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.
From Sosnovaya Polyana it runs 372 km to Sosnovaya Polyana; allow about 5 h 59 of riding. It goes by way of The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo, The Road of Life and back through The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 71 km this is Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Not every historic road is a pretty one, and the Tallinn highway on the south-western edge of St Petersburg is not trying to win prizes for charm. It is, however, one of the old imperial routes out of the capital, the road toward Narva and Reval, today's Tallinn, and as such it forms part of the UNESCO listing of the historic centre of St Petersburg and its related monuments, which includes the network of roads tying the city to its palaces and estates. Along it, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries planted suburban residences, military camps and post stations.
Read the complete Tallinskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tallinskoe Highway is where the day begins. Next is The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo.
Anna Akhmatova is buried here. The cemetery of Komarovo is a small, quiet graveyard among pines on the Karelian Isthmus, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland about forty kilometres north-west of Saint Petersburg, and her grave, a simple stone with a cross, is the one that people come to find. She died in 1966, and loved the little cottage she was given in the village, which she called her Booth. The cemetery also holds the grave of the scholar Dmitry Likhachev, and a scattering of writers, artists and scientists who spent their summers in this dacha colony, once reserved for the Soviet cultural elite.
Read the complete The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo comes up about 71 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Road of Life.
On the south-eastern shore of Lake Ladoga, east of Saint Petersburg, a road ends at the water. This is the start of the Road of Life, the supply route across the ice that kept Leningrad alive during the siege of 1941 to 1944. The siege lasted 872 days, from September 1941 to January 1944, and it cut the city off from nearly everything except the lake. In the first winter, when Ladoga froze, trucks and horse-drawn sledges began to cross the ice with food and fuel, and on the return journey they carried out women, children and the sick. Lorries broke through the ice, and bombing and artillery attacked the route, but it kept going.
Read the complete The Road of Life write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 193 km into the recorded legs you reach The Road of Life. Next is back through The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo, late in the day. Next is Tallinskoe Highway.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tallinskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Tallinskoe Highway. That is the ride.
Tallinskoe Highway → The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo → The Road of Life is 122 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Road of Life → back through The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo is 108 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo → Tallinskoe Highway is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.