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.
59 km from Piatra Neamţ to Bicaz-Chei, about 1 h 24 of riding. On the way it passes Bicaz and Bicaz Gorge. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
For about 28 km this is Romania Bicaz Gorge Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 6 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go. Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
Piatra Neamț is a proper Moldavian town of around a hundred thousand people sitting in a bowl of forested hills, and it makes a very good place to start a ride into the Eastern Carpathians. The Bistrița river runs just to the south, the Ceahlău massif stands on the western horizon, and on a clear morning the whole thing looks like a model of itself. Fuel, supermarkets, cash machines and big breakfasts are all easy here, so do whatever errands you have before you go.
Read the complete Near Piatra Neamţ write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Piatra Neamt is where the day begins. Next is Bicaz.
Bicaz is a town of some eight thousand people at the eastern end of the Bicaz Gorge, in the Moldavian foothills of the Carpathians, and it is known for two big things, a dam and a cement works. The dam, completed in 1960 on the Bistrița river, holds back Izvorul Muntelui, the largest reservoir in Romania by volume, a long arm of water that fills the valley and reaches far into the hills. The cement works, a concrete reminder of the communist industrial plan, still dominates one side of town. It sounds grim, but the lake is beautiful and the hills around it are green.
Read the complete Bicaz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bicaz comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bicaz Gorge.
The Bicaz Gorge is a crack in the Carpathians, and the road goes straight through it. For several kilometres the limestone walls of the Hășmaș mountains close in on both sides, rising some three hundred metres in places, so narrow that the road and the stream beside it share the floor and the sky shrinks to a ribbon. Bends are tight, the walls overhang, and the light changes from gold to deep shadow as you go. It is one of the great short rides of Eastern Europe, and it ends too soon.
Read the complete Bicaz Gorge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 56 km into the recorded legs you reach Bicaz Gorge. Next is Red Lake.
Red Lake is a lake that should not exist, and the dead trees sticking out of the water tell you so. In the summer of 1837, a landslide off the flank of Mount Suhard dammed the Bicaz stream and the valley slowly filled behind it. The drowned spruces stayed standing and their pale trunks still rise from the water like a stand of masts. The name comes from the reddish clay that the stream washes down, though in practice the lake usually looks green, dark brown or blue-grey, depending on the weather and your angle.
Read the complete Red Lake write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Red Lake closes the day.
Piatra Neamt → Bicaz is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bicaz → Bicaz Gorge is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bicaz Gorge → Red Lake is 4 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.