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 Sakai it runs 338 km to Sakai; allow about 5 h 32 of riding. On the way it passes Byodo-in, Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi and back through Byodo-in. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Itasuke is a modest keyhole-shaped mound from the same age of burial monuments that gave the city its World Heritage listing. It sits amid ordinary streets, one more piece of green surrounded by tiled roofs, with its moat and trees telling you that something older than the neighbourhood is under there. It is a reason to arrive early, on a quiet weekday morning, and see what a city looks like before the engines warm up.
Read the complete Itasuke Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Itasuke Kofun is where the day begins. Next is Byodo-in.
Take a ten-yen coin out of your pocket in Japan and you are holding a picture of this place. The Phoenix Hall of the Byōdō-in in Uji, with its wings stretching out on either side of a central hall and bronze phoenixes on the roof, is one of the most famous buildings in the country. It was built in 1053 by Fujiwara no Yorimichi, a member of the most powerful aristocratic family of the Heian period, who converted his father's villa into a Buddhist temple. Its reflection in the pond in front was meant to evoke the Pure Land paradise of the Amida Buddha.
Read the complete Byodo-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Byōdō-in comes up about 59 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi.
The Ômine Okugakemichi is not a road at all, at least not one you can ride. It is a mountain trail that runs for about a hundred kilometres along the spine of the Ômine range in the Kii peninsula, linking Yoshino in the north with Kumano in the south, over peaks, ridges and rock faces. For more than a thousand years, yamabushi, the mountain ascetics of the Shugendo tradition, have walked it as a spiritual practice, combining Buddhist, Shinto and older mountain beliefs, with rituals at sacred rocks, waterfalls and cliffs along the way. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range, inscribed in 2004.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 160 km into the recorded legs you reach Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi. Next is back through Byodo-in.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Byodo-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Byodo-in, late in the day. Next is Itasuke Kofun.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Itasuke Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Itasuke Kofun. That is the ride.
Itasuke Kofun → Byodo-in is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Byōdō-in → Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is 101 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi → back through Byodo-in is 118 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Byodo-in → Itasuke Kofun is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.