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.
A 94 km round trip from Petrodvorets - roughly 1 h 10 in the saddle. It goes by way of Southern battery No. 1, Northern battery No. 6 and back through Southern battery No. 1. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 18 km this is Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Peterhof is famous for its fountains, and the road called Gostilitskoe runs along the high ground behind the palace, where the water begins. When Peter the Great decided in the early eighteenth century to build a rival to Versailles on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, the engineers had a problem, because the ground at the shore is flat, and a fountain needs a head of water. They found springs and ponds on the Ropsha heights, a few kilometres inland, and built a system of canals, reservoirs and pipes that carried water downhill to the palace by gravity alone, without a single pump. That system, the Water-bringing system of Peterhof, still works, and it is a marvel of its time.
Read the complete Gostilitskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gostilitskoe Highway is where the day begins. Next is Southern battery No. 1, 17 km on.
Kronstadt town has a face turned to the sea and a back turned to the mainland, and Southern Battery No. 1 stands on the southern shore of Kotlin Island, a few kilometres from the old harbour. It is one of the earth-and-brick gun batteries that formed part of the maritime fortress, built to protect the capital against any fleet that dared to enter the gulf. The island was fortified by Peter the Great, who founded the base here in the early eighteenth century, and it remained one of the great naval stations of the Russian empire.
Read the complete Southern battery No. 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Southern battery No. 1 comes up about 18 km into the recorded legs. Next is Northern battery No. 6, 18 km on.
Kronstadt's guns were never only on the island. Peter the Great founded the fortress on Kotlin Island in 1703 to shut the mouth of the Neva, and over the next two centuries the defences spread across the shallows of the gulf, onto artificial islands and onto the northern shore, where numbered batteries covered the channel from the Karelian side. Northern Battery No. 6 belongs to that system, a low earthwork-and-masonry position on the coast near Gorskaya and Aleksandrovskaya, the old Gulf resort belt west of Lisy Nos.
Read the complete Northern battery No. 6 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 42 km into the recorded legs you reach Northern battery No. 6. Next is back through Southern battery No. 1, 17 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Southern battery No. 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Southern battery No. 1, late in the day. Next is Gostilitskoe Highway.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gostilitskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Gostilitskoe Highway. That is the ride.
Gostilitskoe Highway → Southern battery No. 1 is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Southern battery No. 1 → Northern battery No. 6 is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Northern battery No. 6 → back through Southern battery No. 1 is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Southern battery No. 1 → Gostilitskoe Highway is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.