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.
From Tavistock it runs 291 km to Tavistock; allow about 5 h 13 of riding. On the way it passes The Luxulyan Valley, Devoran and Perran, St Just Mining District and back through Devoran and Perran. Rivers set the line for much of the day.
For a few decades in the nineteenth century the Tamar valley was among the richest copper fields in Europe, and then, almost overnight, it became a major source of arsenic. The river divides Devon from Cornwall, and the hills on both sides are pocked with old mine workings, engine houses, spoil heaps and the cuttings of former railways. Devon Great Consols, near Gunnislake, was in the nineteenth century one of the richest copper mines in the world, and when copper prices fell the owners turned to arsenic, which was used in pesticides and paint, and for a time it made the valley a strategic industry. The whole area is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, listed by UNESCO in 2006.
Read the complete Tamar Valley Mining District write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tamar Valley Mining District is where the day begins. Next is The Luxulyan Valley.
Granite boulders furred with moss, beech and oak closing overhead, and somewhere below you the sound of water running in a stone channel built by people who wanted it to work, not to look pretty. The Luxulyan Valley, tucked between Par, Lostwithiel and St Austell in mid Cornwall, is one of those places where industrial history and woodland have grown into each other so completely that it is hard to tell where one ends.
Read the complete The Luxulyan Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Luxulyan Valley comes up about 48 km into the recorded legs. Next is Devoran and Perran.
Devoran is a quiet village at the head of Restronguet Creek, a tidal arm of the Fal estuary south of Truro, and it takes a little imagination to see it as the busy industrial port it once was. In the nineteenth century, the Redruth and Chasewater Railway brought copper ore down from the mines to quays here, where ships loaded it for smelters in South Wales and returned with coal. The remains of the quays, ore hoppers and old warehouses are still visible along the shore, and the village is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, listed by UNESCO in 2006.
Read the complete Devoran and Perran write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 91 km into the recorded legs you reach Devoran and Perran. Next is St Just Mining District.
Out at the very end of Cornwall, where the land runs out in granite cliffs above the Atlantic, the coast between St Just and Pendeen is studded with the ruined engine houses of tin and copper mines. Some of them stand right on the cliff edge, their tall chimneys silhouetted against the sea, and the shafts below ran out under the ocean floor, so deep that miners claimed they could hear boulders rolling on the seabed above them during storms. This is the St Just Mining District, one of the most dramatic parts of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage site.
Read the complete St Just Mining District write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
St Just Mining District, about halfway. Next is back through Devoran and Perran.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Devoran and Perran write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Devoran and Perran sits at 205 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Luxulyan Valley.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Luxulyan Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Luxulyan Valley comes up about 243 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tamar Valley Mining District.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tamar Valley Mining District write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tamar Valley Mining District closes the day.
Tamar Valley Mining District → The Luxulyan Valley is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Luxulyan Valley → Devoran and Perran is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Devoran and Perran → St Just Mining District is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
St Just Mining District → back through Devoran and Perran is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Devoran and Perran → back through The Luxulyan Valley is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Luxulyan Valley → Tamar Valley Mining District is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.