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.
From Ziyodin Shaharchasi it runs 166 km to Ziyodin Shaharchasi; allow about 3 h 03 of riding. The stops in between: Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex, Rabati Malik Caravanserai, Mir Sayid Bakhrom Mausoleum and back through Rabati Malik Caravanserai.
Halfway along the old road from Samarkand to Bukhara, where the Zeravshan valley widens into irrigated plain, there is a ruined town called Dabusiya. The Sogdians founded it, and it grew into a staging post on the Silk Road, where caravans paused for water, fodder and trade. The Arabs reached it in the early eighth century and the town held out and changed hands as the region went through conquest and conversion. By the Middle Ages it was a modest brick town with a citadel, a mosque and workshops. The Mongols and later shifts in the river sealed its decline.
Read the complete Dabusiya Settlement write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dabusiya Settlement is where the day begins. Next is Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex.
Dabusiya is an ancient settlement on the Zeravshan, the river that rises in the Tajik glaciers, flows past Samarkand and Bukhara, and then dwindles into the sands before reaching the sea. Of the old fortified town, there are now mounds, a few ruined walls and a clear sense of where the river used to run. In its prime, around the sixth century, it lay on the route between the two great oases, and it was famous in the early Islamic period; the geographers write of its markets and of a decisive battle that was fought in the area in the eighth century. The Kasim Sheikh complex in the label belongs to the same shrine tradition as many sites near Navoi: a saint's tomb, a mosque and a small cluster of domes and arches that turned a hill into a pilgrimage place.
Read the complete Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Rabati Malik Caravanserai.
Only the portal of Rabati Malik is left standing, but what a portal it is: a tall brick façade with a great arch, framed by fluted columns and decorated with intricate brick patterns, rising beside the road between Bukhara and Samarkand in the steppe of central Uzbekistan. It was built in the eleventh century by the Karakhanid rulers as a royal caravanserai, a fortified palace and rest stop on the Silk Road, and travellers once found shelter, water and protection here behind its massive walls. The rest of the building was destroyed over the centuries, but archaeologists have traced its plan, and the portal itself has been restored. Across the road, a sardoba, a domed brick reservoir, collected water for the caravans and is still in good condition.
Read the complete Rabati Malik Caravanserai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 62 km into the recorded legs you reach Rabati Malik Caravanserai. Next is Mir Sayid Bakhrom Mausoleum.
Navoi is a strange and rather brilliant city. It does not appear on any old caravan map, because it was founded in 1958 in the middle of the Kyzylkum desert, to house the workers of the gold and uranium industries and to give the Soviet planners a clean slate. It was named after Alisher Navoi, the fifteenth-century poet who wrote in Chagatai Turkic and who has become the national literary hero. Wide avenues, tidy parks and rows of apartment blocks give it the air of a model town, and in the heat of the afternoon it is remarkably quiet.
Read the complete Mir Sayid Bakhrom Mausoleum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mir Sayid Bakhrom Mausoleum, about halfway. Next is back through Rabati Malik Caravanserai.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rabati Malik Caravanserai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rabati Malik Caravanserai sits at 131 km, about halfway. Next is back through Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex comes up about 125 km into the recorded legs. Next is Dabusiya Settlement.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dabusiya Settlement write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dabusiya Settlement closes the day.
Dabusiya Settlement → Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex → Rabati Malik Caravanserai is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rabati Malik Caravanserai → Mir Sayid Bakhrom Mausoleum is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mir Sayid Bakhrom Mausoleum → back through Rabati Malik Caravanserai is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rabati Malik Caravanserai → back through Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex → Dabusiya Settlement is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.