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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
The stops in between: BÄLJATZ-VAARA Baelljasvarri, LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka, LILLE-REIPAS Raipas and back through LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka. It crosses from Finland into Norway - carry ID and check the toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
There is a point on a bare hill in the far north of Norway that the world once used to measure itself. Stuor-Oivi is one of the stations of the Struve Geodetic Arc, a chain of triangulation points that stretches about 2,800 kilometres from Hammerfest on the Arctic coast to the Black Sea. Between 1816 and 1855 the astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve and his teams measured the arc with astonishing care, and the result was one of the first accurate calculations of the size and shape of the Earth. Thirty-four of the points, in ten countries, were inscribed as a World Heritage site in 2005, and this is one of the Norwegian ones.
Read the complete STUOR-OIVI Stuorrahanoaivi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
STUOR-OIVI Stuorrahanoaivi is where the day begins. Next is BÄLJATZ-VAARA Baelljasvarri.
The Finnmark plateau is one of the emptiest places in Europe, and a surveyor in 1850 would have thought the same. Baelljasvarri, a modest hill in the Sami heartland of northern Norway, is one of the points that Friedrich Struve's expedition used for the great meridian arc, which ran from this Arctic country down to the Black Sea, and it is part of the World Heritage listing. The surveyors worked here in the 1840s, hauling instruments up bare hills and building cairns to sight from one to the next, in a climate that allows only a short working season. Summer was when they came, and with the midnight sun they could work all night.
Read the complete BÄLJATZ-VAARA Baelljasvarri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
BÄLJATZ-VAARA Baelljasvarri comes up about 60 km into the recorded legs. Next is LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka.
Alta calls itself the northern lights town, and it has some right to the claim. The little town on the Alta fjord, about a degree and a half south of the North Cape, has some of the clearest, most dependable aurora in Norway, and visitors travel from across the world in winter to stand in the cold and wait. In summer, the same sky never gets dark, and the midnight sun lights the fjord and the hills for weeks. The nearest large settlement to this stop on the plateau, Alta has about twelve thousand people, and it is thirty-six kilometres away.
Read the complete LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 157 km into the recorded legs you reach LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka. Next is LILLE-REIPAS Raipas.
Some of the most important monuments in the world are very small. Lille-Reipas, on a hill above the town of Alta in far northern Norway, is one of them. It is one of the points of the Struve Geodetic Arc, a chain of survey stations running from Hammerfest on the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea, about 2,800 kilometres, that was used in the nineteenth century to measure the size and shape of the Earth. UNESCO listed the surviving points in 2005, and a simple marker is all that stands at most of them.
Read the complete LILLE-REIPAS Raipas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
LILLE-REIPAS Raipas, about halfway. Next is back through LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka sits at 267 km, about halfway. Next is back through BÄLJATZ-VAARA Baelljasvarri.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete BÄLJATZ-VAARA Baelljasvarri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through BÄLJATZ-VAARA Baelljasvarri comes up about 340 km into the recorded legs. Next is STUOR-OIVI Stuorrahanoaivi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete STUOR-OIVI Stuorrahanoaivi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
STUOR-OIVI Stuorrahanoaivi closes the day.
STUOR-OIVI Stuorrahanoaivi → BÄLJATZ-VAARA Baelljasvarri is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
BÄLJATZ-VAARA Baelljasvarri → LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka is 97 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka → LILLE-REIPAS Raipas is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
LILLE-REIPAS Raipas → back through LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka → back through BÄLJATZ-VAARA Baelljasvarri is 97 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through BÄLJATZ-VAARA Baelljasvarri → STUOR-OIVI Stuorrahanoaivi is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.