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 430 km round trip from Lomonosov - roughly 7 h 18 in the saddle. On the way it passes Fort «Krasnaya Gorka», Fort «Ino», Koltushskoe Highway and back through Fort «Ino». 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 27 km this is Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Lomonosov was called Oranienbaum until 1948, and its history is a story of ambition. Prince Alexander Menshikov, Peter the Great's close friend and favourite, began a grand palace here in the early eighteenth century, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, and the name, meaning orange tree, came from its greenhouses. Later, the estate passed to the imperial family, and in the 1760s Catherine the Great had the Chinese Palace built in the park, a small, richly decorated pavilion with painted ceilings and exotic interiors. The ensemble is part of the UNESCO listing of Saint Petersburg and related monuments.
Read the complete Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov is where the day begins. Next is Fort «Krasnaya Gorka».
On the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, near the village of Lebyazhye, the remains of Fort Krasnaya Gorka sit among pine woods and sand dunes. The fort was built in the years before the First World War as part of a chain of coastal defences protecting the approaches to St Petersburg, with heavy guns facing the sea and their counterparts on the opposite shore at Ino, in what was then the Grand Duchy of Finland. Together, the forts were designed to close the gulf to an enemy fleet.
Read the complete Fort «Krasnaya Gorka» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort «Krasnaya Gorka» comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort «Ino».
In pine woods on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, west of the resort strip of Zelenogorsk, lie the shattered concrete remains of Fort Ino. It was built from 1909 as part of the defences of Saint Petersburg, a key battery of Peter the Great's Naval Fortress, designed to close the gulf to enemy fleets with heavy guns. When Finland became independent, the fort ended up on Finnish territory, and under the Treaty of Tartu in 1920 its fortifications were to be dismantled, which is why what remains today is mostly blasted concrete, scattered among the trees and dunes.
Read the complete Fort «Ino» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 132 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort «Ino». Next is Koltushskoe Highway.
East of Saint Petersburg, the Koltushskoe highway runs through suburban sprawl and countryside toward the village of Koltushi, and it belongs to a memorial landscape that ties the whole region together: the Green Belt of Glory, a chain of monuments marking the defensive line around Leningrad during the siege of 1941 to 1944, when nearly nine hundred days of blockade cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Monuments, steles and memorials stand along the roads where the front lines and supply routes ran, including the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga.
Read the complete Koltushskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Koltushskoe Highway, about halfway. Next is back through Fort «Ino».
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort «Ino» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort «Ino» sits at 213 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fort «Krasnaya Gorka».
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort «Krasnaya Gorka» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort «Krasnaya Gorka» comes up about 403 km into the recorded legs. Next is Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov closes the day.
Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov → Fort «Krasnaya Gorka» is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort «Krasnaya Gorka» → Fort «Ino» is 105 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort «Ino» → Koltushskoe Highway is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Koltushskoe Highway → back through Fort «Ino» is 87 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Fort «Ino» → back through Fort «Krasnaya Gorka» is 95 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort «Krasnaya Gorka» → Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.