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 242 km to Kronstadt; allow about 3 h 24 of riding. It goes by way of Koltushskaya Elevation, Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina and back through Koltushskaya Elevation. 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 60 km this is A-121 Ladoga and Sortavala, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Kotlin Island lies in the Gulf of Finland, at the entrance to the Neva, and its job for three centuries has been to guard St Petersburg from the sea. Peter the Great founded the naval base of Kronstadt here in 1704, and the island, long and narrow, was ringed with forts, batteries and artificial islands. The northern batteries, of which No. 4 is one, belong to that long chain, built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the guns grew bigger and the ships more dangerous. They are low, grass-covered earthworks and brick casemates facing the water, and on grey days the place has a lonely, military feel. The sea is shallow here and often frozen in winter.
Read the complete Northern battery No. 4 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Northern battery No. 4 is where the day begins. Next is Koltushskaya Elevation.
East of Saint Petersburg, the land swells into a low ridge of moraine, left behind by the great ice sheet. The Koltushi Heights are not high, only some tens of metres above the surrounding plain, but in a country as flat as this, they are noticed. The landscape is a patchwork of pine and birch woods, wetland and open farmland, with the village of Koltushi scattered along the roads. A century ago it was a rural district, and the physiologist Ivan Pavlov, famous for his work on conditioned reflexes, founded a research station here, which people half-jokingly called the capital of conditioned reflexes.
Read the complete Koltushskaya Elevation write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Koltushskaya Elevation comes up about 60 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 119 km into the recorded legs you reach Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina. Next is back through Koltushskaya Elevation.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Koltushskaya Elevation write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Koltushskaya Elevation, late in the day. Next is Northern battery No. 4, 64 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Northern battery No. 4 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Northern battery No. 4. That is the ride.
Northern battery No. 4 → Koltushskaya Elevation is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Koltushskaya Elevation → Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina is 59 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina → back through Koltushskaya Elevation is 64 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Koltushskaya Elevation → Northern battery No. 4 is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.