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 Kobuleti it runs 352 km to Kobuleti; allow about 9 h 19 of riding. It goes by way of Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands, Grigoleti, Pitshora and Nabada. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Most of Georgia's Black Sea coast is subtropical, with tea plantations, citrus groves and lush forests, and on the plain near Kobuleti, between the sea and the hills, lies one of the strangest landscapes in the Caucasus. The Ispani mires are raised peat bogs, domes of sphagnum moss that have grown over thousands of years, fed only by rain, and they are among the few such bogs in the subtropics. They are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands, inscribed in 2021.
Read the complete Ispani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ispani is where the day begins. Next is Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands.
Rain is the first thing you notice on Georgia's Black Sea coast, which gets some of the heaviest rainfall in the Caucasus and grows a green, tangled forest to match. The Colchic forests and wetlands lie between the sea and the foot of the Lesser Caucasus, behind the resort town of Kobuleti and inland from the lanes of Ispani, with Chakvi, a small coastal town of eight thousand people, about eighteen kilometres away and Batumi not much further. UNESCO listed the Colchic rainforests in 2021 as a remnant of the temperate forests that once covered this part of the world, with trees such as alder, hornbeam, beech and the evergreen cherry laurel, hung with lianas and ferns.
Read the complete Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands comes up about 30 km into the recorded legs. Next is Grigoleti.
Grigoleti is a strip of pine woods and black sand on Georgia's Black Sea coast, squeezed between the sea and the great reed beds of Lake Paliastomi, a few kilometres north of the resort of Ureki and a short hop south of the port of Poti. It is a holiday place for Georgian families rather than foreign tourists, with guesthouses among the trees, wooden cafés and a beach that stretches as far as you can see. The sand here, and even more at Ureki, is dark and magnetic, full of iron-rich minerals washed down from the mountains, and locals swear it does wonders for aching joints. After a long day in the saddle feel free to test the theory.
Read the complete Grigoleti write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 108 km into the recorded legs you reach Grigoleti. Next is Pitshora.
Close to the Black Sea coast of western Georgia, north of the port city of Poti, the land dissolves into marsh. This is the Colchic lowland, where the Rioni and smaller rivers have built a wide plain of peat bogs, alder swamps and lakes, and Pitshora is one of the wetland areas protected here as part of the Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands World Heritage site, listed in 2021. The rains are heavy, the air is warm and humid, and the vegetation is lush in a way that feels almost tropical, surprising if you think of the Caucasus as dry mountains.
Read the complete Pitshora write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pitshora, about halfway. Next is Nabada.
Georgia's Black Sea coast has a wet, green corner that few people think of when they think of the Caucasus. The Rioni river, the ancient Phasis of the Greeks, empties into the sea here, and around its mouth lies the Kolkheti lowland, a flat, humid country of alder swamp, peat bog, reedbeds and shallow lakes. Lake Paliastomi lies just south of Poti, and the Colchic rainforests and wetlands, listed by UNESCO in 2021, preserve a remnant of the forests that once covered the whole plain. This is the land of Colchis, where the Argonauts came for the Golden Fleece, according to the myth, and on a misty morning with the trees draped in lianas it is easy to believe in it.
Read the complete Nabada write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nabada sits at 127 km, about halfway. Next is back through Pitshora.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pitshora write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pitshora comes up about 219 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Grigoleti.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grigoleti write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 245 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Grigoleti. Next is back through Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands, late in the day. Next is Ispani.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ispani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 352 km.
Ispani → Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands → Grigoleti is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grigoleti → Pitshora is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pitshora → Nabada is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nabada → back through Pitshora is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pitshora → back through Grigoleti is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Grigoleti → back through Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands → Ispani is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.