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 Bayramaly it runs 98 km to Bayramaly; allow about 2 h 07 of riding. The stops in between: Abdullah Khan Kala, Mausoleum of Huday Nazar; the Mausolea of and back through Abdullah Khan Kala. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Once there were few cities in the world as big as Merv. At its height, in the twelfth century, under the Seljuk sultans, the oasis city on the Murghab river, in the sands of what is now Turkmenistan, may have been the largest on the planet, with a population counted in the hundreds of thousands, libraries that Arab geographers praised and a position on the Silk Road between Persia and Central Asia. In 1221, the Mongols arrived, and the chroniclers say that the slaughter was beyond counting. The city never recovered its size, but the ruins, which cover a vast area of low walls, mounds and shattered brick, were listed as a World Heritage site in 1999.
Read the complete Kelte Minara koshk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kelte Minara koshk is where the day begins. Next is Abdullah Khan Kala.
Abdullah Khan Kala is a mud-brick fortress on the edge of the Merv oasis, about five kilometres from the town of Bayramaly, and it makes a surprising amount of noise for something so silent. Its walls are enormous, rising out of the flat desert plain, and from the top you can see the pale shapes of other Merv monuments far away, all of them made from the same earth.
Read the complete Abdullah Khan Kala write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abdullah Khan Kala comes up about 16 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mausoleum of Huday Nazar; the Mausolea of.
The oasis of Merv, in south-eastern Turkmenistan, was for centuries one of the great cities of Central Asia, a stop on the Silk Road and at one point, under the Seljuks in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, possibly one of the largest cities in the world. Today its ruins are spread over a vast area of desert and farmland near the town of Bayramaly, and they form the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Ancient Merv. Scattered among them are small mausolea, tombs of holy men and companions of the Prophet, and the Mausoleum of Huday Nazar is one of these, a modest brick structure that has long been a place of local pilgrimage.
Read the complete Mausoleum of Huday Nazar; the Mausolea of write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 49 km into the recorded legs you reach Mausoleum of Huday Nazar; the Mausolea of. Next is back through Abdullah Khan Kala.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abdullah Khan Kala write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abdullah Khan Kala, late in the day. Next is Kelte Minara koshk.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kelte Minara koshk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Kelte Minara koshk. That is the ride.
Kelte Minara koshk → Abdullah Khan Kala is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abdullah Khan Kala → Mausoleum of Huday Nazar; the Mausolea of is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mausoleum of Huday Nazar; the Mausolea of → back through Abdullah Khan Kala is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abdullah Khan Kala → Kelte Minara koshk is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.