If you leave Moscow northwest on the old road to Saint Petersburg, Solnechnogorsk is roughly where the suburbs finally let go. It is a town of nearly sixty thousand, on the shore of Lake Senezh, with the usual jumble of Soviet blocks, new apartment towers, wooden houses and dachas, and it is a place most people drive straight through. The name means Sun Mountain Town, a Soviet invention of the late 1930s, though the settlement is older, and the lake is the only real attraction: a long, shallow stretch of water, popular with fishermen and weekend swimmers.
The reason to care about the road is history. The route between the two capitals is the one Peter the Great's successors used, the Tsar's road, along which carriages, armies and later Pushkin's heroes jolted for days, with posting stations every few dozen kilometres. The railway between them opened in 1851, and the highway followed the same corridor, so for centuries this has been the main artery of Russian power. Just beyond Solnechnogorsk, Klin holds the house where Tchaikovsky spent his last years, now a museum, a pleasant side trip if you have time.
On a motorcycle, the corridor is quick and dull. The old highway and the newer toll motorway run in parallel, with heavy lorry traffic, speed cameras and a high rate of overtaking by people in a hurry. The tolled route is smoother, and the older road passes through villages and has more bends, but also more hazards: crossings, parked cars, and potholes. Weekends are the worst, when Muscovites stream out to their country houses. Mornings are better, and weekday afternoons toward Moscow are crawling. In winter, the surface is salt and slush, and in summer, rain showers can make the tarmac greasy.
The town is a natural place to refuel. Petrol stations line the roads, supermarkets and cafés are plentiful, and it is a good point to check your bike and take a proper break after the first stretch. Accommodation is simple. Roadside cafés serve decent hot food, usually soup, dumplings and tea, and you can eat well for little.
Walk to the lake edge, if the day is bright. In the quiet beyond the traffic, the water is calm.