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.
A 628 km round trip from Snina - roughly 6 h in the saddle. On the way it passes Udava, Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley, Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch and Bodruzal. It crosses from Slovakia into Poland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 42 km this is Bieszczady Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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.
Vihorlat is where the day begins. Next is Udava.
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 comes up about 146 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 188 km into the recorded legs you reach Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley. Next is Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch.
The wooden church of Saint Michael the Archangel in Turzańsk stands on a gentle slope in the foothills of the Bieszczady mountains, in the far southeast of Poland, near the borders with Slovakia and Ukraine, with its onion domes rising above the trees. It was built in the early nineteenth century by the Lemko or Boyko communities, the Ruthenian highlanders who once lived in these mountains, and it is one of the wooden tserkvas of the Polish and Ukrainian Carpathian region listed by UNESCO in 2013. Inside, an iconostasis of painted icons separates the nave from the sanctuary, and the church is still used for Orthodox services.
Read the complete Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch, about halfway. Next is Bodruzal.
Bodružal is a tiny Rusyn village in the far northeast of Slovakia, close to the Polish border, with a few dozen houses scattered along a valley among the forested hills of the Low Beskids. What brings people here is its wooden church of St Nicholas, built in 1658, a three-domed Greek Catholic church with shingled walls and onion-shaped towers stepping up from east to west. It is one of the eight churches in the UNESCO listing of the wooden churches of the Slovak part of the Carpathian mountain area, and it is a perfect example of the Lemko style: compact, harmonious and rooted in its landscape. Inside, the iconostasis glows with painted saints.
Read the complete Bodruzal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bodružal sits at 174 km, about halfway. Next is back through Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch comes up about 373 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 442 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley. Next is back through 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 through Udava, late in the day. Next is Vihorlat.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vihorlat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 628 km.
Vihorlat → Udava is 146 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Udava → Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley → Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch → Bodruzal is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bodružal → back through Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch → back through Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley → back through Udava is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Udava → Vihorlat is 147 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.