South of Ryazan, where the Oka loops through meadows and pinewood, Solotcha is a quiet suburb that in practice feels like a village that has been left to itself. It sits on the left bank of the river, and the road in from the city runs for about twenty kilometres through forest and fields, so the transition from the city to this green and sandy country is quick. For a rider coming from Moscow, the landscape is a gentle introduction to the Meshchera lowlands, a flat, forested, lake-studded region of central Russia that writers like Konstantin Paustovsky made famous.
The star of the place is the Solotcha Monastery, a women's convent on the river bank with white walls and soft-coloured towers. It was founded in the late fourteenth century, in the time of the Ryazan princes, and was for centuries an important religious house of the Ryazan land. The monastery went through hard years in the Soviet era, when the buildings were used for other purposes, and has since been restored and reopened. Its grounds are quiet and mannered, the sort of place where you lower your voice without being told.
Not far away lies Konstantinovo, the birthplace of the poet Sergei Yesenin, whose verses about the Oka, birch trees and village life are part of Russian schooling. The museum there and the surrounding fields tie the two places together, which is why the ride from Ryazan out to the countryside has been a favourite excursion.
The roads here are mostly flat and smooth near the city, and then become patchier as you move into the villages. Expect long straight sections, some tar repairs and farm traffic, and do not expect dramatic corners. The pleasure is in the broad river valley, the pine smell on a warm day, and the way the light goes low and golden over the Oka in the evening. Summers are warm, and the sandy forest floor is full of mushrooms in autumn.
For fuel, Ryazan is twenty kilometres away and has everything, while Polyany, eight kilometres off, has a small town's services. In Solotcha itself, bring cash and patience, since it is a place for walking by the water, not for fuelling up or shopping.