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 Kashihara-shi it runs 87 km to Kashihara-shi; allow about 2 h 03 of riding. The stops in between: Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama, Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji and back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Hinokuma lies on the western edge of the Asuka district, where the land begins to rise toward the Katsuragi and Kongō mountains. The name appears in early records connected with the imperial family and the old clans, and a temple, Hinokuma-dera, once stood here, close to the tombs of rulers of the sixth and seventh centuries.
Read the complete Hinokuma-dera Temple Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hinokuma-dera Temple Site is where the day begins. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama.
Cherry trees are the whole point of Yoshino, and they are planted by the thousand up the side of a ridge in the mountains of Nara Prefecture, about five kilometres from the little town of Yoshino and an hour or two from Osaka. Over some three hundred years, pilgrims planted the sacred shidarezakura and the mountain cherry as offerings to the god of the mountain, and in the first half of April the slopes turn pink, white and green in four layers from the bottom to the top, a wave of flowering that rises up the hillside over about a fortnight.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama comes up about 23 km into the recorded legs. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji.
Ōminesan-ji is a temple on the summit of Mount Sanjō, one of the peaks of the Ōmine range in the heart of the Kii peninsula, and it holds a special place in Japanese religion. It is a centre of Shugendō, the mountain ascetic tradition that blends Buddhism, Shinto and older mountain worship, and its practitioners, the yamabushi, undergo arduous training on the ridges. The temple is famous for another reason too: the mountain is still closed to women by tradition, one of the last such places in Japan, which has become a subject of ongoing debate.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 47 km into the recorded legs you reach Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji. Next is back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama, late in the day. Next is Hinokuma-dera Temple Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hinokuma-dera Temple Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Hinokuma-dera Temple Site. That is the ride.
Hinokuma-dera Temple Site → Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama → Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji → back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama → Hinokuma-dera Temple Site is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.