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.
A 421 km round trip from Samarkand - roughly 7 h 16 in the saddle. On the way it passes Town of Ancient Penjikent, Sanjarshakh Settlement, Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz and back through Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Uzbekistan into Tajikistan - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Samarkand is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and it has been arguing with Bukhara about which is more beautiful for about a thousand years. Alexander the Great took it in 329 BC, when it was called Marakanda, and it grew rich on the Silk Road, only to be flattened by Genghis Khan in 1220. Then Timur, or Tamerlane, made it his capital in the late fourteenth century and filled it with the turquoise-domed monuments that still dominate it today.
Read the complete Samarkand write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Samarkand is where the day begins. Next is Town of Ancient Penjikent.
On a dusty loess terrace just outside modern Panjakent, a few low mud ridges and pits are all that remain of one of the richest cities on the Silk Road. Fourteen centuries ago this was a Sogdian town of merchants, with two-storey houses, temples and walls covered in paintings of feasts, heroes and gods. The best frescoes went to the Hermitage in St Petersburg and to the Rudaki museum in town, so bring some imagination with you, but standing among the excavated streets with the Zeravshan glittering below, the scale of the place still lands.
Read the complete Town of Ancient Penjikent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Town of Ancient Penjikent comes up 53 km in. Next is Sanjarshakh Settlement.
Sanjarshakh lies in the Zarafshan valley of Tajikistan, a short ride from the town of Panjakent, and its low mounds and walls are the remains of a Sogdian settlement. The Sogdians were the great merchants of Central Asia, who spoke an Iranian language and carried silk, spices, paper and ideas along the Silk Road from China to Persia and beyond, and their language was the common tongue of the trade routes for several centuries. Their towns lay in the valleys of the Zarafshan and the Kashkadarya, and Panjakent, a few kilometres from here, is the best known, with houses decorated with wall paintings of epic stories, banquets and gods, that are now in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.
Read the complete Sanjarshakh Settlement write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
106 km in you reach Sanjarshakh Settlement. Next is Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz.
Timur, the conqueror known in the West as Tamerlane, was born in 1336 in a village near Shakhrisyabz, and when he became ruler of an empire stretching from Delhi to Damascus, he spent heavily on his home town. He made it a showpiece, and the main monument was Ak-Saray, the White Palace, begun in 1380 and never completed in his lifetime. Only two piers of the entrance portal survive, but they rise about thirty-eight metres, covered in blue, turquoise and gold tilework, and they still dwarf everything around them, a statement of power so big that it is hard to photograph from close up.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz, about halfway.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz sits at 212 km, about halfway. Next is back through Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz comes up 264 km in. Next is back through Sanjarshakh Settlement.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sanjarshakh Settlement write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
317 km in you reach back through Sanjarshakh Settlement. Next is back through Town of Ancient Penjikent.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Town of Ancient Penjikent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Town of Ancient Penjikent, late in the day. Next is Samarkand.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Samarkand write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 421 km.
Samarkand → Town of Ancient Penjikent is 77 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Town of Ancient Penjikent → Sanjarshakh Settlement is 12 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sanjarshakh Settlement → Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz is 122 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz → back through Sanjarshakh Settlement is 122 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Sanjarshakh Settlement → back through Town of Ancient Penjikent is 12 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Town of Ancient Penjikent → Samarkand is 77 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.