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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
377 km from Haifa to Haifa, about 6 h 30 of riding. The stops in between: Tyre, Anjar and back through Tyre. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,500 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Israel into Lebanon - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Haifa is the one big Israeli city where you really do ride up a mountain to get home. The north slope of Mount Carmel drops almost straight into the Mediterranean, and the city is stacked on it in layers: port and railway at the bottom, then the German Colony with its tidy Templer houses, then the long terraces of the Bahá'í Gardens, and finally the ridge, where the road along the top gives you the whole bay as far as Acre on a clear afternoon.
Read the complete North Slope of Mount Carmel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
North Slope of Mount Carmel is where the day begins. Next is Tyre.
Tyre was already ancient when Alexander the Great arrived in 332 before Christ. Then it was an island city just off the coast of what is now southern Lebanon, famously rich and famously stubborn, and when its citizens refused to open their gates, Alexander built a causeway out to the island and besieged it for months. Sand piled up against that causeway over the centuries, and the island became the peninsula you see today, with the modern city of Tyre spreading across it and the old harbour still busy with fishing boats.
Read the complete Tyre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tyre comes up about 73 km into the recorded legs. Next is Anjar.
In the Bekaa valley of Lebanon, close to the Syrian border, an Umayyad city lies laid out in a perfect grid, as if drawn with a ruler. Anjar was built in the early eighth century, probably under the caliph al-Walid I, as a palace town and commercial centre on the trade routes between Damascus and the coast. Its plan echoes Roman cities, with two main streets crossing at a four-sided monument, the tetrapylon, lined with the bases of hundreds of shops. Arches of the great palace, built of alternating courses of stone and brick, rise against the backdrop of the Anti-Lebanon mountains, and in the late afternoon the stone glows warm gold. The city flourished only briefly before being abandoned, which is why it is so clearly preserved. UNESCO listed it in 1984.
Read the complete Anjar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 188 km into the recorded legs you reach Anjar. Next is back through Tyre.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tyre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tyre, late in the day. Next is North Slope of Mount Carmel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete North Slope of Mount Carmel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at North Slope of Mount Carmel. That is the ride.
North Slope of Mount Carmel → Tyre is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Tyre → Anjar is 115 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Anjar → back through Tyre is 115 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Tyre → North Slope of Mount Carmel is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.