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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
849 km from Cisna to Cisna, about 14 h 39 of riding. On the way it passes Havešová Primeval Forest, Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley, Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan and back through Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley. It crosses Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 27 km this is Bieszczady Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Out where Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine meet, the eastern Carpathians fold into long, rounded ridges covered in beech forest so continuous that from a high point it looks like a green sea. Udava is one of the Slovak pieces of the UNESCO Primeval Beech Forests listing, protected within Poloniny National Park, the most easterly and least populated corner of the country. Here the forest has been left to its own rhythms for a very long time: giant trees, fallen trunks covered in fungi and moss, a dense understory of young growth wherever light breaks through. Wolves, lynx, brown bears and even European bison roam the area, and the dawn chorus in May is unforgettable.
Read the complete Udava write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Udava is where the day begins. Next is Havešová Primeval Forest.
In the far north-east of Slovakia, in the hills where Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine meet, the beech forests have never been cut. Havešová is one of these primeval forests, a steep slope of giant beech trees, some over forty metres tall and hundreds of years old, with fallen trunks decaying slowly on the forest floor and new trees rising in the gaps. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, inscribed in 2007 and extended since, and it lies within Poloniny National Park, one of the least visited and most remote national parks in Central Europe.
Read the complete Havešová Primeval Forest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Havešová Primeval Forest comes up about 133 km into the recorded legs. Next is Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley.
The Bieszczady are the wildest mountains in Poland, a corner where the country meets Ukraine and Slovakia and the forest has had decades to reclaim the land. The border ridge, running along the frontier, and the valley of the upper Solinka, below it, are part of the Polish section of the Carpathian primeval beech forests, protected within Bieszczady National Park. There are no roads up here: the ridge is reached on foot, and the forest, with its old beeches, fir and sycamore, is home to wolves, lynx, brown bears, and the European bison that were reintroduced to the area.
Read the complete Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 262 km into the recorded legs you reach Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley. Next is Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan.
Just below the pass that carries the road and railway from Uzhhorod into Galicia, the village of Uzhok keeps one of the finest wooden churches of the Carpathians. The tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael was built in the middle of the eighteenth century in the Boyko style, with three log chambers each topped by a tiered roof, rising in stages like a set of stacked hats, all covered in wooden shingles. It stands on a slope among old trees, with a separate bell tower nearby, and it is one of the sixteen wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region in Poland and Ukraine listed by UNESCO in 2013.
Read the complete Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan, about halfway. Next is back through Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley sits at 568 km, about halfway. Next is back through Havešová Primeval Forest.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Havešová Primeval Forest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Havešová Primeval Forest comes up about 716 km into the recorded legs. Next is Udava.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Udava write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Udava closes the day.
Udava → Havešová Primeval Forest is 133 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Havešová Primeval Forest → Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley is 128 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley → Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan is 163 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan → back through Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley is 163 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley → back through Havešová Primeval Forest is 128 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Havešová Primeval Forest → Udava is 133 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.