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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 689 km round trip from Petrila - roughly 11 h 54 in the saddle. On the way it passes Vârful lui Pătru, Cugir - Bătrâna, Bănița - Jigoru Mare and Boșorod. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 29 km this is Romania Transalpina, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
North of the Jiu Valley, the land rises steeply into the Șureanu and Parâng mountains, a wild region of high ridges, deep valleys, spruce forests and alpine meadows. Crac-Găuri lies up in this high country, linked by name to the old routes that crossed the mountains in Roman times, when Dacia was a province and soldiers watched the passes between the Transylvanian basin and the south. Little is visible today, and the remoteness is half the attraction: this is mountain land, where shepherds bring their flocks to high pastures in summer and the forest stretches for miles.
Read the complete Voineasa - Crac-Găuri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Voineasa - Crac-Găuri is where the day begins. Next is Vârful lui Pătru.
Roman soldiers rarely chose to live above two thousand metres, but on Vârful lui Pătru, a broad grassy summit of the Șureanu mountains in southern Transylvania, they did. A small fortification on the top, part of the network that watched over the passes after Trajan conquered Dacia, is often described as one of the highest Roman military posts anywhere, and it now belongs to the World Heritage listing of the Dacian frontier. Imagine a winter up here in a wool cloak, with the wind coming straight off the Carpathians, and the posting suddenly sounds like a punishment.
Read the complete Vârful lui Pătru write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vârful lui Pătru comes up about 119 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cugir - Bătrâna.
South of the town of Cugir, the land rises into the Șureanu mountains, a sprawling range of beech and spruce forests, high meadows and rounded summits in the heart of the Southern Carpathians. This is the country of the Dacians, the people who ruled much of present-day Romania before the Roman conquest in the early second century. Their capital, Sarmizegetusa Regia, and a ring of mountain fortresses lie in the Orăștie mountains to the west, and they are listed by UNESCO as the Dacian Fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains. Bătrâna, on the high ground above the Cugir valley, belongs to the network of ancient sites scattered across these hills, where Dacians and Romans watched each other across the ridges.
Read the complete Cugir - Bătrâna write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 185 km into the recorded legs you reach Cugir - Bătrâna. Next is Bănița - Jigoru Mare.
High on a limestone outcrop above the village of Bănița, in the hills of south-western Transylvania, stand the ruins of a Dacian fortress. Bănița is one of the six Dacian fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains listed by UNESCO in 1999, part of the defensive system built around the capital of the Dacian kingdom, Sarmizegetusa Regia, in the first century BC and the first century AD. The kingdom's last great ruler, Decebalus, held out against Rome in two hard wars before Trajan's legions finally conquered Dacia in 106, an event recorded in stone on Trajan's Column in Rome.
Read the complete Bănița - Jigoru Mare write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bănița - Jigoru Mare, about halfway. Next is Boșorod.
South of the Mures and west of the Retezat massif, the Hateg country is an oddly self-contained basin, ringed by mountains and full of old stories. Bosorod lies on its eastern side, near the town of Pui, in a landscape of meadows, small farms and wooded slopes that rise gradually toward the Orastie Mountains. This is where the Dacians built their strongholds, and the fortress at Banita, which shares the label with Jigoru Mare, is one of six that make up the UNESCO World Heritage listing of the Dacian Fortresses of the Orastie Mountains.
Read the complete Boșorod write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Boșorod sits at 345 km, about halfway. Next is back through Bănița - Jigoru Mare.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bănița - Jigoru Mare write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Bănița - Jigoru Mare comes up about 418 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Cugir - Bătrâna.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cugir - Bătrâna write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 504 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Cugir - Bătrâna. Next is back through Vârful lui Pătru.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vârful lui Pătru write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Vârful lui Pătru, late in the day. Next is Voineasa - Crac-Găuri.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Voineasa - Crac-Găuri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 689 km.
Voineasa - Crac-Găuri → Vârful lui Pătru is 119 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vârful lui Pătru → Cugir - Bătrâna is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cugir - Bătrâna → Bănița - Jigoru Mare is 86 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bănița - Jigoru Mare → Boșorod is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Boșorod → back through Bănița - Jigoru Mare is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bănița - Jigoru Mare → back through Cugir - Bătrâna is 86 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cugir - Bătrâna → back through Vârful lui Pătru is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vârful lui Pătru → Voineasa - Crac-Găuri is 119 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.