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 Kronstadt it runs 324 km to Kronstadt; allow about 5 h 25 of riding. On the way it passes Lindulovskaya Roshcha, The E.I.Lopukhina's, Koltushskoe Highway and back through The E.I.Lopukhina's. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 36 km this is A-121 Ladoga and Sortavala, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Stand on the shore anywhere near Kronstadt and you are looking at a dredged highway hidden under the water. The Maritime Channel, the Sea Canal of St Petersburg, was cut through the shallow Neva Bay in the late nineteenth century, opening in 1885, so that large ships could reach the city's port directly instead of unloading at Kronstadt. Before it existed, the bay was too shallow for anything but small vessels, and cargo had to be transferred to lighters, a slow and expensive business. The channel runs for around thirty kilometres from the open gulf to the mouth of the Neva, marked by buoys and lights, and it remains the main artery for ships entering the city.
Read the complete The Maritime Channel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Maritime Channel is where the day begins. Next is Lindulovskaya Roshcha.
Out on the Karelian Isthmus, in a landscape of pine, birch and sandy soil, stands a grove of larches that looks entirely out of place. The Lindulovskaya Grove was planted in 1738 by an admiral, Fyodor Soimonov, who wanted to grow shipbuilding timber for the Russian navy, and he chose Siberian larch, a durable and rot-resistant wood. Some of the trees are nearly three centuries old and very tall, and the grove is protected as a natural monument, the oldest planted larch forest in Russia. Walking among the trunks, with their orange-grey bark, and the soft light filtering through the needles, is surprisingly moving.
Read the complete Lindulovskaya Roshcha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lindulovskaya Roshcha comes up about 78 km into the recorded legs. Next is The E.I.Lopukhina's, 42 km on.
North of Saint Petersburg's centre, the city thins out into a mix of suburbs, dachas, pine woods and the long marshy shores of the Karelian Isthmus.
Read the complete The E.I.Lopukhina's write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 138 km into the recorded legs you reach The E.I.Lopukhina's. 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 The E.I.Lopukhina's, 42 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The E.I.Lopukhina's write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The E.I.Lopukhina's sits at 170 km, about halfway. Next is back through Lindulovskaya Roshcha.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lindulovskaya Roshcha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Lindulovskaya Roshcha comes up about 258 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Maritime Channel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Maritime Channel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Maritime Channel closes the day.
The Maritime Channel → Lindulovskaya Roshcha is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lindulovskaya Roshcha → The E.I.Lopukhina's is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The E.I.Lopukhina's → Koltushskoe Highway is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Koltushskoe Highway → back through The E.I.Lopukhina's is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The E.I.Lopukhina's → back through Lindulovskaya Roshcha is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lindulovskaya Roshcha → The Maritime Channel is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.