Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace and The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
343 km
Riding-time estimate
7 h 21
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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 343 km round trip from Tashkent - roughly 7 h 21 in the saddle. On the way it passes Big Solar Furnace, The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve and back through Big Solar Furnace. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Scenic road chapters
Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace → Big Solar Furnace
This part of the ride is 54 km of Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace → Big Solar Furnace.
Chapter facts
Length
54 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace
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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace is where the day begins. Next is Big Solar Furnace.
2. 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Big Solar Furnace comes up 41 km in. Next is The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve.
3. 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace to Big Solar Furnace
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 to The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve
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 to back through Big Solar Furnace
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 to Alisher Navoi Cinema Palace
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.