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 Shimokizukuri it runs 335 km to Shimokizukuri; allow about 4 h 50 of riding. On the way it passes Kamegaoka Burial Site, Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan, Futatsumori Site and back through Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan. The line favours views over speed.
Over three thousand years ago, Jomon people in northern Japan arranged stones into circles on a terrace at the foot of Mount Iwaki, the conical volcano that dominates the Tsugaru plain in Aomori prefecture. The Omori Katsuyama stone circle is one of these monuments, with a ring of standing and placed stones that may have been used for rituals, burials or marking the seasons. It is part of the Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan, inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2021, which celebrates a culture of hunter-gatherers who settled in permanent villages and made pottery for over ten thousand years.
Read the complete Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle is where the day begins. Next is Kamegaoka Burial Site.
In 1887, a farmer digging in the fields near Kamegaoka, in the Tsugaru region of northern Honshu, found a strange clay figure: a stocky body covered with patterns and a face dominated by huge eyes like snow goggles. The shakōki-dogū, the goggle-eyed figurine, became one of the most famous objects of the Jōmon culture, the hunter-gatherers who lived in Japan for more than ten thousand years and made some of the oldest pottery in the world. Kamegaoka was a burial and settlement site of the final Jōmon period, about three thousand years ago, and it has yielded lacquerware, pottery and figurines of remarkable sophistication. It is part of the Jōmon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan, listed by UNESCO in 2021.
Read the complete Kamegaoka Burial Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kamegaoka Burial Site comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan.
At the foot of Mount Iwaki, the solitary volcano that rises above the Tsugaru plain in Aomori prefecture, there is a flat terrace where people of the Jomon period laid out a large oval ring of stones a few thousand years ago. The Omori Katsuyama stone circle is one of the sites that make up the Jomon Prehistoric Sites of Northern Japan, listed by UNESCO in 2021, and it is a quiet, grassy place where you can stand in the middle and look straight up at the mountain the builders must have looked at every day.
Read the complete Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 65 km into the recorded legs you reach Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan. Next is Futatsumori Site.
Futatsumori is a gentle hilltop near the town of Shichinohe in Aomori prefecture, overlooking Lake Ogawara, and to an untrained eye it is simply a grassy field among woods and farmland. But this is one of the largest shell mounds in the Tōhoku region, piled up by Jōmon people over thousands of years as they gathered shellfish from the lake and the sea, and it belongs to the same World Heritage group of Jōmon sites as the better-known Sannai-Maruyama. The shell heaps, rich in calcium, neutralised the acid soil and preserved bones, tools and ornaments that would otherwise have dissolved.
Read the complete Futatsumori Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Futatsumori Site, about halfway. Next is back through Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan sits at 207 km, about halfway. Next is back through Kamegaoka Burial Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kamegaoka Burial Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kamegaoka Burial Site comes up about 306 km into the recorded legs. Next is Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle closes the day.
Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle → Kamegaoka Burial Site is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kamegaoka Burial Site → Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan → Futatsumori Site is 102 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Futatsumori Site → back through Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan is 103 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan → back through Kamegaoka Burial Site is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kamegaoka Burial Site → Omori Katsuyama Stone Circle is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.