Kolomna Zaraysk Oka Loop

Two fortified towns and the broad Oka landscape southeast of Moscow.

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Why this ride

Two fortified towns and the broad Oka landscape southeast of Moscow. The road: M5 and regional Oka roads. Distance and riding time are estimates from the checkpoints until the road is measured on this page.

Roadbook

1. Moscow start

   Moscow does not do small. It has more than ten million people, a ring road, the MKAD, that encloses a space bigger than many countries' capitals, and a centre that is arranged in concentric circles like the rings of a tree. At the middle is the Kremlin, the red-brick fortress on the Moskva river, with its golden-domed cathedrals and its walls, and beside it Red Square, with the colourful domes of St Basil's. The city was first mentioned in the chronicles in 1147, and grew from a modest wooden stockade into the capital of a vast empire.

   To ride in Moscow is to be reminded of its scale. The Garden Ring and the Third Ring carry huge flows of traffic, drivers are fast and aggressive, and motorcycles filter between lanes at speed. The best time to explore on two wheels is a summer evening, when the light lasts until late, the traffic eases, and the bridges over the river are lit. The skyscrapers known as the Seven Sisters, built under Stalin, rise from the skyline, and from Sparrow Hills, the high ground near the university, you can see the whole city spread out in a haze. The metro stations, designed as underground palaces, are worth leaving the bike for.

   From the city, a favourite day trip leads north-east to Sergiev Posad, about seventy kilometres away, where the Trinity Lavra of St Sergius, the most important Russian Orthodox monastery, stands inside white walls with blue and gold domes. The road passes through forest and farmland, and pilgrims fill the monastery on holidays. It is a good outing for a long day, with plenty of cafes in the town and stalls selling painted wooden toys, a local craft.

   Fuel is found everywhere in the city and along the main roads, and the cafes range from cheap canteens to fancy restaurants. Summers are warm and can be thunderous, while winters are long, dark and very cold, with snow from November to March. Before planning any trip, check the current travel and entry conditions carefully, as they change often and can affect insurance, border crossings and the practicality of riding in Russia.

2. Kolomna stop

   Kolomna stands where the Moskva River flows into the Oka, about a hundred kilometres southeast of Moscow, and the confluence has made it a town of consequence for more than eight centuries. Its Kremlin, built in the early 1500s on the orders of Grand Prince Vasily III to guard the southern approaches to Moscow, still has long stretches of brick wall and several towers, and it is one of the most evocative old fortifications in the region. One of the towers served as a prison in the early seventeenth century, and it is said that Marina Mniszech, the Polish wife of the false Dmitry, died there in 1614.

   The town has also been an industrial centre for a long time. The Kolomna works, founded in the 1860s, built locomotives and heavy engines that went all across Russia, and the factory remains a landmark. But Kolomna's greatest claim to local pride is the pastila, a delicate, tart sweet made from apples and egg white, which has been produced here for generations and is served in a museum devoted to it, where visitors can taste several kinds with tea. It makes an excellent, light snack for a rider with a long day ahead.

   The ride follows the Oka westward and then south, towards Ryazan, through a landscape of broad meadows, birch groves and low bluffs above the river. The roads are straight and flat, the corners are rare and the traffic can be heavy near Moscow and light farther south. Surface quality varies, so keep your eyes open for potholes, and be aware that wooden bridges and level crossings are still found on some secondary roads. Summer evenings are long and warm, and the smell of hay and wood smoke drifts across the fields. In winter the roads can be icy and the days are short.

   With nearly a hundred and fifty thousand people, Kolomna has plenty of fuel, food and accommodation, so it is a good place to fill up before a long day. Sychyovo and Raduzhny, small settlements nearby, have a few shops and cafés, but not much more. If you want to see the town properly, give yourself a couple of hours to walk the Kremlin walls, visit the pastila museum and look down over the water from the old embankment, where fishermen sit in all weathers.

3. Zaraysk stop

   Zaraysk is a small town with a very long memory. Some twenty thousand years ago, Ice Age hunters camped on the banks of the Oka near here, and the archaeological site they left behind yielded carved mammoth-ivory figurines, including small female statuettes, some of the oldest works of art found in Russia. The town itself first appears in chronicles in the thirteenth century, linked to a famous icon of St Nicholas, which was reputedly brought here from Crimea, and the name Nikola Zarazsky became a regional byword.

   The centerpiece is the Kremlin, built in the 1520s of white stone under Grand Prince Vasily III as a southern outpost against Tatar raids. It is one of the few stone kremlins in the Moscow region, and one of the smallest in Russia, and it stands on a hill above the river with cathedrals inside its walls. The Cathedral of St Nicholas is a handsome building with tall belfry, and the walls and corner towers are well preserved. Fyodor Dostoevsky spent boyhood summers on his father's small estate at Darovoye, a few kilometers from here, and his experiences of village life fed his novels, a connection the town takes pride in.

   Riding is easy and rural. The road from Kolomna runs south across the Oka floodplain, with long, flat stretches, wide fields and views of river meanders, and the surface is generally decent on the main roads. Villages with wooden houses, painted shutters and wells appear at intervals, and storks and cranes nest on poles. Wind can be strong on the open plain, and summer thunderstorms are sudden, so keep an eye on the sky. Farm vehicles, horse carts and the odd cow can appear on side roads.

   Zaraysk is large enough for fuel, shops and cafes, and it is the best place to stop before the long run back or onward. The best months are May to September, with warm days and long light, though midsummer heat can be intense. Spring and autumn bring mud on the side roads, and winter is cold and snowy, with frost that can last for months. Local cooks make the most of the river's fish, and regional pastila, a soft apple sweet, is a speciality of nearby Kolomna.

4. Lukhovitsy stop
5. Back to Moscow finish

Where this sits

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