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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 293 km round trip from Fognano - roughly 5 h 21 in the saddle. The stops in between: Mauseoleum of Theodoric, Evaporiti di San Leo and back through Mauseoleum of Theodoric. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Driving through the hills of Romagna, south of Faenza, you notice a long, pale ridge cutting across the valleys like a wall. This is the Vena del Gesso Romagnola, a band of gypsum rock about twenty-five kilometres long, and Monte Mauro is its highest point, rising above the villages of Riolo Terme, Brisighella and Fognano. The ridge is now a regional park and part of the UNESCO site for the evaporitic karst of the northern Apennines.
Read the complete Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Mauro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Mauro is where the day begins. Next is Mauseoleum of Theodoric.
Theodoric's tomb stands alone on the northern edge of Ravenna, among trees and grass, a squat two-storey block of white stone crowned by a single enormous dome. The king of the Ostrogoths ruled Italy from Ravenna for thirty-odd years until his death in 526, and he planned his own mausoleum before the end. It is built of Istrian limestone, dressed so tightly that no mortar was needed, and the roof is a single slab hollowed into a shallow dome, carried across the Adriatic from the Istrian coast. How they lifted it is still discussed.
Read the complete Mauseoleum of Theodoric write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mauseoleum of Theodoric comes up 69 km in. 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.
139 km in you reach Evaporiti di San Leo. Next is back through Mauseoleum of Theodoric.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mauseoleum of Theodoric write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Mauseoleum of Theodoric, late in the day. Next is Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Mauro, 69 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Mauro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Mauro. That is the ride.
Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Mauro → Mauseoleum of Theodoric is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mauseoleum of Theodoric → Evaporiti di San Leo is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Evaporiti di San Leo → back through Mauseoleum of Theodoric is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Mauseoleum of Theodoric → Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Mauro is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.