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.
170 km from Pushkin to Pushkin, about 3 h 15 of riding. It goes by way of Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina, Izhorsky Bench, The Palace and Park Ensemble «Sobstvennaya and back through Izhorsky Bench. The line favours views over speed.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 25 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
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.
The Babolovsky Park is where the day begins. Next is Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina.
Gatchina is the kind of town you reach by flat, straight Ingrian roads, and the first impression is of birch, pine and wide skies rather than anything dramatic. Forty-odd kilometres south-west of St Petersburg, it sits on land that was once swampy and sparsely settled, until the eighteenth century decided otherwise. Catherine the Great gave the estate to her favourite Grigory Orlov, and the architect Antonio Rinaldi built him a severe, castle-like palace of local limestone beside a lake. After Orlov died it passed to her son Paul, who made it his private kingdom, drilled his soldiers on the parade ground and added the odd fortress-style touches that suited his nature.
Read the complete Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 55 km into the recorded legs you reach Izhorsky Bench. Next is The Palace and Park Ensemble «Sobstvennaya.
Peterhof is the one everyone has seen in photographs, with the golden statue of Samson tearing open a lion's jaws and the long canal running down to the Gulf of Finland. The Sobstvennaya Dacha, the Tsar's Own Dacha, is a quieter corner of the same ensemble, tucked into the parkland on the southern shore of the gulf. The ground here is the Izhorsky bench, a limestone shelf running east to west with a sudden step down toward the water.
Read the complete The Palace and Park Ensemble «Sobstvennaya write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Palace and Park Ensemble «Sobstvennaya, 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 sits at 109 km, about halfway. Next is back through Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina comes up about 140 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
The Babolovsky Park closes the day.
The Babolovsky Park → Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina → Izhorsky Bench is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Izhorsky Bench → The Palace and Park Ensemble «Sobstvennaya is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Palace and Park Ensemble «Sobstvennaya → back through Izhorsky Bench is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Izhorsky Bench → back through Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina → The Babolovsky Park is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.