Why this ride
The stops in between: Rožok, Ruská Bystrá and back through Rožok. It crosses Poland, Ukraine and Slovakia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Stuzhytsia - Uzhok and Ruská Bystrá
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 437 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 7 h 32
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Scenic road chapters
Bieszczady Loop
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 20 km this is Bieszczady Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 20 km
- Named road
- Bieszczady Loop
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Stuzhytsia - Uzhok
Where the Bieszczady mountains of Poland meet Slovakia and Ukraine, there is a stretch of forest that has hardly been touched. The Stuzhytsia-Uzhok area, on the Ukrainian side of the watershed near the Uzhok pass, is one component of the Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians, a World Heritage group that spans several countries and continues into the Polish Bieszczady and the Slovak Poloniny. The trees here are mostly beech, with fir and sycamore, and in the oldest stands, some of the trunks are huge, with fallen logs lying where they dropped and rotting into the soil, a kind of forest that has almost vanished from Europe. The wildlife is what you might expect from such a place: brown bears, wolves, lynx, and the European bison, which was reintroduced to the Bieszczady in the 1960s.
Read the complete Stuzhytsia - Uzhok write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Stuzhytsia - Uzhok is where the day begins. Next is Rožok.
2. Rožok
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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Rožok comes up about 98 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ruská Bystrá.
3. 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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 221 km into the recorded legs you reach Ruská Bystrá. Next is back through Rožok.
4. back through Rožok
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rožok write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Rožok, late in the day. Next is Stuzhytsia - Uzhok.
5. Stuzhytsia - Uzhok
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stuzhytsia - Uzhok write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Stuzhytsia - Uzhok. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Stuzhytsia - Uzhok to Rožok
Stuzhytsia - Uzhok → Rožok is 98 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rožok to Ruská Bystrá
Rožok → Ruská Bystrá is 123 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ruská Bystrá to back through Rožok
Ruská Bystrá → back through Rožok is 123 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rožok to Stuzhytsia - Uzhok
back through Rožok → Stuzhytsia - Uzhok is 98 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.