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 563 km round trip from Tashkent - roughly 12 h 16 in the saddle. It goes by way of Big Solar Furnace, The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve, back through The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve and back through Big Solar Furnace. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,650 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
The ride follows Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace → Big Solar Furnace for 54 km.
Alisher Navoi never saw Tashkent, or at least no record says he did, yet his name hangs over half the city. Born in Herat in 1441, a courtier and poet at the Timurid court, he argued passionately that Turkic could be as fine a literary language as Persian, and he wrote a vast body of verse and prose in the Chagatai Turkic that Uzbeks consider the ancestor of their own tongue. Streets, a theatre, a library and a national park carry his name, and so does this cinema palace, a monument to the idea that a city should have a hall of dreams named after its poet.
Read the complete Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace is where the day begins. Next is Big Solar Furnace.
In the foothills of the Tian Shan, about an hour north-east of Tashkent, there is a building that looks as if it belongs in a science fiction film: a huge curved mirror, made of thousands of smaller mirrors, facing a field of tracking mirrors that follow the sun and focus its light onto a single point. This is the Big Solar Furnace near Parkent, built in the Soviet era in the 1980s, and still used for research into materials that can withstand extremely high temperatures.
Read the complete Big Solar Furnace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Big Solar Furnace comes up 40 km in. Next is The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve.
East of Tashkent, the land rises steeply into the western ranges of the Tian Shan, and the Chatkal range forms the border with Kyrgyzstan. The Chatkal State Biosphere Reserve, established in the Soviet era, protects a stretch of these mountains, with juniper forests, walnut and wild fruit trees, alpine meadows and rocky peaks.
Read the complete The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
80 km in you reach The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve.
East of Tashkent, the Western Tian Shan rises in a series of ridges, and the Chatkal range is one of the most accessible of them, its snowy peaks visible from the capital on a clear day. The Chatkal State Biosphere Reserve protects a part of this landscape, with forests of juniper, walnut, maple and wild fruit trees, and alpine meadows above, home to Tian Shan brown bears, snow leopards, ibex, wild boar and many birds of prey. The Western Tian Shan, shared by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, is on the UNESCO list.
Read the complete The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve, about halfway. Next is back through The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve sits at 159 km, about halfway. Next is back through Big Solar Furnace.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Big Solar Furnace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Big Solar Furnace comes up 199 km in. Next is Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace closes the day.
Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace → Big Solar Furnace is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Big Solar Furnace → The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve → The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve → back through The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve → back through Big Solar Furnace is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Big Solar Furnace → Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.