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 Kōya it runs 298 km to Kōya; allow about 4 h 18 of riding. It goes by way of Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi, Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb, Horyu-ji Area and back through Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Getting to Kōyasan feels like a pilgrimage even on a motorcycle. The roads climb out of the Kinokawa valley through dense cedar forest, switchback after switchback, until you emerge onto a high basin at around eight hundred metres where a whole town of temples has grown up. The monk Kūkai, known after his death as Kōbō Daishi, founded the monastery here in the early ninth century as the centre of Shingon Buddhism, and Kongōbu-ji is the head temple of the sect. Its halls, painted sliding doors and the large rock garden are worth an unhurried visit, and the whole mountain is part of the UNESCO listing of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji is where the day begins. 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.
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi comes up about 53 km into the recorded legs. Next is Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb.
The mound itself is easy to miss: a small, round hump of grass in a quiet corner of the Asuka countryside, surrounded by rice fields and persimmon trees. What made it famous is what was inside. In 1972, archaeologists opened a stone chamber here and found painted walls, with women in bright, flowing robes, a procession of men, and the guardian animals of the four directions, among them the Blue Dragon and the White Tiger. The paintings date from around the end of the seventh century or the start of the eighth, and show the strong influence of Korea and China on the early Japanese court. It was the first wall painting of its kind found in Japan and caused a sensation.
Read the complete Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 120 km into the recorded legs you reach Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb. Next is Horyu-ji Area.
The buildings at Hōryū-ji are around thirteen hundred years old, and some of them are among the oldest wooden structures anywhere in the world. Founded in the early seventh century by Prince Shōtoku, a regent remembered as a champion of Buddhism and a founding figure of the Japanese state, the temple was rebuilt after a fire later in the same century, and parts of that rebuilding still stand. In 1993 it became one of the first sites in Japan to be listed by UNESCO, as the Buddhist Monuments in the Hōryū-ji Area.
Read the complete Horyu-ji Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Horyu-ji Area, about halfway. Next is back through Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb sits at 146 km, about halfway. Next is back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi comes up about 244 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji closes the day.
Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji → Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi → Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb → Horyu-ji Area is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hōryū-ji Area → back through Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi → Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.