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 234 km round trip from Peterhof - roughly 3 h 25 in the saddle. It goes by way of Moskovskaya Road, Yukkovskaya Elevation, Koltushskoe Highway and back through Yukkovskaya Elevation. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 34 km this is A-121 Ladoga and Sortavala, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Everybody who comes to Peterhof heads for the fountains, the Grand Cascade and the gilded Samson tearing open the lion's jaws, and almost nobody walks the few hundred metres west into the English Park. That is their loss. Catherine the Great, who found Peter the Great's straight avenues and clipped hedges old-fashioned, had this park laid out from 1779 by the English gardener James Meader, in the natural landscape style then sweeping Europe: a chain of ponds, meadows, clumps of oak and lime, and paths that wander rather than march. It belongs to the World Heritage Site covering the historic centre of Saint Petersburg and its ring of palaces and estates.
Read the complete The English Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The English Park is where the day begins. Next is Moskovskaya Road.
Moskovsky Prospekt is the long, straight avenue that runs south from the heart of Saint Petersburg towards Moscow, and the road you are on is the oldest piece of the highway that links the two capitals. The first paved road between them was laid in the early nineteenth century, a line of stone and gravel across marsh and forest, and it still carries the traffic that gives the two cities their rhythm. The city that lines it is a very different Saint Petersburg from the one on the postcards: wide streets, heavy Stalinist buildings and long perspectives of tower blocks.
Read the complete Moskovskaya Road write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Moskovskaya Road comes up 36 km in. Next is Yukkovskaya Elevation.
The Karelian Isthmus, north of Saint Petersburg, was Finnish until 1940, and the place names still carry the echo: Pargolovo, Levashovo, Kuokkala, now called Repino. The Yukki Heights, or Yukkovskaya Elevation, are among the higher ground on this stretch, a ridge of sandy hills and pine forest scattered with summer houses. Many of the datchas date from the late nineteenth century, when wealthy Petersburgers began to build wooden villas with carved trim and glassed verandas among the pines.
Read the complete Yukkovskaya Elevation write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
71 km in you reach Yukkovskaya Elevation. Next is Koltushskoe Highway.
East of Saint Petersburg, the Koltushskoe highway runs through suburban sprawl and countryside toward the village of Koltushi, and it belongs to a memorial landscape that ties the whole region together: the Green Belt of Glory, a chain of monuments marking the defensive line around Leningrad during the siege of 1941 to 1944, when nearly nine hundred days of blockade cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Monuments, steles and memorials stand along the roads where the front lines and supply routes ran, including the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga.
Read the complete Koltushskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Koltushskoe Highway, about halfway. Next is back through Yukkovskaya Elevation.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yukkovskaya Elevation write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Yukkovskaya Elevation sits at 142 km, about halfway. Next is back through Moskovskaya Road.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Moskovskaya Road write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Moskovskaya Road comes up 178 km in. Next is The English Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The English Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The English Park closes the day.
The English Park → Moskovskaya Road is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Moskovskaya Road → Yukkovskaya Elevation is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yukkovskaya Elevation → Koltushskoe Highway is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Koltushskoe Highway → back through Yukkovskaya Elevation is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Yukkovskaya Elevation → back through Moskovskaya Road is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Moskovskaya Road → The English Park is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.