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.
394 km from Tokmok to Tokmok, about 8 h 11 of riding. It goes by way of City of Nevaket, Site of Aktobe and back through City of Nevaket. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Kyrgyzstan into Kazakhstan - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
A single brick tower stands alone on the steppe south of the Chu river, and that tower is nearly all that remains of Balasagun, a city that once rivalled the great towns of the Silk Road. It was a capital of the Karakhanids, a Turkic dynasty that ruled much of Central Asia around the tenth to twelfth centuries, and it was here that the poet Yusuf Balasaguni wrote the Kutadgu Bilig, an early work of Turkic literature on how to govern and live well. Today the site is known as Burana, and Tokmok, eleven kilometres away, is the town you pass on the way.
Read the complete City of Balasagun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
City of Balasagun is where the day begins. Next is City of Nevaket.
Nothing marks the city of Nevaket from the road except a low mound in a field, and the Chuy valley holds a lot of mounds like it. The town once stood on the Silk Road, in the green plain north of the Kyrgyz Ala-Too range, close to the modern village of Krasnaya Rechka, and archaeologists have found there the foundations of a Buddhist temple and a Nestorian Christian church. Sogdian merchants from Samarkand and Bukhara founded towns like this one to trade silk, metal and horses with the steppe peoples, and the faiths of those travellers travelled with them. It is one of the sites that make up the Silk Roads corridor listed as a World Heritage property in 2014, along with Ak-Beshim and the tower at Burana, which is on the route.
Read the complete City of Nevaket write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
City of Nevaket comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is Site of Aktobe.
The Site of Aktobe is better known to archaeologists as Ak-Beshim, a ruined Silk Road town in the Chuy Valley of northern Kyrgyzstan, and it was once the city of Suyab. Around the seventh and eighth centuries it was a major stop for merchants, a Sogdian trading settlement and later a Turkic and Chinese Tang garrison town. Excavators found a Buddhist temple and also a Nestorian Christian church, a sign of how many faiths mingled on the road. The poet Li Bai, one of China's most famous, is said by some accounts to have been born here, though the matter is debated. Today it is a field of earthen mounds and low walls under open sky, and you need a bit of imagination to see the town.
Read the complete Site of Aktobe write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 200 km into the recorded legs you reach Site of Aktobe. Next is back through City of Nevaket.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete City of Nevaket write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through City of Nevaket, late in the day. Next is City of Balasagun.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete City of Balasagun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at City of Balasagun. That is the ride.
City of Balasagun → City of Nevaket is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
City of Nevaket → Site of Aktobe is 160 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Site of Aktobe → back through City of Nevaket is 153 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through City of Nevaket → City of Balasagun is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.