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 Gantang it runs 463 km to Gantang; allow about 8 h 19 of riding. The stops in between: Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site, Hutian Ancient Kiln Site and back through Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Huangshan, the Yellow Mountain, rises in the south of Anhui province from a flat region of tea fields and villages, and its granite peaks, gnarled pines and seas of cloud have made it one of the most painted mountains in China. The highest of its seventy-two peaks, Lotus Peak, stands at about 1,864 metres. What makes the mountain special is the combination of tall, sharp, bare rock and the pine trees that grow out of the cracks, shaped by wind and weather into strange, twisted forms, each of which has a name, such as the Welcoming Guest Pine. UNESCO listed it in 1990.
Read the complete Mount Huangshan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mount Huangshan is where the day begins. Next is Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site.
The word kaolin comes from Gaoling, a village in the hills north-east of Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi province, where the white clay used in making porcelain was mined for centuries. Porcelain needed two ingredients: kaolin and porcelain stone, a rock that, when crushed and refined, gave the paste its translucency. The hills around Jingdezhen were full of both, and the Changling porcelain stone mining site is one of the places where the stone was quarried, crushed by water-powered hammers and refined into bricks that were carried to the kilns of the porcelain capital of the world.
Read the complete Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site comes up about 169 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hutian Ancient Kiln Site.
Jingdezhen has been making porcelain for more than a thousand years, and the Hutian kiln site is one of the places where that story began to turn into an industry. The kilns here produced fine white and bluish-white ware in the Song and Yuan dynasties, and the heaps of broken shards and the remains of long dragon-shaped kilns show how potters adapted slopes of land to fire great quantities of pots at once. Later, in the Ming dynasty, imperial kilns were established in the town itself, and Jingdezhen became the porcelain capital of China, supplying emperors and, via the sea trade, markets from Japan to Europe.
Read the complete Hutian Ancient Kiln Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 231 km into the recorded legs you reach Hutian Ancient Kiln Site. Next is back through Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site, late in the day. Next is Mount Huangshan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mount Huangshan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Mount Huangshan. That is the ride.
Mount Huangshan → Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site is 169 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site → Hutian Ancient Kiln Site is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hutian Ancient Kiln Site → back through Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site → Mount Huangshan is 169 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.