Cycling trip to Khortytsia

I wanted to ride a bike, but not around Dnipropetrovsk, but somewhere far away. I immediately thought about Khortytsia – I was there once, but I didn’t have time to explore this giant island properly. As it turned out, doing this on a bicycle is also not easy.

The distance is just right for me (Google showed 80 kilometers, but you can safely add another 20 to its measurements). The day before the trip I drove with GPS in my phone and measured my speed. I was glad: it turned out to be over 20 km/h, so I should get to Khortytsia in 5 hours.

During the two days of preparation, the following work was done on the bike:

• The rear wheel, which was gradually lowering pressure, was sealed.
• The long-broken front reflector was found and securely taped to the handlebar.
• Homemade fishing rod case is used as a bag and mounted on a bicycle frame.
• An improvised trunk is made: a small board is inserted under the seat so that the backpack rests on it when riding. This idea came to me after reading report on a trip to Khortytsia guys from the Avangard.

On August 25, at 7:10 am, I left home and headed towards Zaporizhzhya Highway. The weather is good, there is no wind, but there are already many cars in the city. At 7:45 I am at the sign of leaving Dnipropetrovsk, reset the speed and distance on the navigator and move forward.

The condition of the route is very deplorable. Dirty and broken, in places just overgrown with grass. But this has its plus – few people want to go through this highway: not many cars, truckers included.

I quickly pedal for an hour and a half and suddenly I notice that I’m riding on the middle front sprocket! How could I not notice it! I’m switching. The road is very smooth, it even seems that you are going down the slope. I remember only two climbs all the way, which compensates for the unsatisfactory quality of the road surface. And a homemade trunk helps a lot – it seems that there is no backpack over my shoulders. Without this board under the seat, the road would be much more difficult.

During short breaks I eat bananas and drink water, although I don’t want to drink much yet. It turned out that the end of the trunk tree slightly scratches the mat, which is attached to the bottom of the backpack. I tie a rag over the sharp edge.

I drive to the Zaporozhye region, a few kilometers after I make a stop. A rag from the trunk disappeared somewhere along the way. Now I wrap it in a plastic bag.
After a snack, I go on. The sun is already scorching hard, it’s harder to ride.

Twenty kilometers from Zaporizhia I am resting at a bus stop near the village of Dniprovi Khvili. And although only 89 people live in this village, they have such a good station:

It is all lined with mosaic, from which someone carefully rips off all the ads:

Sitting at the stop you can see the approaching transport:

Similar stops occurred also after that. Here is one near the village of Petropil:

Eventually I get to Zaporizhia, but then I go not to Khortytsia, but a little sideways – to the famous Zaporizhia oak. Its approximate minimum age is 700 years. Due to old age, as well as the lack of necessary care, the oak has dried up. It happened at the end of the last century.

The height of the oak is 36 meters, the girth of the body is 6.5 meters. I have never seen such a giant tree.

Oak branches are supported by special steel structures:

Time – 12 AM. I stop recording the route on the phone. Now I’m going to Khortytsia.

View from the bridge to Khortytsia (right) and DniproHES:

You can go down to the rocky shores of the island by small paths:

Turning behind the bridge just to the left, I took the Tarasova Trail, created in honor of Taras Shevchenko’s visit to the island in 1843. At the end of the trail, a Ukrainian flag is hoisted over the entire island.

I make another stop and go on – past the recently built model of the Zaporozhian Sich.

An ancient sanctuary dating back 4,000 years has been excavated and restored on the island. It is two circles made of stones, with altars in the middle:

Then I turned onto a path that led me into a dead end. But I did not want to go back, so grabbing the bike in my hands, I began to climb up the slope through the thickets of young acacias, which were greatly scratching my hands. Going up, I saw a pillar with a sign that said that there used to be a Cossack cemetery on this site. Wow, I carried away.

The road took a lot of energy, and I decided to go back by train. Going to the station Zaporizhzhya Sich, which is located directly on the island, I learned that you can go to Dnipropetrovsk only tomorrow morning, and with a change in Vilnyansk. What can I do, the train schedule has been cut, and this is the only option.

In the meantime, I decided to visit the tourist beach. I did not manage to find it immediately. For about half an hour I tried to get to the shore by different roads, but they all led not there. But I still found the right path, and went down the bike on the steep bank, and lay down to rest on the sand.

I spent two hours in the shade, looked at the time and realized that it would soon get dark, I need to find a place to spend the night. I returned to the main road through Khortytsia and drove away from it not far into the woods. I laid the mat, spread out the sleeping bag and put the bike next to it:

I could not sleep well, because I got up at 4 am. I packed up in the dark and walked towards the train station. The train arrives at 5:10, I push the bike to it and climb myself. Arriving in Vilnyansk I took a ticket to Dnipropetrovsk, the train arrives at 7 o’clock, and in it I sleep untill arriving to the city.

Result

The road (from Dnipropetrovsk to Zaporizhzhya oak) took 4 hours and 15 minutes:

• 1 hour 15 minutes – stops
• 3 hours – riding

The average speed on this section is 22.1 km/h.