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 312 km round trip from Jbaïl - roughly 5 h 05 in the saddle. The stops in between: Ouadi Qadisha, Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli, Forest of the Cedars and back through Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,650 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Byblos, known to the Lebanese as Jbeil, is one of the contenders for the title of oldest continuously inhabited town on the planet. People have lived on this little headland above the Mediterranean for around seven thousand years, and the Phoenician city here was a great trading port, sending cedar wood from the mountains to Egypt and taking papyrus in return. The Greeks named the city after the papyrus, byblos, and from that word comes the word Bible. The alphabet developed by the Phoenicians, ancestor of Greek and Latin letters, is famously inscribed on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram, found here and now in Beirut's national museum.
Read the complete Byblos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Byblos is where the day begins. Next is Ouadi Qadisha.
Cliffs fall hundreds of metres into the Qadisha valley in northern Lebanon, and halfway down, tucked into caves and ledges, are monasteries and hermitages where Maronite Christians have prayed and hidden for over a thousand years. The name means holy, and the valley was a refuge for monks and believers fleeing persecution. The monastery of Qannoubine, seat of the Maronite patriarchs for centuries, clings to the rock, and the monastery of Saint Anthony of Qozhaya kept one of the first printing presses in the Middle East, used to print psalms in Syriac. UNESCO lists the valley together with the forest of the Cedars of God above it.
Read the complete Ouadi Qadisha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ouadi Qadisha comes up about 63 km into the recorded legs. Next is Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli.
In the early 1960s, the Lebanese government invited the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer to design an international fairground for Tripoli, the country's second city. He produced a vast, futuristic complex of sweeping concrete forms: a huge boomerang-shaped exhibition hall, a dome for experimental theatre, an open-air theatre, a helipad, a water tower and more, all set in a park on the edge of the city. Construction was almost finished when the civil war broke out in 1975, and the fair was never completed. Today the site stands as an extraordinary, melancholy monument to modernist ambition and lost hope, and it was listed by UNESCO in 2023, immediately placed on the list of heritage in danger.
Read the complete Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 103 km into the recorded legs you reach Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli. Next is Forest of the Cedars.
High in the mountains of northern Lebanon, at close to two thousand metres above the Qadisha valley, a small grove of ancient cedars survives as a reminder of the vast forests that once covered these slopes. The Phoenicians built their ships from cedar, the Egyptians used its resin, and the Bible says that Solomon's temple was built with it. Over thousands of years, the forests were cut down almost entirely, and the Cedars of God, as this grove is called, is one of the last remnants, with some trees thought to be many centuries old. It is part of the UNESCO listing of the Ouadi Qadisha, the Holy Valley, and the Forest of the Cedars of God.
Read the complete Forest of the Cedars write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Forest of the Cedars, about halfway. Next is back through Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli sits at 153 km, about halfway. Next is back through Ouadi Qadisha.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ouadi Qadisha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ouadi Qadisha comes up about 251 km into the recorded legs. Next is Byblos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Byblos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Byblos closes the day.
Byblos → Ouadi Qadisha is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ouadi Qadisha → Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli → Forest of the Cedars is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Forest of the Cedars → back through Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli → back through Ouadi Qadisha is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ouadi Qadisha → Byblos is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.