CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 194 km round trip from Ol’gino - roughly 3 h 02 in the saddle. It goes by way of Southern battery No 2, The Park «Dubki», The Shuvalov's and back through The Park «Dubki». It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 24 km this is Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 Southern battery No 2.
Kotlin Island sits in the middle of the Gulf of Finland like a cork in a bottle, and Peter the Great knew it. He seized this stretch of coast from Sweden in 1703 and almost at once began fortifying the island to guard the new capital, Saint Petersburg, which lay at the head of the gulf. Over the next two centuries a ring of forts and batteries grew up on islands, shoals and the shore, and Kronstadt became the home port of the Baltic Fleet. The batteries named in these ride titles, Southern and Northern, belong to that defensive system.
Read the complete Southern battery No 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Southern battery No 2 comes up 27 km in. Next is The Park «Dubki».
Peter the Great loved oak, because oak meant ships, and the little park of Dubki, whose name means little oaks, is said to date back to the trees he ordered planted near his arms-making settlement at Sestroretsk. Whatever the truth of the exact planting, the park is a pleasant tract of old trees on sandy soil, with paths, ponds and the slow rhythm of a town that has long been a seaside resort. Sestroretsk, on the Gulf of Finland, became a fashionable spa at the end of the nineteenth century, and its shore of shallow water and fine sand still draws crowds in summer.
Read the complete The Park «Dubki» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
53 km in you reach The Park «Dubki». Next is The Shuvalov's.
The Shuvalovs were one of the great families of eighteenth-century Russia, and a member of the clan, Ivan Shuvalov, was the favourite of Empress Elizabeth and the patron who helped found Moscow University and the Academy of Arts in the 1750s. Another branch of the family later owned the estate at Pargolovo, on the northern edge of Saint Petersburg, where a palace and landscaped park were laid out with ponds, avenues and pavilions in the nineteenth century. The park is now a public space, with lakes that freeze in winter and a canopy of old trees, and it is a favourite for walks.
Read the complete The Shuvalov's write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Shuvalov's, about halfway. Next is back through The Park «Dubki».
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Park «Dubki» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Park «Dubki» sits at 106 km, about halfway. Next is back through Southern battery No 2.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Southern battery No 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Southern battery No 2 comes up 133 km in. 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 → Southern battery No 2 is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Southern battery No 2 → The Park «Dubki» is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Park «Dubki» → The Shuvalov's is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Shuvalov's → back through The Park «Dubki» is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Park «Dubki» → back through Southern battery No 2 is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Southern battery No 2 → Ropshinskoe Highway is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.