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 65 km round trip from Greenhead - roughly 57 min in the saddle. The stops in between: Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr, Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Birky La and back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr. The line favours views over speed.
Haltwhistle likes to call itself the centre of Britain, and on the road through the South Tyne valley it is easy to believe that this is where England quietly runs out of people. Just north of the town, the line of the Stanegate, the Roman road that linked Carlisle with Corbridge, crosses farmland on the flank of the valley. Little of it shows as more than a faint agger, a raised bank under the grass, but it is older than Hadrian's Wall, which runs along the crags a few kilometres to the north.
Read the complete The section of Stanegate Roman road from F write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The section of Stanegate Roman road from F is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr.
North-east of Brampton, the Wall climbs out of the Irthing valley and runs along a ridge past the hamlet of Banks, and here you can see something many visitors miss: not only the Wall itself, but the vallum, the great earthwork ditch with banks on either side that the Romans dug just south of it. The vallum marked a military zone, a controlled strip where civilians could not wander freely, and seeing its long straight line beside the stone curtain makes the frontier feel less like a wall and more like a whole system of control.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr comes up about 18 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Birky La.
Just east of Carlisle, near the village of Scotby, the Wall leaves almost no mark on the land. Here, at the western end of the Roman frontier, it was built first of turf and timber before being rebuilt in stone, and much of that stone has since been carried off to build farmhouses, churches and field walls. What survives is mostly buried, a faint line in the pasture or a slight ridge followed by a hedge. The vallum, the great earthwork that ran behind the wall, sometimes shows as a shallow trough in the fields. Yet this quiet stretch is part of the same World Heritage site as the dramatic crags further east, and walking the Hadrian's Wall Path through it gives a sense of continuity across the whole country.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Birky La write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 33 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Birky La. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr, late in the day. Next is The section of Stanegate Roman road from F.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The section of Stanegate Roman road from F write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at The section of Stanegate Roman road from F. That is the ride.
The section of Stanegate Roman road from F → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Birky La is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Birky La → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr → The section of Stanegate Roman road from F is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.