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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
327 km from Ziyodin Shaharchasi to Ziyodin Shaharchasi, about 6 h 39 of riding. The stops in between: Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex, Deggaron Mosque, Chasma-i Ayub Khazira and Vardanze Settlement. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is Deggaron Mosque.
In the village of Hazara, in the Zarafshan valley between Bukhara and Samarkand, stands one of the oldest mosques in Central Asia. The Deggaron mosque dates from the eleventh century, and from the outside it looks almost humble: a square, squat brick building with a cluster of low domes. Inside, it is a revelation, with massive brick columns supporting a forest of small domes and arches, the brickwork laid in patterns that play with light and shadow. It is a rare survivor of the pre-Mongol architecture of the region, and it forms part of the Silk Roads listing for the Zarafshan-Karakum corridor, inscribed by UNESCO in 2023.
Read the complete Deggaron Mosque write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 75 km into the recorded legs you reach Deggaron Mosque. Next is Chasma-i Ayub Khazira.
North of Bukhara, the green irrigated oasis of the Zarafshan river spreads out in a patchwork of cotton fields, orchards, mulberry trees and villages, and the point named Chasma-i Ayub Khazira lies in this landscape, near the village of Khazara, between Vobkent and Gijduvon. Chashma-i Ayub, the spring of Job, is a name given to several holy springs in Central Asia, linked to the legend that the prophet Job struck the ground with his staff and water gushed forth in a time of drought. The most famous is in Bukhara itself, a mausoleum over a spring, and this site near Khazara may be another shrine of the same tradition, listed as part of the Silk Roads corridor of the Zarafshan valley.
Read the complete Chasma-i Ayub Khazira write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chasma-i Ayub Khazira, about halfway. Next is Vardanze Settlement.
North of Bukhara the irrigated land eventually runs into the sand, and on that edge lies Vardanze, the ruins of an ancient city that was once the capital of a local principality in the Bukhara oasis. Its mound of collapsed mud-brick walls and citadel rises above the fields near Shofirkon, and archaeologists have traced its history back more than two thousand years. It flourished as a trading post on the Silk Road and later declined, partly because the desert advanced and the water supply failed, and its ruins are part of the Zarafshan-Karakum corridor listed by UNESCO in 2023.
Read the complete Vardanze Settlement write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vardanze Settlement sits at 178 km, about halfway. Next is back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chasma-i Ayub Khazira write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira comes up about 200 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Deggaron Mosque.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Deggaron Mosque write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 248 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Deggaron Mosque. 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, late in the day. 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.
The route ends here after 327 km.
Dabusiya Settlement → Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex → Deggaron Mosque is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Deggaron Mosque → Chasma-i Ayub Khazira is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chasma-i Ayub Khazira → Vardanze Settlement is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vardanze Settlement → back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira → back through Deggaron Mosque is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Deggaron Mosque → back through Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex is 37 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.