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.
278 km from Karmana Shahri to Karmana Shahri, about 4 h 54 of riding. It goes by way of Chasma-i Ayub Khazira, Varakhsha Settlement and back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 73 km into the recorded legs. Next is Varakhsha Settlement.
Thirty kilometres or so west of Bukhara, beyond the last irrigated fields, the land turns to sand and salt crust at the edge of the Kyzylkum desert, and here a low mound of eroded mud brick rises from the flat ground. This is Varakhsha, once a flourishing town and the residence of the Bukhar Khudats, the pre-Islamic rulers of the Bukhara oasis. It thrived in the early medieval centuries, when the oasis extended further than it does today, and was abandoned around the eleventh century, probably as irrigation failed and the desert advanced.
Read the complete Varakhsha Settlement write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 140 km into the recorded legs you reach Varakhsha Settlement. 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, late in the day. Next is 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 at Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex. That is the ride.
Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex → Chasma-i Ayub Khazira is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Chasma-i Ayub Khazira → Varakhsha Settlement is 67 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Varakhsha Settlement → back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira → Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.