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.
92 km from Luoyang to Luoyang, about 1 h 29 of riding. On the way it passes Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions, Sites of Cizao Kilns and back through Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The Luoyang Bridge, also called the Wanan Bridge, spans the Luoyang River in Quanzhou prefecture, Fujian, a few kilometres from where the river meets the sea. It was built in the eleventh century, in the Northern Song dynasty, under the direction of Cai Xiang, the local governor and a noted calligrapher. It is a long stone beam bridge, with huge granite slabs laid across stone piers shaped like boat prows, so that the current is split rather than resisted. It was a real engineering achievement, because the estuary has strong tides, and the builders used an unusual technique: oysters were encouraged to grow on the piers and cement them to the foundation, a living mortar that strengthened the structure over the years.
Read the complete Luoyang Bridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Luoyang Bridge is where the day begins. Next is Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions.
Before the sailing season, officials and merchants climbed a hill above Quanzhou to ask the gods for wind. The Jiuri mountain inscriptions, carved on cliff faces and boulders between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, record these prayers, and they are among the most unusual documents of China's maritime past. They were written by local officials of the Song dynasty, and they appeal to the sea gods and to the spirits of the mountain to send a favourable monsoon, so that the trade ships bound for Southeast Asia, India and Arabia could set out in safety and return. Standing before a rock face carved with neat columns of characters, you are reading a note that someone left when the world's biggest port was run by hand and weather.
Read the complete Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions comes up about 21 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sites of Cizao Kilns.
A thousand years ago, Quanzhou was one of the greatest ports in the world, the place Marco Polo called Zaitun, where ships from Persia, Arabia, India and Southeast Asia came to trade for silk, tea and porcelain. The ceramics that filled those ships were made in kilns in the hills around the city, and the Cizao kilns, near Jinjiang, were among the most important. Long dragon kilns, built up the slopes of the hills, were fired with wood, producing huge quantities of pottery for export. Shards from Cizao have been found across Asia and as far away as East Africa. Since 2021 the kiln sites have been part of the UNESCO World Heritage site of Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China.
Read the complete Sites of Cizao Kilns write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 44 km into the recorded legs you reach Sites of Cizao Kilns. Next is back through Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions, late in the day. Next is Luoyang Bridge.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Luoyang Bridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Luoyang Bridge. That is the ride.
Luoyang Bridge → Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions → Sites of Cizao Kilns is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sites of Cizao Kilns → back through Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions → Luoyang Bridge is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.