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.
321 km from Sakai to Sakai, about 5 h 30 of riding. The stops in between: Byodo-in, Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji and back through Byodo-in. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
You cannot really see a kofun. That is the first lesson of Richu-tenno-ryo, one of the great keyhole-shaped tombs of the Mozu group in Sakai, south of Osaka. These are burial mounds built in the fifth century for the early rulers of Japan, shaped like a keyhole with a round back and a wide front, and surrounded by moats. The Richu mound is about three hundred and sixty metres long, among the largest in the country, and you walk around the water on a path, catching glimpses through the trees of a green hill that looks like a wooded island. From the ground it simply looks like a park.
Read the complete Richu-tenno-ryo Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Richu-tenno-ryo Kofun is where the day begins. Next is Byodo-in.
Take a ten-yen coin out of your pocket in Japan and you are holding a picture of this place. The Phoenix Hall of the Byōdō-in in Uji, with its wings stretching out on either side of a central hall and bronze phoenixes on the roof, is one of the most famous buildings in the country. It was built in 1053 by Fujiwara no Yorimichi, a member of the most powerful aristocratic family of the Heian period, who converted his father's villa into a Buddhist temple. Its reflection in the pond in front was meant to evoke the Pure Land paradise of the Amida Buddha.
Read the complete Byodo-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Byōdō-in comes up about 60 km into the recorded legs. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji.
Ōminesan-ji is a temple on the summit of Mount Sanjō, one of the peaks of the Ōmine range in the heart of the Kii peninsula, and it holds a special place in Japanese religion. It is a centre of Shugendō, the mountain ascetic tradition that blends Buddhism, Shinto and older mountain worship, and its practitioners, the yamabushi, undergo arduous training on the ridges. The temple is famous for another reason too: the mountain is still closed to women by tradition, one of the last such places in Japan, which has become a subject of ongoing debate.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 160 km into the recorded legs you reach Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji. Next is back through Byodo-in.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Byodo-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Byodo-in, late in the day. Next is Richu-tenno-ryo Kofun.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Richu-tenno-ryo Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Richu-tenno-ryo Kofun. That is the ride.
Richu-tenno-ryo Kofun → Byodo-in is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Byōdō-in → Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji is 100 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji → back through Byodo-in is 100 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Byodo-in → Richu-tenno-ryo Kofun is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.