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.
A 387 km round trip from Samarkand - roughly 6 h 52 in the saddle. The stops in between: Town of Ancient Penjikent, Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz and back through Town of Ancient Penjikent. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Uzbekistan into Tajikistan - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Samarkand as the Mongols found it lay not where the tourists now go but on a high, dusty plateau north of the modern town. That plateau is Afrosiab, the old city, and it was already ancient when Alexander the Great took it in 329 BC under the name Marakanda. It flourished as a Sogdian capital, saw Arab armies arrive in the eighth century, and kept growing until 1220, when Genghis Khan swept in and destroyed it so thoroughly that it was never rebuilt. The survivors drifted south, and Timur later raised his capital on the new ground.
Read the complete Afrosiab Archaeological Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Afrosiab Archaeological Area 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 about 66 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 194 km into the recorded legs you reach Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz. 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 Afrosiab Archaeological Area.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Afrosiab Archaeological Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Afrosiab Archaeological Area. That is the ride.
Afrosiab Archaeological Area → Town of Ancient Penjikent is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Town of Ancient Penjikent → Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz is 128 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz → back through Town of Ancient Penjikent is 129 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Town of Ancient Penjikent → Afrosiab Archaeological Area is 64 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.