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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 351 km round trip from Snina - roughly 6 h 03 in the saddle. The stops in between: Vihorlat, Udava and back through Vihorlat. It crosses from Slovakia into Poland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. Much of it runs through woodland.
In the far north-east of Slovakia, in the hills where Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine meet, the beech forests have never been cut. Havešová is one of these primeval forests, a steep slope of giant beech trees, some over forty metres tall and hundreds of years old, with fallen trunks decaying slowly on the forest floor and new trees rising in the gaps. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, inscribed in 2007 and extended since, and it lies within Poloniny National Park, one of the least visited and most remote national parks in Central Europe.
Read the complete Havešová Primeval Forest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Havešová Primeval Forest is where the day begins. Next is Vihorlat.
Vihorlat is a range of old volcanoes in the far east of Slovakia, close to the Ukrainian border, and its higher slopes are covered with some of the last primeval beech forests in Europe. The trees here have grown, died and rotted without human interference for a very long time, and the forest is part of the transnational UNESCO site of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, first listed in 2007 with sites in Slovakia and Ukraine and later extended across much of the continent.
Read the complete Vihorlat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vihorlat comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Udava.
Out where Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine meet, the eastern Carpathians fold into long, rounded ridges covered in beech forest so continuous that from a high point it looks like a green sea. Udava is one of the Slovak pieces of the UNESCO Primeval Beech Forests listing, protected within Poloniny National Park, the most easterly and least populated corner of the country. Here the forest has been left to its own rhythms for a very long time: giant trees, fallen trunks covered in fungi and moss, a dense understory of young growth wherever light breaks through. Wolves, lynx, brown bears and even European bison roam the area, and the dawn chorus in May is unforgettable.
Read the complete Udava write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 177 km into the recorded legs you reach Udava. Next is back through Vihorlat.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vihorlat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Vihorlat, late in the day. Next is Havešová Primeval Forest.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Havešová Primeval Forest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Havešová Primeval Forest. That is the ride.
Havešová Primeval Forest → Vihorlat is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vihorlat → Udava is 115 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Udava → back through Vihorlat is 115 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vihorlat → Havešová Primeval Forest is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.