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 359 km round trip from Pushkin - roughly 5 h 43 in the saddle. It goes by way of The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag, Southern battery No 2, The I.Repin Estate «The Penates» and Fort «Krasnaya Gorka». The line favours views over speed.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 35 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go — slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
For 34 km this is Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Between 1941 and 1944 Tsarskoye Selo lay behind German lines, and when the Red Army came back the Catherine Palace was a shell. The Amber Room's panels had vanished, the park trees had been cut for firewood, and most of the interiors were ash. The restoration that followed, and the new Amber Room that finally reopened in 2003, make this one of the most remarkable rebuilding jobs in Europe. The town, now called Pushkin after the poet who studied at its Lyceum, is part of the UNESCO listing for the historic centre of Saint Petersburg, and the ensemble of palaces, pavilions and parks around it is the reason to come.
Read the complete The Palace and Park Ensembles of the Town write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Palace and Park Ensembles of the Town is where the day begins. Next is The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag.
Ropsha is one of those places where the scenery is gentle and the history is anything but. The village sits on the low Izhora Upland southwest of St Petersburg, between Krasnoe Selo and the coast road at Lomonosov, and the palace that gives the estate its name looks down over a chain of spring-fed ponds and a slow, wooded park. It was here, in July 1762, that the freshly deposed Emperor Peter III was held after his wife Catherine seized the throne, and here that he died a few days later under circumstances nobody at court cared to explain. Catherine became "the Great"; Ropsha became a footnote with a chill on it.
Read the complete The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag comes up 39 km in. Next is Southern battery No 2.
Kotlin Island sits in the middle of the Gulf of Finland like a cork in a bottle, and Peter the Great knew it. He seized this stretch of coast from Sweden in 1703 and almost at once began fortifying the island to guard the new capital, Saint Petersburg, which lay at the head of the gulf. Over the next two centuries a ring of forts and batteries grew up on islands, shoals and the shore, and Kronstadt became the home port of the Baltic Fleet. The batteries named in these ride titles, Southern and Northern, belong to that defensive system.
Read the complete Southern battery No 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
77 km in you reach Southern battery No 2. Next is The I.Repin Estate «The Penates», 39 km on.
In 1903 the painter Ilya Repin, the most famous Russian artist of his day, moved to a wooden house in the village of Kuokkala on the Gulf of Finland, which he named the Penates, after the Roman household gods. He lived and worked there until his death in 1930, and after Finnish independence in 1917, he found himself living abroad, refusing invitations to return to the Soviet Union. The house, with its glass-roofed studio and eccentric architecture, was destroyed in the Second World War and rebuilt afterwards, and it is now a museum with many of his paintings and possessions.
Read the complete The I.Repin Estate «The Penates» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The I.Repin Estate «The Penates», about halfway. Next is Fort «Krasnaya Gorka».
On the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, near the village of Lebyazhye, the remains of Fort Krasnaya Gorka sit among pine woods and sand dunes. The fort was built in the years before the First World War as part of a chain of coastal defences protecting the approaches to St Petersburg, with heavy guns facing the sea and their counterparts on the opposite shore at Ino, in what was then the Grand Duchy of Finland. Together, the forts were designed to close the gulf to an enemy fleet.
Read the complete Fort «Krasnaya Gorka» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort «Krasnaya Gorka» sits at 154 km, about halfway. Next is back through The I.Repin Estate «The Penates», 39 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The I.Repin Estate «The Penates» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The I.Repin Estate «The Penates» comes up 193 km in. Next is back through Southern battery No 2.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Southern battery No 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
231 km in you reach back through Southern battery No 2. Next is back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag, late in the day. Next is The Palace and Park Ensembles of the Town.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Palace and Park Ensembles of the Town write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 359 km.
The Palace and Park Ensembles of the Town → The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag → Southern battery No 2 is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Southern battery No 2 → The I.Repin Estate «The Penates» is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The I.Repin Estate «The Penates» → Fort «Krasnaya Gorka» is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort «Krasnaya Gorka» → back through The I.Repin Estate «The Penates» is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The I.Repin Estate «The Penates» → back through Southern battery No 2 is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Southern battery No 2 → back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag → The Palace and Park Ensembles of the Town is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.