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.
362 km from Biyang to Biyang, about 6 h 58 of riding. On the way it passes Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site, Hutian Ancient Kiln Site and back through Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
From above, Hongcun is said to look like an ox, and the people who built it in the Southern Song and later planned it that way on purpose. A stream, channelled through the village, makes the ox's intestines, two small bridges are the legs, a moon-shaped pond at the centre is its stomach and the hills around are its body, and a pair of ancient trees at the entrance are the horns. It is an engineer's dream as well as a feng shui chart, because the water channels run through the lanes to every house, bringing fresh water for washing and putting out fires, and the Moon Pond is a reflecting pool that mirrors the white walls and curved gables.
Read the complete Hongcun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hongcun is where the day begins. Next is Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site.
The word kaolin comes from Gaoling, a village in the hills north-east of Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi province, where the white clay used in making porcelain was mined for centuries. Porcelain needed two ingredients: kaolin and porcelain stone, a rock that, when crushed and refined, gave the paste its translucency. The hills around Jingdezhen were full of both, and the Changling porcelain stone mining site is one of the places where the stone was quarried, crushed by water-powered hammers and refined into bricks that were carried to the kilns of the porcelain capital of the world.
Read the complete Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site comes up about 119 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hutian Ancient Kiln Site.
Jingdezhen has been making porcelain for more than a thousand years, and the Hutian kiln site is one of the places where that story began to turn into an industry. The kilns here produced fine white and bluish-white ware in the Song and Yuan dynasties, and the heaps of broken shards and the remains of long dragon-shaped kilns show how potters adapted slopes of land to fire great quantities of pots at once. Later, in the Ming dynasty, imperial kilns were established in the town itself, and Jingdezhen became the porcelain capital of China, supplying emperors and, via the sea trade, markets from Japan to Europe.
Read the complete Hutian Ancient Kiln Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 181 km into the recorded legs you reach Hutian Ancient Kiln Site. Next is back through Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site, late in the day. Next is Hongcun.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hongcun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Hongcun. That is the ride.
Hongcun → Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site is 119 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site → Hutian Ancient Kiln Site is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hutian Ancient Kiln Site → back through Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site → Hongcun is 119 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.