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 448 km round trip from Velykyi Bereznyi - roughly 8 h 36 in the saddle. It goes by way of Ruská Bystrá, Udava, Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch and back through Udava. It crosses Ukraine, Slovakia and Poland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 38 km this is Bieszczady Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Rožok is a small patch of very old forest on the eastern edge of Slovakia, close to the borders with Poland and Ukraine, and it is one of the components of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, a World Heritage Site that stretches across many countries. Here, on a steep slope above the Starina reservoir, beech trees have grown undisturbed for centuries, some of them huge, with smooth grey trunks and wide canopies, and fallen trees lie rotting on the forest floor, feeding fungi, insects and birds.
Read the complete Rožok write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rožok is where the day begins. Next is Ruská Bystrá.
Hidden in a fold of the Vihorlat hills near the Ukrainian border, the little village of Ruská Bystrá has a wooden church built in the early eighteenth century, dedicated to Saint Nicholas, with a tower and a roof of wooden shingles and an iconostasis of painted icons inside. It is one of the Greek Catholic churches included in the World Heritage listing of the Wooden Churches of the Slovak Part of the Carpathian Mountain Area, inscribed in 2008, along with Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches across the country.
Read the complete Ruská Bystrá write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ruská Bystrá comes up about 59 km into the recorded legs. Next is Udava.
Out where Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine meet, the eastern Carpathians fold into long, rounded ridges covered in beech forest so continuous that from a high point it looks like a green sea. Udava is one of the Slovak pieces of the UNESCO Primeval Beech Forests listing, protected within Poloniny National Park, the most easterly and least populated corner of the country. Here the forest has been left to its own rhythms for a very long time: giant trees, fallen trunks covered in fungi and moss, a dense understory of young growth wherever light breaks through. Wolves, lynx, brown bears and even European bison roam the area, and the dawn chorus in May is unforgettable.
Read the complete Udava write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 186 km into the recorded legs you reach Udava. Next is Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch.
The wooden church of Saint Michael the Archangel in Turzańsk stands on a gentle slope in the foothills of the Bieszczady mountains, in the far southeast of Poland, near the borders with Slovakia and Ukraine, with its onion domes rising above the trees. It was built in the early nineteenth century by the Lemko or Boyko communities, the Ruthenian highlanders who once lived in these mountains, and it is one of the wooden tserkvas of the Polish and Ukrainian Carpathian region listed by UNESCO in 2013. Inside, an iconostasis of painted icons separates the nave from the sanctuary, and the church is still used for Orthodox services.
Read the complete Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch, about halfway. Next is back through Udava.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Udava write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Udava sits at 138 km, about halfway. Next is back through Ruská Bystrá.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ruská Bystrá write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ruská Bystrá comes up about 388 km into the recorded legs. Next is Rožok.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rožok write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rožok closes the day.
Rožok → Ruská Bystrá is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ruská Bystrá → Udava is 127 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Udava → Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch → back through Udava is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Udava → back through Ruská Bystrá is 127 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ruská Bystrá → Rožok is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.