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.
286 km from Urbania to Urbania, about 6 h 12 of riding. The stops in between: Gessi di Onferno, Evaporiti di San Leo, Teatro Angelo Mariani and San Marino Historic Centre and Mount Titan. It crosses from Italy into San Marino - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Urbania has had three names. It began as Castel delle Ripe, became Casteldurante in the thirteenth century, and was renamed in 1636 when Pope Urban VIII took over the duchy and gave it his own. In the Renaissance it was a pottery town, famous for majolica, the tin-glazed painted earthenware that Duke Guidobaldo and his court sent as gifts around Europe, and the ceramics still sold in the shops carry on that tradition. The theatre that bears the name of Bramante, the great architect who was born in nearby Fermignano, stands in the town centre, a small, intimate house with tiers of boxes in the Italian manner, and the town itself is a small walled place on a bend of the Metauro river, with brick arcades and a handsome ducal palace.
Read the complete Teatro Bramante write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Teatro Bramante is where the day begins. Next is Gessi di Onferno.
The hills behind Rimini hide a surprising piece of geology. Around the hamlet of Onferno, in the comune of Gemmano, the ground is made of gypsum, laid down when the Mediterranean dried out millions of years ago and then pushed up into these ridges. Water dissolves gypsum easily, so the landscape is pocked with sinkholes, blind valleys and caves, and the Grotta di Onferno winds for hundreds of metres beneath the village. The name is often linked to inferno, supposedly because vapour rising from the cave mouth in cold weather looked like the breath of hell.
Read the complete Gessi di Onferno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gessi di Onferno comes up about 45 km into the recorded legs. Next is Evaporiti di San Leo.
San Leo stands on a limestone block that rises sheer out of the Marecchia valley, and from a distance it looks like a fortress that nobody could possibly have captured. The ground under it tells a longer and stranger story. The evaporite rocks in this area, gypsum and associated salts, were laid down around six million years ago, when the Mediterranean nearly dried out in what geologists call the Messinian salinity crisis. Seawater evaporated, minerals crystallised, and the beds you see in the cuttings are the leftovers of that event.
Read the complete Evaporiti di San Leo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 83 km into the recorded legs you reach Evaporiti di San Leo. Next is Teatro Angelo Mariani.
Sant'Agata Feltria is a small hill town in the upper Marecchia valley, with a castle on a rock, steep streets and one of the oldest wooden theatres in Italy. The Teatro Angelo Mariani dates from the early seventeenth century and has been rebuilt and restored over the centuries, with tiers of wooden boxes painted in soft colours around a small stage. It is named after Angelo Mariani, a nineteenth-century conductor who was a close collaborator of Verdi. The theatre is intimate, seating a few hundred at most, and it still hosts concerts and plays.
Read the complete Teatro Angelo Mariani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Teatro Angelo Mariani, about halfway. Next is San Marino Historic Centre and Mount Titan.
San Marino is a whole country balanced on the ridge of a single mountain, and you feel it the moment the road starts to climb out of the coastal plain. Monte Titano rises steeply from the hills behind Rimini, a long limestone crest with sheer cliffs on its eastern side, and the old town of San Marino clings to the top with three towers strung along the ridge like stitches. The first, Guaita, is the oldest and the most photographed; the second, Cesta, sits on the highest point; the third, Montale, is a slender lookout you can only see from outside.
Read the complete San Marino Historic Centre and Mount Titan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
San Marino Historic Centre and Mount Titan sits at 99 km, about halfway. Next is back through Teatro Angelo Mariani.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Teatro Angelo Mariani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Teatro Angelo Mariani comes up about 180 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Evaporiti di San Leo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Evaporiti di San Leo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 204 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Evaporiti di San Leo. Next is back through Gessi di Onferno.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gessi di Onferno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Gessi di Onferno, late in the day. Next is Teatro Bramante.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Teatro Bramante write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 286 km.
Teatro Bramante → Gessi di Onferno is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Gessi di Onferno → Evaporiti di San Leo is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Evaporiti di San Leo → Teatro Angelo Mariani is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Teatro Angelo Mariani → San Marino Historic Centre and Mount Titan is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
San Marino Historic Centre and Mount Titan → back through Teatro Angelo Mariani is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Teatro Angelo Mariani → back through Evaporiti di San Leo is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Evaporiti di San Leo → back through Gessi di Onferno is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Gessi di Onferno → Teatro Bramante is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.