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.
A 264 km round trip from Cisna - roughly 4 h 32 in the saddle. The stops in between: Havešová Primeval Forest, Vihorlat and back through Havešová Primeval Forest. It crosses from Poland into Slovakia - 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 75 km into the recorded legs. Next is Vihorlat.
Vihorlat is a range of old volcanoes in the far east of Slovakia, close to the Ukrainian border, and its higher slopes are covered with some of the last primeval beech forests in Europe. The trees here have grown, died and rotted without human interference for a very long time, and the forest is part of the transnational UNESCO site of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, first listed in 2007 with sites in Slovakia and Ukraine and later extended across much of the continent.
Read the complete Vihorlat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 133 km into the recorded legs you reach Vihorlat. 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, late in the day. 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.
Back at Udava. That is the ride.
Udava → Havešová Primeval Forest is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Havešová Primeval Forest → Vihorlat is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vihorlat → back through Havešová Primeval Forest is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Havešová Primeval Forest → Udava is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.