CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 Fangshan it runs 227 km to Fangshan; allow about 3 h 48 of riding. The stops in between: Summer Palace, The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D, Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal and back through The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D.
This part of the ride is 42 km of Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian → Summer Palace.
In the 1920s and 1930s, excavations in the limestone caves of Dragon Bone Hill at Zhoukoudian, south-west of Beijing, uncovered the remains of early humans who lived here hundreds of thousands of years ago. They became known as Peking Man, a population of Homo erectus, and in 1929 the Chinese archaeologist Pei Wenzhong found a nearly complete skull. The fossils caused a sensation, offering evidence of early humans in Asia and their use of fire. Then, in 1941, during the Japanese occupation, the original bones were packed for shipment to the United States and vanished; their fate remains one of the great mysteries of archaeology. The site is listed by UNESCO, and a museum displays casts and later finds.
Read the complete Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian is where the day begins. Next is Summer Palace.
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 comes up 27 km in.
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.
54 km in you reach Summer Palace. Next is The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D.
The Forbidden City is the largest palace complex in the world, and from 1420 to 1912, it was the home of twenty-four emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It was built by the Yongle emperor, who moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, and who used tens of thousands of craftsmen and hundreds of thousands of labourers to finish it in about fourteen years. It covers about seventy-two hectares, with some nine hundred buildings, surrounded by a moat and a high wall. The name comes from the fact that ordinary people were forbidden to enter without permission, on pain of punishment.
Read the complete The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D, about halfway. 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.
Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal sits at 109 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D comes up 136 km in. 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.
163 km in you reach 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 Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 227 km.
Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian → Summer Palace is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Summer Palace → Summer Palace is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Summer Palace → The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D → Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal → back through The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D → back through Summer Palace is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Summer Palace → back through Summer Palace is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Summer Palace → Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.