Why this ride
From Sakai it runs 59 km to Sakai; allow about 1 h 13 of riding. The stops in between: Nakayamazuka Kofun, Horyu-ji Area and back through Nakayamazuka Kofun. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Dogameyama Kofun and Horyu-ji Area
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 59 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 1 h 13
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Dogameyama Kofun
Sakai is the city of the bicycle, which should please a motorcyclist. The Shimano company, whose gears are on bikes all over the world, began here in 1921, and the city still has a long tradition of cycling, with a museum devoted to the machine near the Daisen Park. It seems apt that the same city should hold the biggest cluster of tombs in Japan. Dogameyama is one of the smaller mounds in the Mozu group, and like most of the small ones it is known more by its position than by any biography.
Read the complete Dogameyama Kofun write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Dogameyama Kofun is where the day begins. Next is Nakayamazuka Kofun.
2. Nakayamazuka Kofun
From the road you would never know it was a tomb. Nakayamazuka is a keyhole-shaped burial mound in the Furuichi cluster of the great Mozu-Furuichi tomb group in southern Osaka Prefecture, a landscape of ancient mounds built between about the fourth and sixth centuries AD, when the Yamato rulers were consolidating power in Japan. UNESCO listed forty-nine of the tombs in 2019. Each is a hill of earth, once faced with stones and lined with clay figures called haniwa, surrounded by a moat, and many have a shape that can only be recognised from above: a round mound joined to a trapezoid, like the head and body of a keyhole.
Read the complete Nakayamazuka Kofun write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Nakayamazuka Kofun comes up about 14 km into the recorded legs. Next is Horyu-ji Area.
3. Hōryū-ji Area
The buildings at Hōryū-ji are around thirteen hundred years old, and some of them are among the oldest wooden structures anywhere in the world. Founded in the early seventh century by Prince Shōtoku, a regent remembered as a champion of Buddhism and a founding figure of the Japanese state, the temple was rebuilt after a fire later in the same century, and parts of that rebuilding still stand. In 1993 it became one of the first sites in Japan to be listed by UNESCO, as the Buddhist Monuments in the Hōryū-ji Area.
Read the complete Horyu-ji Area write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 29 km into the recorded legs you reach Horyu-ji Area. Next is back through Nakayamazuka Kofun.
4. back through Nakayamazuka Kofun
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nakayamazuka Kofun write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Nakayamazuka Kofun, late in the day. Next is Dogameyama Kofun.
5. Dogameyama Kofun
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dogameyama Kofun write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Dogameyama Kofun. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Dogameyama Kofun to Nakayamazuka Kofun
Dogameyama Kofun → Nakayamazuka Kofun is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nakayamazuka Kofun to Horyu-ji Area
Nakayamazuka Kofun → Horyu-ji Area is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hōryū-ji Area to back through Nakayamazuka Kofun
Hōryū-ji Area → back through Nakayamazuka Kofun is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nakayamazuka Kofun to Dogameyama Kofun
back through Nakayamazuka Kofun → Dogameyama Kofun is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.