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.
97 km from Nagasaki to Nagasaki, about 2 h 08 of riding. It goes by way of Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine, Shitsu Village in Sotome and Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Nagasaki spills down its hills towards the harbour in a way that makes every drive feel like a lesson in gravity, and the Mitsubishi shipyard sits right at the water's edge, a wall of cranes and dry docks that has shaped the city for a century and a half. The Number Three Dry Dock, finished in the early twentieth century, is one of the pieces of Japan's Meiji-era industrial heritage that were added to the World Heritage list in 2015. It is stone-lined, deep and surprisingly beautiful, like a rectangular canyon cut for ships. Mitsubishi took over the yard in the 1880s, and from here came warships and liners that helped turn a closed, feudal country into an industrial power in a startlingly short time.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc is where the day begins. Next is Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine.
Out in the sea off Nagasaki, a low island called Takashima was the place where modern Japan dug its first Western-style coal shaft. In 1868, in the very year of the Meiji Restoration, the Scottish merchant Thomas Glover went into partnership with the Saga domain to sink a shaft here using steam-powered machinery from Britain. The mine later passed to Mitsubishi and became one of the pillars of the company's rise, fuelling steamships, factories and the rapid industrialisation of the country. Takashima is now part of the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution, listed by UNESCO in 2015.
Read the complete Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine comes up about 19 km into the recorded legs. Next is Shitsu Village in Sotome.
Sotome is a stretch of rugged coast north of Nagasaki, where steep hills drop into the East China Sea, and the village of Shitsu clings to its slopes. During the centuries when Christianity was banned in Japan, the farmers and fishermen of this remote area kept their faith in secret, passing down prayers and rituals from generation to generation, hiding their devotion behind Buddhist and Shinto practices. When the ban was lifted in 1873, many of them returned to the Catholic Church. The Shitsu church, built in 1882 under the direction of the French missionary Marc Marie de Rotz, stands on a hill above the sea, a simple white building with a low profile designed to resist the strong winds. De Rotz was more than a priest: he taught the villagers to make bread, pasta and textiles, built a clinic and a workshop, and his legacy is still honoured locally. The village and church are part of the UNESCO listing of the Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region.
Read the complete Shitsu Village in Sotome write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 65 km into the recorded legs you reach Shitsu Village in Sotome. Next is back through Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine, late in the day. Next is Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc, 24 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc. That is the ride.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc → Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine → Shitsu Village in Sotome is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shitsu Village in Sotome → Back to Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.