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 Huafeng it runs 468 km to Huafeng; allow about 6 h 55 of riding. The stops in between: Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang, Sites of Dehua Kilns, Statue of Lao Tze and back through Sites of Dehua Kilns. The line favours views over speed.
Picture a giant ring of rammed earth, three or four storeys high, with almost no windows on the outside and a single heavy gate. Inside, galleries of wooden rooms face a courtyard with an ancestral hall at its heart, and up to several hundred members of one extended family once lived within those walls. That is a tulou, and the hills of south-western Fujian are dotted with them, round and square, some centuries old, many still inhabited.
Read the complete Fujian Tulou write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fujian Tulou is where the day begins. Next is Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang.
In the green hills of Anxi county, inland from the port city of Quanzhou in Fujian, the Xiacaopu site preserves the remains of an iron industry that flourished during the Song and Yuan dynasties, roughly from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries. Archaeologists found furnaces, slag heaps, ore-roasting pits and workshops on a hillside, evidence of large-scale production. The iron produced here was shipped down the rivers to Quanzhou and exported to Southeast Asia and beyond, and that is why the site is part of the World Heritage listing of Quanzhou, Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China, inscribed in 2021. At that time, Quanzhou was one of the largest ports in the world, visited by Arab, Persian and Indian merchants, and described by Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta.
Read the complete Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang comes up about 56 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sites of Dehua Kilns.
Dehua, a county in the mountains of Fujian province, in south-eastern China, has been making porcelain for over a thousand years. Its white porcelain, known in the West as blanc de Chine, is famous for its pure, creamy white colour and its fine figures, especially statues of Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, and other Buddhist and Taoist figures. The ancient kiln sites of Dehua, including long dragon kilns built on hillsides, are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China, inscribed in 2021.
Read the complete Sites of Dehua Kilns write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 129 km into the recorded legs you reach Sites of Dehua Kilns. Next is Statue of Lao Tze.
North of Quanzhou, where the city fades into granite hills and orchards, the road runs up to the foot of Qingyuan Mountain and a figure that stops most visitors for a moment. The Lao Tze statue is a seated old man with a long beard, carved out of a natural boulder, and it has been there since the Song dynasty, roughly a thousand years. It is among the largest carved Taoist figures in China, and because the stone was never moved, the whole thing feels grown rather than built.
Read the complete Statue of Lao Tze write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Statue of Lao Tze, about halfway. Next is back through Sites of Dehua Kilns.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sites of Dehua Kilns write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sites of Dehua Kilns sits at 265 km, about halfway. Next is back through Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang comes up about 404 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fujian Tulou.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fujian Tulou write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fujian Tulou closes the day.
Fujian Tulou → Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang → Sites of Dehua Kilns is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sites of Dehua Kilns → Statue of Lao Tze is 105 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Statue of Lao Tze → back through Sites of Dehua Kilns is 103 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Sites of Dehua Kilns → back through Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang → Fujian Tulou is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.