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 Al Ḩawāsh it runs 339 km to Al Ḩawāsh; allow about 5 h 23 of riding. It goes by way of Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli, Ouadi Qadisha, Byblos and back through Ouadi Qadisha. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,550 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Syria into Lebanon - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
T. E. Lawrence called Krak des Chevaliers the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world, and for once the praise is hardly exaggerated. It stands on a spur of the Jebel Ansariyeh in western Syria, controlling the Homs Gap, the low pass between the mountains and the sea through which armies and caravans have always passed. The Knights Hospitaller took it over in 1142, enlarged it into a concentric fortress of two rings of walls, and held it for over a century against repeated attacks. It could house a garrison of two thousand, with stables, storerooms, a great hall and a chapel, and the huge sloping glacis at the south side made the walls almost impossible to undermine.
Read the complete Crac des Chevaliers write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Crac des Chevaliers is where the day begins. 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.
Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli comes up about 68 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 107 km into the recorded legs you reach Ouadi Qadisha. Next is Byblos.
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, 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 sits at 200 km, 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 comes up about 270 km into the recorded legs. Next is Crac des Chevaliers.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Crac des Chevaliers write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Crac des Chevaliers closes the day.
Crac des Chevaliers → Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli → Ouadi Qadisha is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ouadi Qadisha → Byblos is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Byblos → back through Ouadi Qadisha is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ouadi Qadisha → back through Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli → Crac des Chevaliers is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.