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 Sakurai it runs 93 km to Sakurai; allow about 2 h 08 of riding. On the way it passes 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.
Ishibutai is the skeleton of a tomb. The massive granite blocks of its burial chamber, now exposed to the open sky, form one of the most astonishing sights in Asuka, a giant stone room that was once buried under an earth mound, and it is generally thought to be the tomb of Soga no Umako, the minister who built Asuka-dera and dominated the court until his death in 626. The mound has long since been stripped away, probably by looters and by the passage of centuries, leaving the stones standing in a grassy square like the bones of some enormous animal.
Read the complete Ishibutai Mounded Tomb write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ishibutai Mounded Tomb 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 26 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 50 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 Ishibutai Mounded Tomb.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ishibutai Mounded Tomb write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Ishibutai Mounded Tomb. That is the ride.
Ishibutai Mounded Tomb → Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama is 26 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 → Ishibutai Mounded Tomb is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.