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 561 km round trip from Kronstadt - roughly 9 h 38 in the saddle. On the way it passes Lindulovskaya Roshcha, Fort «Seraya Loshad», Izhorsky Bench and The Babolovsky Park. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Kotlin Island is a long, thin sliver of land in the Gulf of Finland, and Kronstadt, its fortress-town, was founded by Peter the Great in 1704 to guard the sea approaches to his new capital. It became the base of the Russian Baltic Fleet, and ring after ring of forts, batteries and ramparts was built on the island and on artificial islands around it. The Northern Battery No. 1 is one of those fortifications, a low military work on the north shore of Kotlin, part of a defensive system that went on being added to for more than two centuries.
Read the complete Northern battery No. 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Northern battery No. 1 is where the day begins. Next is Lindulovskaya Roshcha.
Out on the Karelian Isthmus, in a landscape of pine, birch and sandy soil, stands a grove of larches that looks entirely out of place. The Lindulovskaya Grove was planted in 1738 by an admiral, Fyodor Soimonov, who wanted to grow shipbuilding timber for the Russian navy, and he chose Siberian larch, a durable and rot-resistant wood. Some of the trees are nearly three centuries old and very tall, and the grove is protected as a natural monument, the oldest planted larch forest in Russia. Walking among the trunks, with their orange-grey bark, and the soft light filtering through the needles, is surprisingly moving.
Read the complete Lindulovskaya Roshcha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lindulovskaya Roshcha comes up about 77 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort «Seraya Loshad».
Along the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, west of Saint Petersburg, a low strip of pine forest and sand runs for kilometres between the road and the sea. Fort Seraya Loshad, the Grey Horse, stands in this coastal country, eleven kilometres from the village of Lebyazhye, among a group of forts built for the defence of the capital and the naval base at Kronstadt.
Read the complete Fort «Seraya Loshad» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 182 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort «Seraya Loshad». Next is Izhorsky Bench.
South of St Petersburg, the flat marshy plain of the Neva lowland suddenly steps up onto a limestone plateau. Geologists call the edge a glint or bench, and here, near Russko-Vysotskoye and Kipen, it forms a low but noticeable escarpment, the northern edge of the Izhora plateau. It is one of the natural features included in the wide UNESCO listing of St Petersburg and its surroundings, which recognises not only palaces and canals but the landscape the city was built against.
Read the complete Izhorsky Bench write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Izhorsky Bench, about halfway. Next is The Babolovsky Park.
Inside a ruined palace in a quiet park south of Saint Petersburg sits one of the strangest objects in Russia: a gigantic bath carved from a single block of granite, more than five metres across, made in the early nineteenth century by the stonemason Samson Sukhanov for the Babolovsky palace. The palace, a small Gothic style residence built for Catherine the Great's favourite Prince Potemkin, was later rebuilt and then ruined during the Second World War, but the bath was too heavy to move and remains inside the shell of the building.
Read the complete The Babolovsky Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Babolovsky Park sits at 177 km, about halfway. Next is back through Izhorsky Bench.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Izhorsky Bench write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Izhorsky Bench comes up about 310 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Fort «Seraya Loshad».
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort «Seraya Loshad» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 380 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Fort «Seraya Loshad». Next is back through Lindulovskaya Roshcha.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lindulovskaya Roshcha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Lindulovskaya Roshcha, late in the day. Next is Northern battery No. 1, 44 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Northern battery No. 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 561 km.
Northern battery No. 1 → Lindulovskaya Roshcha is 77 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lindulovskaya Roshcha → Fort «Seraya Loshad» is 105 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort «Seraya Loshad» → Izhorsky Bench is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Izhorsky Bench → The Babolovsky Park is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Babolovsky Park → back through Izhorsky Bench is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Izhorsky Bench → back through Fort «Seraya Loshad» is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort «Seraya Loshad» → back through Lindulovskaya Roshcha is 115 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lindulovskaya Roshcha → Northern battery No. 1 is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.