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 479 km round trip from Bansko - roughly 9 h 09 in the saddle. It goes by way of \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex, Boyana Church and back through \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,700 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Vihren, at 2,914 metres the highest peak of the Pirin mountains and the third highest in the Balkans, rises above the town of Bansko in south-western Bulgaria in a sharp, pale pyramid of marble. The Pirin National Park protects the high country around it, a landscape of granite and marble peaks, glacial cirques, more than a hundred lakes and ancient forests of pine and fir, and it was listed by UNESCO in 1983.
Read the complete Pirin National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pirin National Park is where the day begins. Next is \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex, 68 km on.
Above Rila Monastery, in the folds of the Rila Mountains, a path leads to the hermit's cave where it all began. The monastery was founded in the tenth century by Saint Ivan of Rila, a monk who left the world to live as a recluse in these forests, and he gathered followers who built a community.
Read the complete \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
\St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex comes up about 112 km into the recorded legs. Next is Boyana Church.
Boyana is a village on the southern edge of Sofia, tucked against the lower slopes of Mount Vitosha, and it holds a small church that changed the history of European painting, or at least its footnotes. The church is made of three parts built over several centuries, but the middle part, a tiny two-storey chapel, was decorated in 1259 for Sebastokrator Kaloyan, a local ruler, and his wife Desislava, who are painted in the narthex as donors. The frescoes show eighty-nine scenes with more than two hundred and forty human figures, and they are astonishing for their realism. The faces have individual expressions, the saints look like real people, and they predate the Italian Renaissance by generations.
Read the complete Boyana Church write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 239 km into the recorded legs you reach Boyana Church. Next is back through \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex, 68 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex, late in the day. Next is Pirin National Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pirin National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Pirin National Park. That is the ride.
Pirin National Park → \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex is 112 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
\St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex → Boyana Church is 127 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Boyana Church → back through \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex is 117 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex → Pirin National Park is 122 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.