Why this ride
59 km from Sakai to Sakai, about 1 h 12 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
Hatazuka Kofun and Horyu-ji Area
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 59 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 1 h 12
- 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. Hatazuka Kofun
Bicycles are the unofficial emblem of Sakai, and that makes Hatazuka a nicely ironic place to begin a motorcycle ride. The city's most famous modern company, Shimano, which makes gears and brakes for cyclists around the world, was founded here in the 1920s, and on the quiet streets around the old tombs you will see a great many commuters, children and elderly shoppers on two wheels. Hatazuka itself is one of the smaller mounded tombs in the cluster of fifth-century monuments that the city is proud of, its earthen slopes now wooded and its moat quiet, an easy place to pause and look at before the day's engine noise begins.
Read the complete Hatazuka Kofun write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Hatazuka 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 Hatazuka Kofun.
5. Hatazuka Kofun
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hatazuka Kofun write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Hatazuka Kofun. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Hatazuka Kofun to Nakayamazuka Kofun
Hatazuka 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 Hatazuka Kofun
back through Nakayamazuka Kofun → Hatazuka Kofun is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.