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.
282 km from Petrodvorets to Petrodvorets, about 4 h 36 of riding. On the way it passes Volkhonskoe Highway, Prioratsky Park, The Blocade Ring and back through Prioratsky Park. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 34 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Volkhonskoe Highway.
The Volkhonskoe Highway is not a scenic mountain road but a historic route on the southern edge of Saint Petersburg, running out from the city towards Gorelovo and the old road to Krasnoye Selo. It belongs to the network of eighteenth and nineteenth century highways that linked the capital with the imperial residences and military camps to the south and west, and it is included in the wider protected area of the historic centre of Saint Petersburg and its related monuments. What you see today is a mix of suburban growth, open fields and stretches of tree-lined road, with the ghosts of history underneath.
Read the complete Volkhonskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Volkhonskoe Highway comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Prioratsky Park.
Gatchina has a palace that most visitors head for first, but the building that makes riders and architects alike stop and stare is the little Priory Palace standing on the shore of Black Lake in Prioratsky Park. It looks like a small Gothic castle with a tower and a chapel, pale and slightly unreal against the water, and it is built of rammed earth. Nikolai Lvov, the architect and polymath, put it up around 1799 for Emperor Paul I, who had made himself Grand Master of the Knights of Malta and wanted a residence to offer the Order. The earth walls, compacted in layers and then plastered, have now survived more than two centuries of Russian winters, which is a better record than plenty of brick.
Read the complete Prioratsky Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 60 km into the recorded legs you reach Prioratsky Park. Next is The Blocade Ring.
The Blockade Ring stands on the south bank of the Neva, east of Saint Petersburg, close to where the Road of Life began its journey toward Lake Ladoga. It commemorates the siege of Leningrad, which lasted from September 1941 to January 1944, roughly 872 days, and the corridor that kept the city alive. When Shlisselburg fell in September 1941, the city was cut off by land, and the only lifeline ran across Ladoga, by boat in summer and over the ice in winter.
Read the complete The Blocade Ring write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Blocade Ring, about halfway. Next is back through Prioratsky Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Prioratsky Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Prioratsky Park sits at 181 km, about halfway. Next is back through Volkhonskoe Highway.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Volkhonskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Volkhonskoe Highway comes up about 253 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Palace and Park Ensemble «Sobstvennaya.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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 closes the day.
The Palace and Park Ensemble «Sobstvennaya → Volkhonskoe Highway is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Volkhonskoe Highway → Prioratsky Park is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Prioratsky Park → The Blocade Ring is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Blocade Ring → back through Prioratsky Park is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Prioratsky Park → back through Volkhonskoe Highway is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Volkhonskoe Highway → The Palace and Park Ensemble «Sobstvennaya is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.