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.
A 322 km round trip from Changping - roughly 5 h 01 in the saddle. On the way it passes Summer Palace, Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal, Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial and back through Summer Palace. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
38 km on Ming Tombs → Summer Palace.
North of Beijing, where the plain meets the first ridges of the Jundu mountains, thirteen emperors of the Ming dynasty lie buried in a broad valley chosen for its perfect feng shui: mountains behind, a gentle slope, water in front. The first to be buried here was the Yongle emperor, the ruler who moved the capital to Beijing and built the Forbidden City in the early fifteenth century; his tomb, Changling, is the largest and best preserved, with a magnificent hall supported by enormous columns of nanmu wood. UNESCO lists them with the other imperial tombs of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Read the complete Ming Tombs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ming Tombs is where the day begins. Next is Summer Palace.
The Summer Palace is the Qing court's idea of escaping the city, and even with the modern capital spread out around it, the idea still works. The core is Kunming Lake, a large artificial basin, with Longevity Hill rising from its northern shore and covered in halls, pavilions and the tall Tower of Buddhist Incense. The Qianlong Emperor shaped the garden in the mid eighteenth century, reportedly to celebrate his mother's birthday, and modelled parts of it on the scenery around West Lake in Hangzhou. British and French troops burned it during the Second Opium War in 1860, and the Empress Dowager Cixi rebuilt it later in the century, which is where the famous story comes from that she paid for it with money meant for the navy. The marble boat moored at the lakeshore, which cannot sail, has become the punchline of that tale.
Read the complete Summer Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Summer Palace comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal.
For centuries, Beijing depended on grain shipped from the south along the Grand Canal, the longest artificial waterway in the world, and Tongzhou was where the boats arrived. The Tonghui canal connected Tongzhou with the capital, carrying grain, timber and goods to the city's markets and granaries. The Grand Canal, built and rebuilt over more than two thousand years, was listed by UNESCO in 2014, and the Tongzhou section is its northernmost part. Today, the waterfront has been landscaped into parks, with walkways, bridges and the old Ranteng pagoda rising above the water.
Read the complete Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 81 km into the recorded legs you reach Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal.
The Empress Dowager Cixi is said to have spent money meant for the Chinese navy on rebuilding the Summer Palace, and the story is captured in stone: a marble boat moored permanently at the edge of Kunming Lake, a ship that will never sail. Whether the tale is entirely fair to her is debated, but the palace itself is beyond argument, a vast imperial garden of lakes, hills, halls, pavilions, bridges and covered walkways on the north-western edge of Beijing, laid out in the eighteenth century under the Qianlong Emperor, burned by British and French troops in 1860, rebuilt and burned again in 1900, and restored once more. It was listed by UNESCO in 1998 as a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design.
Read the complete Summer Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Summer Palace, about halfway. Next is Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial.
The Temple of Heaven was where the emperor of China, as Son of Heaven, performed the annual ceremonies of prayer for a good harvest. It was built in the early fifteenth century under the Yongle emperor, the same ruler who raised the Forbidden City, and its layout expresses a view of the cosmos: the altar is round, for heaven, set within a square park, for earth. The great Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, with its triple blue-tiled roof and wooden pillars, rests on a marble terrace and was built without nails.
Read the complete Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial sits at 180 km, about halfway. Next is back through Summer Palace.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Summer Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Summer Palace comes up about 193 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 239 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal. Next is back through Summer Palace.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Summer Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Summer Palace, late in the day. Next is Ming Tombs.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ming Tombs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 322 km.
Ming Tombs → Summer Palace is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Summer Palace → Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal → Summer Palace is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Summer Palace → Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial → back through Summer Palace is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Summer Palace → back through Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal → back through Summer Palace is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Summer Palace → Ming Tombs is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.