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.
401 km from Peterhof to Peterhof, about 6 h 00 of riding. It goes by way of Tolbukhin Lighthouse on Tolbukhin Island, Yukkovskaya Elevation, Koltushskoe Highway and Lindulovskaya Roshcha. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 34 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 48 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.
South-west of Saint Petersburg, along the shore of the Gulf of Finland, the land is a continuous belt of imperial estates. Peterhof is the best known, with its gilded fountains and long terraces, but behind it and around it is a countryside of parks, dachas and country palaces built by the imperial family and the aristocracy from the eighteenth century onward. Znamenka was one of these. The name comes from the Znamenie, the Sign, and the estate had a palace and a park that served as a summer residence, laid out in the landscape style that was fashionable in the nineteenth century.
Read the complete The Palace and Park of the Znamenskaya Dat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Palace and Park of the Znamenskaya Dat is where the day begins. Next is Tolbukhin Lighthouse on Tolbukhin Island.
Ships have been guided by a light on Tolbukhin island for about three centuries, and it is one of those places that makes more sense on a chart than on a road. The island lies in the Gulf of Finland, south-west of Kronstadt and out in the shallow channel that leads to Saint Petersburg, and the lighthouse on it marks the southern passage into the Neva Bay. The surrounding waters are shallow, and in the grey light of autumn the sea and the sky merge into a single pale band.
Read the complete Tolbukhin Lighthouse on Tolbukhin Island write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tolbukhin Lighthouse on Tolbukhin Island comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 80 km into the recorded legs 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 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 sits at 208 km, about halfway. Next is back through Koltushskoe Highway.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Koltushskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Koltushskoe Highway comes up about 291 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 323 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Yukkovskaya Elevation. Next is back through Tolbukhin Lighthouse on Tolbukhin Island.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Palace and Park of the Znamenskaya Dat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tolbukhin Lighthouse on Tolbukhin Island, late in the day. Next is The Palace and Park of the Znamenskaya Dat.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Palace and Park of the Znamenskaya Dat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 415 km.
The Palace and Park of the Znamenskaya Dat → Tolbukhin Lighthouse on Tolbukhin Island is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tolbukhin Lighthouse on Tolbukhin Island → Yukkovskaya Elevation is 41 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 → Lindulovskaya Roshcha is 86 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Lindulovskaya Roshcha → back through Koltushskoe Highway is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Koltushskoe Highway → back through Yukkovskaya Elevation is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Yukkovskaya Elevation → Back to The Palace and Park of the Znamenskaya Dat is 77 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.