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.
165 km from Sosnovaya Polyana to Sosnovaya Polyana, about 3 h 01 of riding. It goes by way of The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag, The Otdelny Park, Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina and back through The Otdelny Park. The line favours views over speed.
The ride follows Peterhofskaya Road → The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag for 20 km.
Peterhofskaya Road was once the grandest road out of St Petersburg. Running southwest from the city along the shore of the Gulf of Finland toward Strelna and Peterhof, it was lined in the eighteenth century with country estates, dachas and palaces built by the nobility, who wanted to be close to the imperial residences along the coast. Peter the Great started the trend, granting plots to courtiers along the road, and the result was a chain of estates with gardens, parks and ponds stretching for miles. Many of these estates survive in some form, and the road and its surroundings are part of the UNESCO listing of the historic centre of St Petersburg and related groups of monuments.
Read the complete Peterhofskaya Road write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Peterhofskaya Road is where the day begins. Next is The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag.
The village of Taitsy, south of Saint Petersburg near Krasnoye Selo, is home to an estate built in the eighteenth century for the Demidov family, the industrial dynasty whose fortune came from iron and metalworks in the Urals. The classical manor house, attributed to the architect Ivan Starov, stands in a landscape park with ponds and springs, and those springs mattered far beyond the estate: the Taitsy water conduit, built in the eighteenth century, carried water from here to the palaces and fountains of Tsarskoye Selo.
Read the complete The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag comes up about 20 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Otdelny Park.
Pavlovsk and Pushkin sit side by side on the plain south of Saint Petersburg, and both grew from the imperial taste for country palaces. Pushkin was once Tsarskoye Selo, the Tsar's Village, where Catherine the Great had a palace of blue and white with a facade that stretches for hundreds of metres, and where the Amber Room once stood. Pavlovsk was a smaller palace for her son Paul, set in one of the largest landscape parks in Europe. The name means separate or detached, and it points to a part of the landscape set apart from the main royal grounds.
Read the complete The Otdelny Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 53 km into the recorded legs you reach The Otdelny Park. 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.
Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina, about halfway. Next is back through The Otdelny Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Otdelny Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Otdelny Park sits at 105 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag comes up about 145 km into the recorded legs. Next is Peterhofskaya Road.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Peterhofskaya Road write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Peterhofskaya Road closes the day.
Peterhofskaya Road → The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag → The Otdelny Park is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Otdelny Park → Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina → back through The Otdelny Park is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Otdelny Park → back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag → Peterhofskaya Road is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.