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.
A 203 km round trip from Xi’an - roughly 3 h 36 in the saddle. On the way it passes Xingjiaosi Pagodas, Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, Pits of Terracotta Army and back through Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Xi'an was once among the largest cities in the world. Under the Tang dynasty, in the seventh and eighth centuries, it was called Chang'an, the eastern end of the Silk Road, and a million people lived within its walls, among them merchants from Persia and Central Asia, monks from India and envoys from Japan and Korea. Today the city is a big modern metropolis of more than six million people, but its old centre still has the shape of a walled city, with a massive Ming dynasty wall, about fourteen kilometres in circumference, running round it, and a Bell Tower and Drum Tower in the middle.
Read the complete Xian write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Xian is where the day begins. Next is Xingjiaosi Pagodas.
When the monk Xuanzang returned to Chang'an in the seventh century after sixteen years of travel to India, he brought back hundreds of Buddhist scriptures, which he spent the rest of his life translating, and his journey later inspired the classic novel Journey to the West, with its Monkey King. After his death in 664, his remains were buried at Xingjiao Temple, on the slopes south of the city, and a five-storey brick pagoda was built over them in 669. Next to it stand two smaller pagodas for two of his disciples. The three pagodas, in a peaceful temple setting, are part of the Silk Roads World Heritage site, a tribute to one of the most famous travellers along that route.
Read the complete Xingjiaosi Pagodas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Xingjiaosi Pagodas comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.
Beneath a large, tree-covered mound at the foot of Mount Li, east of Xi'an, lies the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, who unified China in 221 BC and became its first emperor. He ruled for only eleven years more, dying in 210 BC, but in that time he standardised weights, measures, writing and the axle width of carts, linked the northern walls into an early Great Wall, and conscripted hundreds of thousands of labourers for his projects. The tomb mound, which still rises about fifty metres, has never been opened. The ancient historian Sima Qian wrote that the burial chamber held a model of the empire with rivers of mercury, and modern soil tests have found high levels of mercury around the mound.
Read the complete Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least about 95 km into the recorded legs you reach Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. Next is Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, about halfway. Next is Pits of Terracotta Army.
In 1974 a group of farmers digging a well near the town of Lintong in Shaanxi struck something hard, and so began one of the great archaeological finds of the twentieth century. Below the farmland lay the Terracotta Army, thousands of life-size clay soldiers, horses and chariots, buried to guard the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the man who unified China in 221 BC and became its first emperor. He ordered the burial complex to be started when he came to the throne, and tens of thousands of workers laboured on it for decades.
Read the complete Pits of Terracotta Army write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pits of Terracotta Army sits at 93 km, about halfway. Next is back through Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor comes up about 105 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 108 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. Next is back through Xingjiaosi Pagodas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Xingjiaosi Pagodas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Xingjiaosi Pagodas, late in the day. Next is Xian.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Xian write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 203 km.
Xian → Xingjiaosi Pagodas is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Xingjiaosi Pagodas → Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor → back through Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor → back through Xingjiaosi Pagodas is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Xingjiaosi Pagodas → Xian is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.