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.
436 km from Sigulda to Sigulda, about 7 h 41 of riding. The stops in between: SESTU-KALNS Ziestu, JACOBSTADT Jekabpils, KARISCHKI Gireišiai and back through JACOBSTADT Jekabpils. It crosses from Latvia into Lithuania - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Sigulda lies in the valley of the Gauja river, about fifty kilometres from Riga, and it behaves like a small Switzerland dropped into the Baltic plain. The land here is deeply cut by the river and its sandstone cliffs, covered in pine and birch forest, and the whole area forms the Gauja National Park, the largest in Latvia. Three castles face one another across the valley, and a cable car crosses it, giving the visitor views of the forest, the river and the autumn colours, which in October are among the best in the Baltic region.
Read the complete Sigulda write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sigulda is where the day begins. Next is SESTU-KALNS Ziestu.
Somewhere in the Latvian countryside, on a modest rise above the Daugava, stands a marker that was once part of the most ambitious measuring job of the nineteenth century. Sestukalns is one of the stations of the Struve Geodetic Arc, a chain of triangulation points that runs for nearly three thousand kilometres from Hammerfest on the Arctic coast of Norway to the Black Sea. The astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve, working out of the observatory at Dorpat, now Tartu, led the survey between 1816 and 1855 to find the size and shape of the Earth, and the result was accurate to a degree that astonished geodesists. It is on the World Heritage list, with a few dozen of the stations that still survive across ten countries.
Read the complete SESTU-KALNS Ziestu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
SESTU-KALNS Ziestu comes up about 81 km into the recorded legs. Next is JACOBSTADT Jekabpils.
Jēkabpils lies on the Daugava, Latvia's great river, in the region called Sēlija, and its older German name, Jacobstadt, tells you who founded it. Duke Jacob Kettler of Courland, who ruled this land in the seventeenth century, planted a town here in 1670 and gave it his name, in the same decade he was trying to found colonies in Tobago and Gambia. The duchy was a small, wealthy state that punched above its weight. Across the river sits Krustpils, an older settlement with a castle, and the two towns grew together over the centuries and were merged in 1962.
Read the complete JACOBSTADT Jekabpils write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 135 km into the recorded legs you reach JACOBSTADT Jekabpils. Next is KARISCHKI Gireišiai.
This stop sits in north-eastern Lithuania, in the Aukštaitija highlands near the town of Rokiškis, about twelve kilometres away, and not far from the Latvian border. The name on the map is a mixture of an old German-era spelling and a local village, and the specific site is hard to pin down, so the useful thing is to describe the country around it, which is quiet, gently rolling and full of lakes and woods.
Read the complete KARISCHKI Gireišiai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
KARISCHKI Gireišiai, about halfway. Next is back through JACOBSTADT Jekabpils.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete JACOBSTADT Jekabpils write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through JACOBSTADT Jekabpils sits at 307 km, about halfway. Next is back through SESTU-KALNS Ziestu.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete SESTU-KALNS Ziestu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through SESTU-KALNS Ziestu comes up about 355 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sigulda.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sigulda write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sigulda closes the day.
Sigulda → SESTU-KALNS Ziestu is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
SESTU-KALNS Ziestu → JACOBSTADT Jekabpils is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
JACOBSTADT Jekabpils → KARISCHKI Gireišiai is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
KARISCHKI Gireišiai → back through JACOBSTADT Jekabpils is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through JACOBSTADT Jekabpils → back through SESTU-KALNS Ziestu is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through SESTU-KALNS Ziestu → Sigulda is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.