CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 249 km round trip from Vobkent Shahri - roughly 4 h 04 in the saddle. The stops in between: Rabati Malik Sardoba, Dabusiya Settlement and back through Rabati Malik Sardoba. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Vobkent's minaret is a tall brick finger rising out of a small Uzbek town on the edge of the Bukhara oasis. It was built in the late twelfth century, in the same tradition as the more famous Kalyan minaret in Bukhara, which it predates in style by a few years and rivals in elegance. Standing nearly forty metres high, it is made entirely of fired brick laid in bands of geometric patterns, with a tapering shaft and a lantern top. Up close, the craftsmanship is startling: no two courses seem quite the same.
Read the complete Vobkent Minaret write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vobkent Minaret is where the day begins. Next is Rabati Malik Sardoba.
Halfway between Samarkand and Bukhara, the old caravan road crosses a stretch of steppe that is flat, dry and almost empty, and in the eleventh century someone decided that a traveller crossing it deserved a proper stopping place. Rabati Malik, the Rabat of the King, was built in the 1070s by a Karakhanid ruler named Shams al-Mulk Nasr, on one of the main branches of the Silk Road. The caravanserai itself is now mostly collapsed, and what remains is a tall brick entrance portal, ornamented with carved terracotta, standing alone in the plain like the front of a theatre set.
Read the complete Rabati Malik Sardoba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rabati Malik Sardoba comes up 73 km in. Next is Dabusiya Settlement.
Halfway along the old road from Samarkand to Bukhara, where the Zeravshan valley widens into irrigated plain, there is a ruined town called Dabusiya. The Sogdians founded it, and it grew into a staging post on the Silk Road, where caravans paused for water, fodder and trade. The Arabs reached it in the early eighth century and the town held out and changed hands as the region went through conquest and conversion. By the Middle Ages it was a modest brick town with a citadel, a mosque and workshops. The Mongols and later shifts in the river sealed its decline.
Read the complete Dabusiya Settlement write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
147 km in you reach Dabusiya Settlement. Next is back through Rabati Malik Sardoba.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rabati Malik Sardoba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rabati Malik Sardoba, late in the day. Next is Vobkent Minaret.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vobkent Minaret write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Vobkent Minaret. That is the ride.
Vobkent Minaret → Rabati Malik Sardoba is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Rabati Malik Sardoba → Dabusiya Settlement is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Dabusiya Settlement → back through Rabati Malik Sardoba is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Rabati Malik Sardoba → Vobkent Minaret is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.