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.
215 km from Lomonosov to Lomonosov, about 3 h 30 of riding. The stops in between: Izhorsky Bench, The Babolovsky Park, Koltushskoe Highway and back through The Babolovsky Park. 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 38 km this is Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Samuel Greig was a Scottish naval officer from Inverkeithing who rose to become an admiral in Catherine the Great's navy, and in 1788 he fought the Battle of Hogland against the Swedes in the Gulf of Finland, a few weeks before dying of fever at Reval. He is the S.K. Greig of the label, Samuil Karlovich in Russian style, and an estate on this coast called Sans Ennui is associated with the family, French for without boredom, a charming name for a country house. The site lies near Bolshaya Izhora, west of Lomonosov, where the land is flat, wooded and close to the water, and the Izhora river flows toward the gulf.
Read the complete S.K.Grieg's Estate «Sans Ennui» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
S.K.Grieg's Estate «Sans Ennui» is where the day begins. Next is Izhorsky Bench.
South of St Petersburg, the flat marshy plain of the Neva lowland suddenly steps up onto a limestone plateau. Geologists call the edge a glint or bench, and here, near Russko-Vysotskoye and Kipen, it forms a low but noticeable escarpment, the northern edge of the Izhora plateau. It is one of the natural features included in the wide UNESCO listing of St Petersburg and its surroundings, which recognises not only palaces and canals but the landscape the city was built against.
Read the complete Izhorsky Bench write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Izhorsky Bench comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Babolovsky Park.
Inside a ruined palace in a quiet park south of Saint Petersburg sits one of the strangest objects in Russia: a gigantic bath carved from a single block of granite, more than five metres across, made in the early nineteenth century by the stonemason Samson Sukhanov for the Babolovsky palace. The palace, a small Gothic style residence built for Catherine the Great's favourite Prince Potemkin, was later rebuilt and then ruined during the Second World War, but the bath was too heavy to move and remains inside the shell of the building.
Read the complete The Babolovsky Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 69 km into the recorded legs you reach The Babolovsky Park. Next is Koltushskoe Highway.
East of Saint Petersburg, the Koltushskoe highway runs through suburban sprawl and countryside toward the village of Koltushi, and it belongs to a memorial landscape that ties the whole region together: the Green Belt of Glory, a chain of monuments marking the defensive line around Leningrad during the siege of 1941 to 1944, when nearly nine hundred days of blockade cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Monuments, steles and memorials stand along the roads where the front lines and supply routes ran, including the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga.
Read the complete Koltushskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Koltushskoe Highway, about halfway. Next is back through The Babolovsky Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Babolovsky Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Babolovsky Park sits at 142 km, about halfway. Next is back through Izhorsky Bench.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Izhorsky Bench write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Izhorsky Bench comes up about 175 km into the recorded legs. Next is S.K.Grieg's Estate «Sans Ennui», 35 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete S.K.Grieg's Estate «Sans Ennui» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
S.K.Grieg's Estate «Sans Ennui» closes the day.
S.K.Grieg's Estate «Sans Ennui» → Izhorsky Bench is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Izhorsky Bench → The Babolovsky Park is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Babolovsky Park → Koltushskoe Highway is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Koltushskoe Highway → back through The Babolovsky Park is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Babolovsky Park → back through Izhorsky Bench is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Izhorsky Bench → S.K.Grieg's Estate «Sans Ennui» is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.