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.
From Mexico City it runs 262 km to Mexico City; allow about 5 h 00 of riding. It goes by way of Xochimilco 2, Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1, Xochimilco 3 and Former college of San Francisco Javier in. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Mexico City is a lot of things at once: enormous, high, noisy, beautiful, tiring, and endlessly generous. About twenty million people live in its metropolitan area, at an altitude of roughly 2,240 metres, in a basin ringed by volcanoes that rarely show themselves through the haze. It stands on the bed of an old lake, and on that lake the Mexica built Tenochtitlan in the fourteenth century, a city of canals and causeways that astonished the Spanish when they arrived in 1519.
Read the complete Mexico City write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mexico City is where the day begins. Next is Xochimilco 2.
Before the Spanish arrived, the Valley of Mexico was a land of lakes, and the people who lived around them developed an ingenious way to farm the water. They built chinampas, artificial islands of mud and vegetation anchored by willow trees, separated by canals, and grew maize, beans, squash and flowers on them. In Xochimilco, in the south of Mexico City, a remnant of that world survives, with a network of canals and chinampas that is still farmed and navigated today. It is part of the UNESCO listing of the Historic Centre of Mexico City and Xochimilco, and the most famous image of the area is the trajinera, a brightly painted flat-bottomed boat that carries visitors along the canals, often accompanied by mariachi bands and floating food stalls.
Read the complete Xochimilco 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Xochimilco 2 comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1.
Mexico City is built on a lake, or rather it was, and Xochimilco is the part of that old water world that survived. Before the Spanish, the Aztecs and their neighbours built chinampas, narrow artificial islands of mud and reeds held in place by willow trees, and farmed them intensively to feed Tenochtitlan. Canals ran between the plots, and the whole system was a remarkably productive kind of garden. A part of it still works, and it earned a place on UNESCO's World Heritage list in 1987. The name is Nahuatl and means roughly the place of flowers, which suits the nurseries that fill the district.
Read the complete Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 28 km into the recorded legs you reach Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1. Next is Xochimilco 3.
San Andrés Mixquic sits on the southeastern edge of Mexico City, in the borough of Tláhuac, and it feels like a village despite being part of one of the largest cities on earth. It is famous throughout Mexico for its Day of the Dead celebrations, when the cemetery around the church of San Andrés fills with marigolds, candles and families who keep vigil through the night of 2 November, and the whole town turns into a festival of altars, music and food. The rest of the year, Mixquic is a quiet place of canals, chinampas and vegetable fields.
Read the complete Xochimilco 3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Xochimilco 3, about halfway. Next is Former college of San Francisco Javier in.
Tepotzotlán is a Pueblo Mágico just off the highway north of Mexico City, and its heart is a building that stops you in your tracks. The old Jesuit college of San Francisco Javier was a training centre for the order in New Spain, a place where novices learned theology and native languages before being sent out across the colony. When the Jesuits were expelled in 1767 the college passed to others, and today it houses the National Museum of the Viceroyalty, one of the best collections of colonial art in the country. It also forms part of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the silver road that ran north from the capital towards Santa Fe, inscribed by UNESCO in 2010.
Read the complete Former college of San Francisco Javier in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Former college of San Francisco Javier in sits at 131 km, about halfway. Next is back through Xochimilco 3.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Xochimilco 3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Xochimilco 3 comes up about 214 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 234 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1. Next is back through Xochimilco 2.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Xochimilco 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Xochimilco 2, late in the day. Next is Mexico City.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mexico City write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 262 km.
Mexico City → Xochimilco 2 is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Xochimilco 2 → Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1 is 4 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1 → Xochimilco 3 is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Xochimilco 3 → Former college of San Francisco Javier in is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Former college of San Francisco Javier in → back through Xochimilco 3 is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Xochimilco 3 → back through Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1 is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1 → back through Xochimilco 2 is 4 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Xochimilco 2 → Mexico City is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.