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 305 km round trip from Ankara - roughly 4 h 26 in the saddle. On the way it passes Gordion, Sivrihisar Ulu Mosque and back through Gordion. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,100 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Ankara is a city of eras laid over each other, and the old quarter around the citadel is where you feel them most. This mosque, named after Ahi Şerefeddin, belongs to the thirteenth-century Seljuk and early Anatolian beylik period in the hilly Ulus district, close to the citadel walls. The name Ahi points to something characteristic of medieval Anatolia: the Ahi brotherhoods, associations of craftsmen and tradesmen that combined guild, charity and a code of honour, and that held real influence in cities where the central power was weak. I can say less about the building than about the neighbourhood, so treat this as a stop for atmosphere.
Read the complete Ahi Şerefeddin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ahi Şerefeddin is where the day begins. Next is Gordion.
King Midas is the name everyone remembers, and this mound of earth near the village of Yassıhöyük is where his world really sat. Gordion was the capital of the Phrygians, a people who ruled much of central Anatolia in the centuries after the Hittite collapse, and the ruins lie on the flat floodplain of the Sakarya river, west of Ankara and about fifteen kilometres from Polatlı.
Read the complete Gordion write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gordion comes up about 98 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sivrihisar Ulu Mosque.
Sivrihisar means pointed fortress, and the name fits: the little town clusters around a rocky crag in the middle of the high, open country west of Ankara, in what used to be the borderland between Phrygia and Galatia. The Ulu Mosque, the great mosque, is the main attraction, a building of the late thirteenth century with a forest of wooden pillars inside holding up a flat timber roof. This style, in which a prayer hall is filled with carved columns and beams rather than stone arches, was common in medieval Anatolia, and only a few good examples survive. The wood is dark with age, the carvings are worn smooth by centuries of touch, and the effect is a hush that feels very different from the grand stone mosques of Istanbul.
Read the complete Sivrihisar Ulu Mosque write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 153 km into the recorded legs you reach Sivrihisar Ulu Mosque. Next is back through Gordion.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gordion write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Gordion, late in the day. Next is Ahi Şerefeddin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ahi Şerefeddin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Ahi Şerefeddin. That is the ride.
Ahi Şerefeddin → Gordion is 98 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Gordion → Sivrihisar Ulu Mosque is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sivrihisar Ulu Mosque → back through Gordion is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Gordion → Ahi Şerefeddin is 98 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.