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.
A 342 km round trip from Kunming - roughly 5 h 03 in the saddle. On the way it passes Chengjiang Fossil Site, Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest, Shilin Karst - ‘Suogeyi Village’ and back through Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Kunming is called the Spring City, and the title is earned. Set at about nineteen hundred metres on the Yunnan plateau, it has mild weather almost all year, with warm days, cool nights and a long season of flowers, so that you can ride in a light jacket in January. Dian Lake, the big freshwater lake on the southern edge, spreads out under hills hazy with distance, and gulls from Siberia arrive in winter to feed on bread thrown by the crowds on the lakeside. The city itself, with more than three and a half million people, is a lively and rather modern place of tower blocks, tree-lined avenues and parks.
Read the complete Kunming write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kunming is where the day begins. Next is Chengjiang Fossil Site.
About 518 million years ago, in a shallow sea where Yunnan now stands on a high plateau, a sudden mud slide buried a community of soft-bodied animals so quickly that their outlines survived as fossils. Those fossils, found in the Maotianshan Shale near Chengjiang, are among the most important ever found, because they capture the Cambrian explosion, the rapid appearance of most major animal groups. They include early arthropods, worms with spiny legs and some of the oldest known relatives of vertebrates, preserved with details like eyes, guts and gills. The site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a small museum and viewing area explain what scientists have found.
Read the complete Chengjiang Fossil Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chengjiang Fossil Site comes up 39 km in. Next is Chengjiang Fossil Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chengjiang Fossil Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
79 km in you reach Chengjiang Fossil Site. Next is Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest.
Out of the red earth of eastern Yunnan, about eighty kilometres south-east of Kunming, rise the grey stone pinnacles of the Shilin, the Stone Forest, a landscape of limestone that looks like a petrified woodland. The rock was laid down as sediment in a shallow sea around two hundred and seventy million years ago, and then raised, split and carved by rain into towers up to thirty metres high, with sharp ridges and narrow alleys in between. The Naigu area is the older, blacker part, where the stone has been darkened by lichens and weathering, and it is quieter than the main tourist area. The Shilin karst is part of the South China Karst, which UNESCO listed in 2007.
Read the complete Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest, about halfway. Next is Shilin Karst - ‘Suogeyi Village’.
Shilin means Stone Forest, and the name is accurate: for several square kilometres on the Yunnan plateau, grey limestone pillars as tall as ten-storey buildings stand in clusters, like petrified trees. The rock was laid down in a shallow sea more than two hundred and fifty million years ago, then lifted, dissolved by rain and groundwater, and carved into needles, towers and narrow corridors. It forms part of the South China Karst, a UNESCO World Heritage listing that includes some of the world's most spectacular limestone scenery. Shilin lies about eighty kilometres from Kunming, at an altitude of roughly 1,700 metres, so the air is mild and spring-like for much of the year.
Read the complete Shilin Karst - ‘Suogeyi Village’ write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shilin Karst - ‘Suogeyi Village’ sits at 157 km, about halfway. Next is back through Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest comes up 196 km in. Next is back through Chengjiang Fossil Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chengjiang Fossil Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
236 km in you reach back through Chengjiang Fossil Site. Next is back through Chengjiang Fossil Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chengjiang Fossil Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chengjiang Fossil Site, late in the day. Next is Kunming.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kunming write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 342 km.
Kunming → Chengjiang Fossil Site is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Chengjiang Fossil Site → Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest → Shilin Karst - ‘Suogeyi Village’ is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shilin Karst - ‘Suogeyi Village’ → back through Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest → back through Chengjiang Fossil Site is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chengjiang Fossil Site → Kunming is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.