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 Kronstadt it runs 247 km to Kronstadt; allow about 3 h 21 of riding. The stops in between: Koltushskoe Highway, Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina and back through Koltushskoe Highway. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 70 km this is A-121 Ladoga and Sortavala, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Forts are places for people who like their history with a view of the sea, and Kotlin island has more of them than most. Northern Battery No. 2 is part of the chain of defences that guarded the northern channel into the Gulf of Finland, and it dates from the great programme of fortification that Russia undertook in the nineteenth century to protect Kronstadt and, behind it, the capital. The batteries line the island's northern shore, low, squat and half buried in the pines.
Read the complete Northern battery No. 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Northern battery No. 2 is where the day begins. Next is Koltushskoe Highway.
East of Saint Petersburg, the Koltushskoe highway runs through suburban sprawl and countryside toward the village of Koltushi, and it belongs to a memorial landscape that ties the whole region together: the Green Belt of Glory, a chain of monuments marking the defensive line around Leningrad during the siege of 1941 to 1944, when nearly nine hundred days of blockade cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Monuments, steles and memorials stand along the roads where the front lines and supply routes ran, including the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga.
Read the complete Koltushskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Koltushskoe Highway comes up about 70 km into the recorded legs. Next is Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina.
Gatchina is the kind of town you reach by flat, straight Ingrian roads, and the first impression is of birch, pine and wide skies rather than anything dramatic. Forty-odd kilometres south-west of St Petersburg, it sits on land that was once swampy and sparsely settled, until the eighteenth century decided otherwise. Catherine the Great gave the estate to her favourite Grigory Orlov, and the architect Antonio Rinaldi built him a severe, castle-like palace of local limestone beside a lake. After Orlov died it passed to her son Paul, who made it his private kingdom, drilled his soldiers on the parade ground and added the odd fortress-style touches that suited his nature.
Read the complete Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 126 km into the recorded legs you reach Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina. Next is back through Koltushskoe Highway.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Koltushskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Koltushskoe Highway, late in the day. Next is Northern battery No. 2, 64 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Northern battery No. 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Northern battery No. 2. That is the ride.
Northern battery No. 2 → Koltushskoe Highway is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Koltushskoe Highway → Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina is 56 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina → back through Koltushskoe Highway is 62 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Koltushskoe Highway → Northern battery No. 2 is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.