Ukraine maps, which ones?

Maps arrived so some photos as requested
 

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Auto-revaluation is the invention of the devil.

Back on topic, my first Ukrainian map has arrived. 1 to one million scale.

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It’s German, so probably left over from 1941.
 
Turkey looks like a Michelin map should
The others, as expected
 

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I won’t be wanting real goat track stuff but something with enough detail to show ‘reasonable’ roads (they don’t have to be billiard table smooth) would be great.

From experience, there are only one or two roads that don’t look like they’ve been carpet bombed, but that’s all part of the charm.
Most roads that look like wide A roads on a map, tend to be poorly tarmaced, with mountainous tramlines caused by massive ancient trucks.
The only roads that were half decent , was the motorway from Lviv to Kiev, and the road out of Ukraine into Slovakia, which provided some fantastic riding through the mountains.
If you are on Facebook, have a look for my blog on my trip in 2018. Search for “Don’t come back”
Cheers
Dave
 
Auto-revaluation is the invention of the devil.

Back on topic, my first Ukrainian map has arrived. 1 to one million scale.

0c698a40bf6b72760c6f04c68390eeb0.jpg


It’s German, so probably left over from 1941.

Being German would explain the spellings of names, it still shows Crimea as being Ukrainian.
 
From experience, there are only one or two roads that don’t look like they’ve been carpet bombed, but that’s all part of the charm.
Most roads that look like wide A roads on a map, tend to be poorly tarmaced, with mountainous tramlines caused by massive ancient trucks.

Exactly my experience, although as a psssenger only. Daily achievable distances are going to be very much lower than other European countries, I think the Western Ukrainians have seem the enormous improvements in Poland and Bulgaria and want some of that. Kiev is not representative of the country.

It will be an adventure
 
Lots of pictures I see from the Ukraine, show bods riding around on non-GS type bikes, all reasonably modern. These include a girl on a Z1100R, which (whilst not modern) is certainly not a GS or similar. She writes a sort of video blog about her awesome adventures. I won’t be buying a Ural, just to go.

The American author of the book, The Ravine, has been kind enough to fill in some details for me about the village of Miropol, which is (not surprisingly) not on any tourist agenda that I know of. It was reading her book (and a long held desire to go to see Kiev) that sparked the idea of going to the Ukraine in the first place. The maps are turning up, the Rough Guide book is downloaded to iBooks and a rough route there and back has been hacked out. Roll on 2022.

Next week, I will be asking what the weather will be like on a specific day in early autumn 2022. I’ll also be asking (though demanding is more often better) if anyone can recommend things to see and do along the way, between Calais and Kiev and, of course, along a different way back, too. Biker friendly cafes, all along the route, are a must have, so get them ready. I’ve been thinking of taking a 35 kg chain and 20 kg padlock, anyone have any experience, beyond dropping one (or both) on their foot?
 
Interesting, I didn't know that. But can you pronounce it like a local :D

If you don't fancy running the most direct route back. Take a loop through the north of Poland. Through their lake district and the coastal areas. Gdansk is one of my favourite cities. I have done a write up somewhere but there is too much to explore that I won't even be scratching the surface.
 
After several litres of the local rocket fuel, I’ll be fluid.... I mean, fluent.

It’s a toss-up whether I come back thro’ the north of Poland or cut south after Lviv and maybe Przemyśl, via Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Germany and Luxembourg.

I might leave northern Poland, as I want to go back to the German Baltic coast, then maybe continue on into Poland from there. I have been to St Petersburg (when it was still, Leningrad) and that is back on a list. Just got to live long enough, I guess.
 
Not a bad set.

The Marco Polo map ‘Russia, Belarus, Ukraine’ has part at a scale of 1:10,000,000. Bugger me, it’s a big area to travel through..... but it does go right out to beyond Moscow. I’ll only need that if I borrow Nutty’s GPS.

I particularly like the Russian printed map, second from the top, left side.

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Good set.

Just to add to the maps, you could also get a ferry from Ukraine to Georgia and come back via Turkey.
 
German maps, French maps and a Russian map. Not one British company bangs out a map. Indicative of the sorry state our so called, Great Britain has sunk into.
 
One more and that’s the lot....

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I will say, an excellent service from Stamfords, who (whilst their normally vast range of global maps is a bit depleted at the moment) remain very efficient. Not as quick as Amazon, but who is.

I like the ‘Touristical highlights’ expression, whatever they are.
 
Carpathian mountains looks a great area, I imagine well worth a visit. Suspect Cupid might be busier in the cities though.

Always happy to support a business like Stanfords especially when you can walk in and browse. There used to be one called The Travel Bookshop (as far as I remember) which was also good. They had some second hand books and I once spent about an hour looking at a first edition Seven Pillars but eventually walked away.
 
This in not a bad (or at least better than most) set of videos. Yep, some of the road positioning is shite, we all know that. All I was interested in was the scenery and roughly where they went. By chance, their outwards route is not dissimilar to my idea of a return route. Theirs was an organised third party jaunt, mine will be off my own bat, though it’s good to know that the days I had set aside (roughly 25 to 30) from London and back, looks about right. I too want to stop to see some things and realised already that the roads are perhaps ‘interesting’ surface wise. I’ve ridden in Turkey, Morocco and Romania, so it isn’t entirely unexpected.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Uxfpzr8T7LQ" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This, from a German motorcycle magazine, goes up and across the Ukraine. It translates OK and is mostly interesting for its pictures. He ain’t riding an ‘Adventure’ GS, which is as telling as anything else.

https://motorrad-und-touren.de/touren/motorradreisen-2017/ukraine-september-2017

One of the great things about the internet and Google, is the amount of good stuff (mixed in with absolute garbage) there is out there. I like just surfing about and saving useful ideas. It’s all free, after all.
 
What steed of awesomeness ,were you thinking to take on this superb sounding jaunt ?
In view of the fact that the road qualities are likely to be “ mixed “
 


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