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 Pushkin it runs 355 km to Pushkin; allow about 4 h 52 of riding. The stops in between: Northern battery No. 3, The Road of Life and back through Northern battery No. 3. 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 61 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
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 Northern battery No. 3, 77 km on.
Kotlin Island is only about twelve kilometres long and rarely more than a kilometre or two wide, and every metre of its northern shore was given over to guns. A numbered battery like this one is the sort of thing that appears on a map as a dull label and turns out to be a lump of overgrown concrete and earth, with ammunition stores half buried in the ground and a view across a shallow, pewter-coloured sea. Kronstadt, four or five kilometres away, was founded by Peter the Great in the first years of the eighteenth century to keep Swedish ships out of the new capital's approaches, and the fortifications grew in layers for the next two hundred years.
Read the complete Northern battery No. 3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Northern battery No. 3 comes up about 74 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Road of Life.
On the south-eastern shore of Lake Ladoga, east of Saint Petersburg, a road ends at the water. This is the start of the Road of Life, the supply route across the ice that kept Leningrad alive during the siege of 1941 to 1944. The siege lasted 872 days, from September 1941 to January 1944, and it cut the city off from nearly everything except the lake. In the first winter, when Ladoga froze, trucks and horse-drawn sledges began to cross the ice with food and fuel, and on the return journey they carried out women, children and the sick. Lorries broke through the ice, and bombing and artillery attacked the route, but it kept going.
Read the complete The Road of Life write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 194 km into the recorded legs you reach The Road of Life. Next is back through Northern battery No. 3, 77 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Northern battery No. 3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Northern battery No. 3, 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.
Back at The Palace and Park Ensembles of the Town. That is the ride.
The Palace and Park Ensembles of the Town → Northern battery No. 3 is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Northern battery No. 3 → The Road of Life is 120 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Road of Life → back through Northern battery No. 3 is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Northern battery No. 3 → The Palace and Park Ensembles of the Town is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.