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.
532 km from Svalyava to Svalyava, about 13 h 58 of riding. On the way it passes Synevyr - Vilshany, Synevyr - Strymba, Uholka - Shyrikyi Luh and Synevyr - Darvaika. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Transcarpathia is the tucked-away corner of Ukraine, on the far side of the mountains from the rest of the country, and it feels like it. The region, known in Ukrainian as Zakarpattia, was part of Hungary for a thousand years, and later of Czechoslovakia, before the Soviet Union took it in 1945, so the villages mix Ukrainian, Hungarian, Romanian and Rusyn traditions. The Zacharovanyi Krai, the Enchanted Land, is a nature park in the hills near the town of Irshava, a country of beech and oak forest, orchards, and folds of low mountains on the edge of the Carpathian foothills.
Read the complete Zacharovanyi Krai - Irshavka write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Zacharovanyi Krai - Irshavka is where the day begins. Next is Synevyr - Vilshany.
Lake Synevyr is the largest mountain lake in the Ukrainian Carpathians, a dark, deep pool surrounded by spruce forest at about a thousand metres, formed thousands of years ago when a landslide blocked a valley. It is called the sea eye, and on a calm day, it reflects the trees and the sky like a mirror. A sad legend tells of a count's daughter, Syn, who fell in love with a shepherd, Vyr; the count had the young man killed, and the girl wept so much that her tears formed the lake. The lake is the centrepiece of the Synevyr National Park, which protects a large area of old forests in Zakarpattia, and nearby there is a rehabilitation centre for brown bears rescued from captivity, where you can see them in large forest enclosures.
Read the complete Synevyr - Vilshany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Synevyr - Vilshany comes up about 84 km into the recorded legs. Next is Synevyr - Strymba.
In the Carpathian mountains of Transcarpathia, in western Ukraine, the forests around Synevyr include some of the last remaining primeval beech forests in Europe, part of the transnational World Heritage Site of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe. Strymba is one of the protected forest areas, in the hills near the village of Kolochava, where beech trees grow old and die without human interference, creating a rich habitat for fungi, insects, birds and animals.
Read the complete Synevyr - Strymba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 102 km into the recorded legs you reach Synevyr - Strymba. Next is Uholka - Shyrikyi Luh.
The Uholka and Shyrokyi Luh massif, in the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve of western Ukraine, is the largest tract of virgin beech forest in Europe. It lies in the upper valley of the Tisza, in Zakarpattia, among steep slopes between roughly four hundred and twelve hundred metres, and it forms a key part of the UNESCO listing for the primeval beech forests of the Carpathians and other regions of Europe, inscribed in 2007. Here the trees have never been logged, so the forest has the structure that old Europe once had: giant trunks, fallen and rotting wood, moss, fungi, and gaps where a tree has died and light floods in.
Read the complete Uholka - Shyrikyi Luh write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Uholka - Shyrikyi Luh, about halfway. Next is Synevyr - Darvaika.
Lake Synevyr is the largest lake in the Ukrainian Carpathians, a deep, dark mountain lake at about a thousand metres, ringed by spruce forest and fed by springs. It sits in the Synevyr National Nature Park, in Zakarpattia, and the Darvaika forest to which the label refers is a part of the park's old beech woods, that UNESCO lists among the old beech woods of the Carpathians. The lake owes its name to a legend: a count named Shenborn had a daughter, Synya, who fell in love with a shepherd called Vyr, and when the count killed him, her tears made the lake, while the island in the middle is the shepherd's grave.
Read the complete Synevyr - Darvaika write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Synevyr - Darvaika sits at 131 km, about halfway. Next is back through Uholka - Shyrikyi Luh.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Uholka - Shyrikyi Luh write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Uholka - Shyrikyi Luh comes up about 348 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Synevyr - Strymba.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Synevyr - Strymba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 430 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Synevyr - Strymba. Next is back through Synevyr - Vilshany.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Synevyr - Vilshany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Synevyr - Vilshany, late in the day. Next is Zacharovanyi Krai - Irshavka.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zacharovanyi Krai - Irshavka write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 532 km.
Zacharovanyi Krai - Irshavka → Synevyr - Vilshany is 84 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Synevyr - Vilshany → Synevyr - Strymba is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Synevyr - Strymba → Uholka - Shyrikyi Luh is 82 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Uholka - Shyrikyi Luh → Synevyr - Darvaika is 82 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Synevyr - Darvaika → back through Uholka - Shyrikyi Luh is 82 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Uholka - Shyrikyi Luh → back through Synevyr - Strymba is 82 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Synevyr - Strymba → back through Synevyr - Vilshany is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Synevyr - Vilshany → Zacharovanyi Krai - Irshavka is 84 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.