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 340 km round trip from Tashkent - roughly 7 h 17 in the saddle. On the way it passes Big Solar Furnace, The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve and back through Big Solar Furnace. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Long before Tashkent became a Soviet showpiece, it was a stop on the caravan road, and the State Museum of History tries to tell that long story. Under the name Chach, the oasis was known to the ancient Persians and Greeks, and later to Chinese travellers, who called it Shi. It lay on the Silk Road, on the route that led from Samarkand across the Syr Darya into the Fergana valley and the Chinese lands beyond. Sogdian merchants carried silk, glass, metalwork and religious ideas along it, and the museum's collections include coins, ceramics, carved stone and remains from sites across Uzbekistan, from the Bronze Age to the Timurid empire.
Read the complete State Museum of History write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
State Museum of History is where the day begins. Next is Big Solar Furnace.
In the foothills of the Tian Shan, about an hour north-east of Tashkent, there is a building that looks as if it belongs in a science fiction film: a huge curved mirror, made of thousands of smaller mirrors, facing a field of tracking mirrors that follow the sun and focus its light onto a single point. This is the Big Solar Furnace near Parkent, built in the Soviet era in the 1980s, and still used for research into materials that can withstand extremely high temperatures.
Read the complete Big Solar Furnace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Big Solar Furnace comes up 40 km in. Next is The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve.
East of Tashkent, the land rises steeply into the western ranges of the Tian Shan, and the Chatkal range forms the border with Kyrgyzstan. The Chatkal State Biosphere Reserve, established in the Soviet era, protects a stretch of these mountains, with juniper forests, walnut and wild fruit trees, alpine meadows and rocky peaks.
Read the complete The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
80 km in you reach The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve. Next is back through Big Solar Furnace.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Big Solar Furnace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Big Solar Furnace, late in the day. Next is State Museum of History.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete State Museum of History write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at State Museum of History. That is the ride.
State Museum of History → Big Solar Furnace is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Big Solar Furnace → The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve → back through Big Solar Furnace is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Big Solar Furnace → State Museum of History is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.