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 Samarkand it runs 285 km to Samarkand; allow about 4 h 15 of riding. The stops in between: Town of Ancient Penjikent, Gardani Khisor Settlement and back through Town of Ancient Penjikent. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Uzbekistan into Tajikistan - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Ulugh Beg was a strange kind of ruler. He was Timur's grandson, governor of Samarkand and then the whole realm, but his heart lay with the stars, and around 1420 he built an observatory on a hill north-east of the city that was among the finest in the world. The principal instrument was a gigantic meridian arc, a curved track set into a trench, with a radius of some forty metres, which let his astronomers measure the positions of stars with remarkable accuracy. The star catalogue they compiled, the Zij-i-Sultani, stayed a standard reference for over two centuries, and it corrected many errors in Ptolemy's.
Read the complete Ulugh Bek's Observatory write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ulugh Bek's Observatory is where the day begins. Next is Town of Ancient Penjikent.
On a dusty loess terrace just outside modern Panjakent, a few low mud ridges and pits are all that remain of one of the richest cities on the Silk Road. Fourteen centuries ago this was a Sogdian town of merchants, with two-storey houses, temples and walls covered in paintings of feasts, heroes and gods. The best frescoes went to the Hermitage in St Petersburg and to the Rudaki museum in town, so bring some imagination with you, but standing among the excavated streets with the Zeravshan glittering below, the scale of the place still lands.
Read the complete Town of Ancient Penjikent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Town of Ancient Penjikent comes up about 65 km into the recorded legs. Next is Gardani Khisor Settlement.
Khisor, or Hissar, is a word that turns up across Central Asia for a fortress, and Gardani Khisor is one of those lonely fortress-hills of the upper Zeravshan valley in Tajikistan. It stands a few kilometres from the river, west of the little town of Ayní, in country where the plain narrows and the Fan Mountains start to rear up to the south. I can tell you the setting better than the ruin, because there is not much published on the site and what stands is mostly broken walls and mounds, but the pattern is familiar. The Sogdians and their successors put small forts on rocky knolls to watch the river road and the side valleys, and the villagers below kept orchards and flocks within shouting distance of safety.
Read the complete Gardani Khisor Settlement write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 141 km into the recorded legs you reach Gardani Khisor Settlement. Next is back through Town of Ancient Penjikent.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Town of Ancient Penjikent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Town of Ancient Penjikent, late in the day. Next is Ulugh Bek's Observatory.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ulugh Bek's Observatory write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Ulugh Bek's Observatory. That is the ride.
Ulugh Bek's Observatory → Town of Ancient Penjikent is 65 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Town of Ancient Penjikent → Gardani Khisor Settlement is 76 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Gardani Khisor Settlement → back through Town of Ancient Penjikent is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Town of Ancient Penjikent → Ulugh Bek's Observatory is 65 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.