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 246 km round trip from Kyoto - roughly 4 h 01 in the saddle. The stops in between: Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun, Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji and back through Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Kyoto sits in a basin with mountains on three sides, a grid of streets laid out in the late eighth century on the model of the Chinese capital, and it remained the imperial seat until 1868. That long continuity explains why the World Heritage list includes seventeen separate places under the name of the historic monuments of ancient Kyoto: temples, shrines and one castle, dotted around the city and across the border into Otsu. The city was spared the worst of the bombing in the Second World War, which is a large part of why so much survives.
Read the complete Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto is where the day begins. Next is Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun.
On the plain south-east of Osaka, among suburbs, railway lines and car dealerships, the land is dotted with huge grassy mounds shaped like keyholes, surrounded by water-filled moats, and covered in trees. They are kofun, the burial mounds of Japan's early rulers and aristocrats, and the Tsudoshiroyama Kofun is one of them, in the Furuichi group, about two kilometres from the town of Kashiwara and not far from Habikino and Fujiidera. The group, together with the Mozu group in Sakai, was inscribed by UNESCO in 2019.
Read the complete Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun comes up about 54 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 123 km into the recorded legs you reach Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji. Next is back through Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun, late in the day. Next is Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto. That is the ride.
Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto → Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun → Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji → back through Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tsudo-shiroyama Kofun → Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.