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.
370 km from Sosnovaya Polyana to Sosnovaya Polyana, about 6 h 08 of riding. The stops in between: The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo, The Road of Life and back through The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo. 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 Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo.
Anna Akhmatova is buried here. The cemetery of Komarovo is a small, quiet graveyard among pines on the Karelian Isthmus, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland about forty kilometres north-west of Saint Petersburg, and her grave, a simple stone with a cross, is the one that people come to find. She died in 1966, and loved the little cottage she was given in the village, which she called her Booth. The cemetery also holds the grave of the scholar Dmitry Likhachev, and a scattering of writers, artists and scientists who spent their summers in this dacha colony, once reserved for the Soviet cultural elite.
Read the complete The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo comes up about 70 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Road of Life.
On the south-eastern shore of Lake Ladoga, east of Saint Petersburg, a road ends at the water. This is the start of the Road of Life, the supply route across the ice that kept Leningrad alive during the siege of 1941 to 1944. The siege lasted 872 days, from September 1941 to January 1944, and it cut the city off from nearly everything except the lake. In the first winter, when Ladoga froze, trucks and horse-drawn sledges began to cross the ice with food and fuel, and on the return journey they carried out women, children and the sick. Lorries broke through the ice, and bombing and artillery attacked the route, but it kept going.
Read the complete The Road of Life write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 192 km into the recorded legs you reach The Road of Life. Next is back through The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo, late in the day. 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.
Back at Peterhofskaya Road. That is the ride.
Peterhofskaya Road → The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo → The Road of Life is 122 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Road of Life → back through The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo is 108 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo → Peterhofskaya Road is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.