CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 342 km round trip from Tashkent - roughly 7 h 19 in the saddle. It goes by way of Big Solar Furnace, The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve and back through Big Solar Furnace. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
On the Tashkent metro, the stations are the sights. The system opened in 1977, the first in Central Asia, and the Soviet planners treated each stop as a small palace, with a theme, a colour scheme and local craftsmen to carry it out. Marble, carved alabaster, mosaics and chandeliers decorate the platforms, and the Kosmonavtlar station, the Cosmonauts, is one of the best, with a space theme: blue-grey tiles, circular lamps like planets and portraits of cosmonauts, a tribute to the space programme of which Uzbekistan was proud. For years, photography underground was banned, and the rule has now relaxed, so you can look around with a camera if you are polite.
Read the complete Kosmonavtlar Metro Station write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kosmonavtlar Metro Station is where the day begins. Next is Big Solar Furnace.
In the foothills of the Tian Shan, about an hour north-east of Tashkent, there is a building that looks as if it belongs in a science fiction film: a huge curved mirror, made of thousands of smaller mirrors, facing a field of tracking mirrors that follow the sun and focus its light onto a single point. This is the Big Solar Furnace near Parkent, built in the Soviet era in the 1980s, and still used for research into materials that can withstand extremely high temperatures.
Read the complete Big Solar Furnace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Big Solar Furnace comes up 40 km in. Next is The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve.
East of Tashkent, the land rises steeply into the western ranges of the Tian Shan, and the Chatkal range forms the border with Kyrgyzstan. The Chatkal State Biosphere Reserve, established in the Soviet era, protects a stretch of these mountains, with juniper forests, walnut and wild fruit trees, alpine meadows and rocky peaks.
Read the complete The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
81 km in you reach The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve. Next is back through Big Solar Furnace.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Big Solar Furnace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Big Solar Furnace, late in the day. Next is Kosmonavtlar Metro Station.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kosmonavtlar Metro Station write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Kosmonavtlar Metro Station. That is the ride.
Kosmonavtlar Metro Station → Big Solar Furnace is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Big Solar Furnace → The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve → back through Big Solar Furnace is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Big Solar Furnace → Kosmonavtlar Metro Station is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.