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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Beirut it runs 257 km to Beirut; allow about 3 h 22 of riding. The stops in between: Byblos, Anjar, back through Anjar and back through Byblos. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,500 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Beirut is a city that has been destroyed and rebuilt many times, and it carries the layers in plain sight. It sits on a headland jutting into the Mediterranean, with the snow-topped peaks of Mount Lebanon rising behind it, and on a clear winter day you could in principle ski in the morning and swim in the afternoon. The city has about two million people in its greater area, with a long waterfront Corniche where people walk, fish and smoke water pipes, and the Raouche rocks, two huge sea stacks off the western tip, stand like gateways to the sea.
Read the complete Beirut write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beirut is where the day begins. Next is Byblos.
Byblos, known to the Lebanese as Jbeil, is one of the contenders for the title of oldest continuously inhabited town on the planet. People have lived on this little headland above the Mediterranean for around seven thousand years, and the Phoenician city here was a great trading port, sending cedar wood from the mountains to Egypt and taking papyrus in return. The Greeks named the city after the papyrus, byblos, and from that word comes the word Bible. The alphabet developed by the Phoenicians, ancestor of Greek and Latin letters, is famously inscribed on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram, found here and now in Beirut's national museum.
Read the complete Byblos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Byblos comes up 27 km in.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Byblos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
54 km in you reach Byblos. Next is Anjar.
In the Bekaa valley of Lebanon, close to the Syrian border, an Umayyad city lies laid out in a perfect grid, as if drawn with a ruler. Anjar was built in the early eighth century, probably under the caliph al-Walid I, as a palace town and commercial centre on the trade routes between Damascus and the coast. Its plan echoes Roman cities, with two main streets crossing at a four-sided monument, the tetrapylon, lined with the bases of hundreds of shops. Arches of the great palace, built of alternating courses of stone and brick, rise against the backdrop of the Anti-Lebanon mountains, and in the late afternoon the stone glows warm gold. The city flourished only briefly before being abandoned, which is why it is so clearly preserved. UNESCO listed it in 1984.
Read the complete Anjar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Anjar, about halfway. Next is Anjar.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Anjar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Anjar sits at 107 km, about halfway. Next is back through Anjar.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Anjar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Anjar comes up 134 km in. Next is back through Byblos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Byblos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
161 km in you reach back through Byblos. Next is back through Byblos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Byblos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Byblos, late in the day. Next is Beirut.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beirut write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 257 km.
Beirut → Byblos is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Byblos → Anjar is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Anjar → back through Byblos is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Byblos → Beirut is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.