for their carved wooden gates, their haystacks and their wooden churches, eight of which form a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Bârsana, in the valley of the Iza river, has one of them, a church built in the eighteenth century, with a tall slender spire and a steep shingled roof.
Read the complete Wooden Churches of Maramureş write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Wooden Churches of Maramureş comes up 30 km in. Next is Maramarosh.
On the map, the line between Romania and Ukraine runs along the Tisza river here, and on either side of it the Carpathians rise in forested ridges. Maramarosh is the old name for the whole region, Maramureș to Romanians, and it is also the name of a protected forest within the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve on the Ukrainian side, one component of the World Heritage inscription for ancient and primeval beech forests of the Carpathians and other regions of Europe. These are forests where beech trees have grown undisturbed since the last ice age, with giants several hundred years old and a richness of life that has vanished from most of Europe.
Read the complete Maramarosh write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
59 km in you reach Maramarosh. Next is Chornohora.
Chornohora, the Black Mountain, is the highest range of the Ukrainian Carpathians, a long ridge of rounded summits above the forests on the border between the Zakarpattia and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. Its highest peak, Hoverla, rises to 2,061 metres, the highest point in Ukraine, and on summer weekends it can be busy with hikers. Along the ridge to the southeast stands Pip Ivan, crowned by the ruins of an astronomical and meteorological observatory built by Poland in the 1930s, when this was the border with Czechoslovakia. Locals call it the White Elephant, and seeing it loom out of the mist is unforgettable.
Read the complete Chornohora write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chornohora, about halfway. Next is back through Maramarosh.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Maramarosh write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Maramarosh sits at 119 km, about halfway. Next is back through Wooden Churches of Maramureş.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Wooden Churches of Maramureş write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Wooden Churches of Maramureş comes up 148 km in. Next is Strimbu Băiuț.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Strimbu Băiuț write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Strimbu Băiuț closes the day.
Strimbu Băiuț → Wooden Churches of Maramureş is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Wooden Churches of Maramureş → Maramarosh is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Maramarosh → Chornohora is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chornohora → back through Maramarosh is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Maramarosh → back through Wooden Churches of Maramureş is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Wooden Churches of Maramureş → Strimbu Băiuț is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.