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 323 km round trip from Simwon - roughly 5 h 05 in the saddle. It goes by way of Piram-seowon, Museong-seowon, Archeological Site in Wanggung-ri and back through Museong-seowon. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
At low tide on the coast of Gochang, the sea pulls back so far that it seems to disappear, leaving a vast plain of mud, sand and shell banks glistening in the light. These tidal flats, called getbol in Korean, are among the richest on earth, teeming with crabs, shellfish, worms and the birds that feed on them, including rare migrating shorebirds that stop here on their journeys between Siberia and Australia. Gochang's flats are part of the Getbol, Korean Tidal Flats, listed by UNESCO in 2021.
Read the complete Gochang Getbol write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gochang Getbol is where the day begins. Next is Piram-seowon.
Piram-seowon sits on flat land among rice fields in Jangseong county, in South Jeolla province, its gates opening onto a courtyard with wooden pavilions and a shrine. It was founded in the late sixteenth century to honour Kim In-hu, a Neo-Confucian scholar from the region known for his integrity and his poetry, and it is one of the nine academies inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2019 as Seowon, Korean Neo-Confucian Academies. Unlike many seowon, which were closed by the government in the nineteenth century, Piram survived, and rituals are still held there.
Read the complete Piram-seowon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Piram-seowon comes up about 49 km into the recorded legs. Next is Museong-seowon.
Just outside Jeongeup, in a village of low houses and persimmon trees, stands Museong-seowon, a Confucian academy that has served its community for centuries. It honours Choe Chi-won, the great ninth-century scholar of the Silla kingdom who served as magistrate in this area and whose poems and essays made him one of Korea's most celebrated writers. Seowon were private academies where young men studied the Confucian classics and the memory of revered scholars was honoured with rites, and Museong is one of nine inscribed together by UNESCO in 2019.
Read the complete Museong-seowon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 110 km into the recorded legs you reach Museong-seowon. Next is Archeological Site in Wanggung-ri.
The Honam plain in south-western Korea is a wide, flat land of rice fields, and its northern edge near Iksan is the oldest rice country on the peninsula, where the kingdom of Baekje once had a second capital. Wanggung-ri is the site of a royal palace, about ten kilometres from the middle of Iksan, in fields gently rising to low hills. UNESCO recognised it in 2015 as one of the historic areas of Baekje, the old kingdom that ruled the south-west from the first to the seventh century.
Read the complete Archeological Site in Wanggung-ri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Archeological Site in Wanggung-ri, about halfway. Next is back through Museong-seowon.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Museong-seowon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Museong-seowon sits at 203 km, about halfway. Next is back through Piram-seowon.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Piram-seowon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Piram-seowon comes up about 274 km into the recorded legs. Next is Gochang Getbol.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gochang Getbol write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gochang Getbol closes the day.
Gochang Getbol → Piram-seowon is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Piram-seowon → Museong-seowon is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Museong-seowon → Archeological Site in Wanggung-ri is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Archeological Site in Wanggung-ri → back through Museong-seowon is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Museong-seowon → back through Piram-seowon is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Piram-seowon → Gochang Getbol is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.