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 95 km round trip from Cairo - roughly 2 h 16 in the saddle. The stops in between: Memphis and its Necropolis - the Pyramid F, Site of Memphis and back through Memphis and its Necropolis - the Pyramid F. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The heart of medieval Cairo is a dense maze of lanes, domes and minarets that has barely changed in some corners since the Mamluk age, and it is one of the richest collections of Islamic architecture on earth. UNESCO listed Historic Cairo in 1979, recognising hundreds of monuments, mosques, madrasas, baths and gates, built over a thousand years. The city was founded as a royal enclosure by the Fatimid dynasty in 969, and its name, al-Qahira, means the victorious. The Fatimids also founded Al-Azhar, a mosque and teaching institution that has been running since the 970s and is regarded as one of the oldest universities in the world.
Read the complete Historic Cairo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Cairo is where the day begins. Next is Memphis and its Necropolis - the Pyramid F.
This is Giza and the great Old Kingdom necropolis, the first place on any list of Egypt, and a hard one to write about without sounding like a postcard. Memphis was the capital of the early pharaohs, on the Nile just south of modern Cairo, and the pyramid fields stretch along the desert edge from Giza down through Saqqara and Dahshur. The Great Pyramid was built for Khufu around 2560 BC and was the tallest man-made structure on earth for several thousand years. The sheer age is the thing that gets you: when the Greeks and Romans visited as tourists, these were already ancient.
Read the complete Memphis and its Necropolis - the Pyramid F write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Memphis and its Necropolis - the Pyramid F comes up about 19 km into the recorded legs. Next is Site of Memphis.
Memphis was the first capital of a unified Egypt, or so tradition says, and for much of the Old Kingdom it was the centre of the world's most ordered state. Today there is little of it to see, because the city was built of mud brick and stripped for stone, and the Nile shifted away. What remains is a quiet area of palm groves and fields near the village of Mit Rahina, south of Cairo, where an open-air museum shows a few fragments of the capital that once stretched for kilometres along the river.
Read the complete Site of Memphis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 51 km into the recorded legs you reach Site of Memphis. Next is back through Memphis and its Necropolis - the Pyramid F.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Memphis and its Necropolis - the Pyramid F write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Memphis and its Necropolis - the Pyramid F, late in the day. Next is Historic Cairo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Cairo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Historic Cairo. That is the ride.
Historic Cairo → Memphis and its Necropolis - the Pyramid F is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Memphis and its Necropolis - the Pyramid F → Site of Memphis is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Site of Memphis → back through Memphis and its Necropolis - the Pyramid F is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Memphis and its Necropolis - the Pyramid F → Historic Cairo is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.