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.
240 km from Kunming to Kunming, about 3 h 19 of riding. The stops in between: 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.
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 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 comes up about 91 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 119 km into the recorded legs you reach Shilin Karst - ‘Suogeyi Village’. 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, 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.
Back at Kunming. That is the ride.
Kunming → Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest → Shilin Karst - ‘Suogeyi Village’ is 28 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 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Shilin Karst - Naigu Stone Forest → Kunming is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.