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 Ol’gino it runs 426 km to Ol’gino; allow about 7 h 06 of riding. The stops in between: The Coastal fort “Shanetz”, Fort «Seraya Loshad», The Blocade Ring and back through Fort «Seraya Loshad». It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 35 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Ropshinskoe Highway is the road that leaves the Gulf of Finland behind at Peterhof and climbs gently south towards Ropsha, and for a ride that starts and ends here it is a good place to look at a map and understand the ground. You are on the edge of the Izhora upland, a low limestone step above the coast. It never looks like much from the saddle, a few tens of metres of rise through birch and pine, but in this flat country that step decided who could see whom, and that mattered enormously in the last century.
Read the complete Ropshinskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ropshinskoe Highway is where the day begins. Next is The Coastal fort “Shanetz”.
Shanetz sounds like a word for a small redoubt, and that is roughly what these coastal forts were: low, squat batteries put on islets and spits to cover the fairways into the Gulf of Finland. This one lies in the western approaches of Kotlin, on the shoals north of the island, and it belongs to the great ring of defences that earned Kronstadt its nickname as the key to Petersburg. The forts earned their keep during the Crimean War, when Allied ships came up the Baltic, took a look at the defences and decided not to risk an attack.
Read the complete The Coastal fort “Shanetz” write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Coastal fort “Shanetz” comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort «Seraya Loshad».
Along the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, west of Saint Petersburg, a low strip of pine forest and sand runs for kilometres between the road and the sea. Fort Seraya Loshad, the Grey Horse, stands in this coastal country, eleven kilometres from the village of Lebyazhye, among a group of forts built for the defence of the capital and the naval base at Kronstadt.
Read the complete Fort «Seraya Loshad» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 91 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort «Seraya Loshad». Next is The Blocade Ring.
The Blockade Ring stands on the south bank of the Neva, east of Saint Petersburg, close to where the Road of Life began its journey toward Lake Ladoga. It commemorates the siege of Leningrad, which lasted from September 1941 to January 1944, roughly 872 days, and the corridor that kept the city alive. When Shlisselburg fell in September 1941, the city was cut off by land, and the only lifeline ran across Ladoga, by boat in summer and over the ice in winter.
Read the complete The Blocade Ring write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Blocade Ring, about halfway. Next is back through Fort «Seraya Loshad».
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort «Seraya Loshad» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort «Seraya Loshad» sits at 261 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Coastal fort “Shanetz”.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Coastal fort “Shanetz” write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Coastal fort “Shanetz” comes up about 382 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ropshinskoe Highway.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ropshinskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ropshinskoe Highway closes the day.
Ropshinskoe Highway → The Coastal fort “Shanetz” is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Coastal fort “Shanetz” → Fort «Seraya Loshad» is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort «Seraya Loshad» → The Blocade Ring is 122 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Blocade Ring → back through Fort «Seraya Loshad» is 123 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Fort «Seraya Loshad» → back through The Coastal fort “Shanetz” is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Coastal fort “Shanetz” → Ropshinskoe Highway is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.