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 Deqing it runs 417 km to Deqing; allow about 5 h 51 of riding. The stops in between: Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal, Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal, The Retreat & Reflection Garden and Classical Gardens of Suzhou. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Five thousand years ago, on the plain south of Lake Tai, a society built a city without metal tools. Liangzhu, now in the suburbs of Hangzhou, was a centre of a culture that carved jade into ritual objects, tubes called cong and discs called bi, and that grew rice in irrigated fields, and that built a complex water system of dams, dikes and canals, on a scale that no one expected from a Neolithic culture. UNESCO listed the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City in 2019, and the entry covers the city walls, the palace area, the waterworks and the burial grounds of the elite.
Read the complete Area of City Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Area of City Site is where the day begins. Next is Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal.
The Grand Canal of China is the longest artificial waterway in the world, a chain of canals and rivers linking Beijing with Hangzhou that was begun in sections well over two thousand years ago and unified under the Sui dynasty in the seventh century. Its southernmost stretch, the Jiangnan Canal, crosses the flat, watery plain between Jiaxing and Hangzhou, and this section is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site. Grain, silk and salt moved north along it for centuries, and the towns that line its banks grew rich on that traffic.
Read the complete Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal comes up about 56 km into the recorded legs. Next is Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal.
Nanxun is one of the water towns of the Yangtze delta, south of Lake Tai, where life has revolved around canals for more than a thousand years. In the nineteenth century, it became immensely rich through the silk trade, and its merchant families, known by nicknames like the four elephants and the eight bulls, built mansions that mixed Chinese courtyards with European columns, stained glass and Western-style furniture, an unusual blend you will not find in many other water towns. The canal running through the town is part of the Grand Canal, the immense waterway linking Beijing with Hangzhou, which UNESCO listed in 2014.
Read the complete Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 108 km into the recorded legs you reach Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal. Next is The Retreat & Reflection Garden.
The name says almost everything. Tuisi Garden, the Garden of Retreat and Reflection, was built in the 1880s in the water town of Tongli by an official named Ren Lansheng after he was dismissed from his post, and he called it after the old idea that a man out of office should withdraw and think about his faults. What he actually created was one of the most graceful small gardens in the region: pavilions and halls arranged around a pond as if they were floating on it, with rockeries, covered walkways and windows that frame views like paintings.
Read the complete The Retreat & Reflection Garden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Retreat & Reflection Garden, about halfway. Next is Classical Gardens of Suzhou.
A classical Chinese garden is a whole landscape squeezed into a courtyard: rocks stand in for mountains, ponds for lakes, and a winding covered walkway reveals one framed view after another, each window cut in a different shape. Suzhou, a canal city west of Shanghai, perfected the art over centuries, as scholars, officials and merchants built private retreats behind high white walls. Nine of its gardens are listed by UNESCO as the Classical Gardens of Suzhou, among them the Humble Administrator's Garden, the Lingering Garden and the tiny, exquisite Master-of-Nets Garden, and the Retreat and Reflection Garden in the water town of Tongli.
Read the complete Classical Gardens of Suzhou write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Classical Gardens of Suzhou sits at 209 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Retreat & Reflection Garden.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Retreat & Reflection Garden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Retreat & Reflection Garden comes up about 255 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 311 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal. Next is back through Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal, late in the day. Next is Area of City Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Area of City Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 417 km.
Area of City Site → Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal → Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal → The Retreat & Reflection Garden is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Retreat & Reflection Garden → Classical Gardens of Suzhou is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Classical Gardens of Suzhou → back through The Retreat & Reflection Garden is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Retreat & Reflection Garden → back through Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal → back through Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal → Area of City Site is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.