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.
327 km from Mexico City to Mexico City, about 6 h 54 of riding. The stops in between: Xochimilco 3, Temple and Former Convent of Saint William, Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic and back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Under the paving of the Zocalo there is a lake bed, and under that, the island city of Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs founded it in the fourteenth century on a swampy island in Lake Texcoco, linked it to the shore with causeways and filled the lake with floating gardens, and when Hernan Cortes arrived in 1519 he found a city larger and cleaner than any in Spain. After the conquest in 1521 the Spaniards drained the lake, built their cathedral on the ruins and began a new capital, and the result is the layered centre we see today. The Metropolitan Cathedral, a huge, ponderous baroque pile that took nearly three centuries to finish, leans noticeably, because the ground beneath it is soft clay, and engineers have spent decades trying to stop it sinking unevenly.
Read the complete Historic centre of the city of México write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic centre of the city of México is where the day begins. Next is Xochimilco 3.
San Andrés Mixquic sits on the southeastern edge of Mexico City, in the borough of Tláhuac, and it feels like a village despite being part of one of the largest cities on earth. It is famous throughout Mexico for its Day of the Dead celebrations, when the cemetery around the church of San Andrés fills with marigolds, candles and families who keep vigil through the night of 2 November, and the whole town turns into a festival of altars, music and food. The rest of the year, Mixquic is a quiet place of canals, chinampas and vegetable fields.
Read the complete Xochimilco 3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Xochimilco 3 comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is Temple and Former Convent of Saint William.
Totolapan is a small town on the northern slopes of the Sierra de Chichinautzin, in the state of Morelos, and its Augustinian convent of San Guillermo is one of the fourteen sixteenth-century monasteries on the slopes of Popocatépetl that UNESCO listed in 1994. The friars who came to Mexico after the conquest built these fortress-like complexes to convert the indigenous population, with huge walled atriums where crowds could gather for open-air masses, chapels at the corners for processions, and austere churches with thick walls. Totolapan's convent is relatively modest, but its simplicity and setting give it a special charm.
Read the complete Temple and Former Convent of Saint William write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 80 km into the recorded legs you reach Temple and Former Convent of Saint William. Next is Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic.
Hueyapan sits high on the southern flank of Popocatépetl, in the far northeast of Morelos, where pine forest and orchards climb toward the volcano and the air is noticeably thinner than in the valleys below. In the sixteenth century, Dominican friars built a convent here dedicated to Santo Domingo, with a simple church, a cloister and a walled atrium where the indigenous population gathered for worship. It is one of the fourteen sites in the UNESCO listing of the Earliest Sixteenth-Century Monasteries on the Slopes of Popocatépetl, and while it is more modest than some of its neighbours, its setting is one of the most dramatic.
Read the complete Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic, about halfway.
Oaxtepec sits at roughly thirteen hundred metres on the warm southern side of the volcanic highlands of Morelos, where the air is noticeably softer than in Mexico City, an hour or two north. The Dominican convent here is one of the sixteenth-century monasteries on the slopes of Popocatépetl that UNESCO listed in 1994, a group built by the first friars after the conquest, with fortress-like walls, a large atrium for open-air preaching and thick buttresses against the earthquakes that have always visited this region.
Read the complete Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic sits at 152 km, about halfway. Next is back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic comes up about 208 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint William.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Temple and Former Convent of Saint William write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 249 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint William. Next is back through Xochimilco 3.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Xochimilco 3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Xochimilco 3, late in the day. Next is Historic centre of the city of México.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic centre of the city of México write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 327 km.
Historic centre of the city of México → Xochimilco 3 is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Xochimilco 3 → Temple and Former Convent of Saint William is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint William → Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic → Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic → back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Dominic → back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint William is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint William → back through Xochimilco 3 is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Xochimilco 3 → Historic centre of the city of México is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.