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.
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.
139 km from Petrila to Petrila, about 5 h 52 of riding. The stops in between: Vârful lui Pătru, Cugir - Bătrâna and back through Vârful lui Pătru. 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 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 23 km in. 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.
45 km in you reach 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.
Back at Voineasa - Crac-Găuri. That is the ride.
Voineasa - Crac-Găuri → Vârful lui Pătru is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vârful lui Pătru → Cugir - Bătrâna is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cugir - Bătrâna → back through Vârful lui Pătru is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vârful lui Pătru → Voineasa - Crac-Găuri is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.