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.
A 389 km round trip from Sīlat az̧ Z̧ahr - roughly 6 h 42 in the saddle. The stops in between: Tel Megiddo, North Slope of Mount Carmel, Qalaat Chama’ and Qalaat al-Chakif. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses Palestinian Territories, Israel and Lebanon - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Sebastia, Sabastiya in Arabic, is a Palestinian village on a hill north-west of Nablus, in the northern West Bank, surrounded by olive groves and terraced hillsides. It stands on the site of Samaria, the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel in the ninth and eighth centuries BC, later rebuilt by Herod the Great, who named it Sebaste in honour of the Emperor Augustus. The ruins on the hilltop above the village span a thousand years of history.
Read the complete Sebastia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sebastia is where the day begins. Next is Tel Megiddo.
From the top of Tel Megiddo, the whole of the Jezreel Valley spreads out below you, a green and gold checkerboard of fields stretching towards Mount Tabor and the hills of Galilee. You can see at once why so many armies fought here. The mound guarded the narrow pass where the ancient coastal road, the Via Maris, crossed from the Mediterranean plain into the valley, and anyone who held it controlled one of the great trade and military routes of the ancient world.
Read the complete Tel Megiddo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tel Megiddo comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. Next is North Slope of Mount Carmel.
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.
about 89 km into the recorded legs you reach North Slope of Mount Carmel. Next is Qalaat Chama’.
Before anything else: this is one of the most sensitive places on any of these routes. Qalaat Chama, or Shamaa castle, stands on a hilltop in southern Lebanon, a few kilometres north of the border with Israel and inland from Naqoura, in an area that has seen repeated conflict, including heavy fighting in recent years, and that many governments advise against visiting under any circumstances. Damage to historic sites in the area has been reported, and conditions may have changed. Do not go without checking current official travel advice, and if in doubt, do not go at all.
Read the complete Qalaat Chama’ write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Qalaat Chama’, about halfway. Next is Qalaat al-Chakif.
Perched on a cliff edge some three hundred metres above the gorge of the Litani river in southern Lebanon, Beaufort Castle, known in Arabic as Qalaat al-Chakif, has watched over the borderlands of the Levant for nearly a thousand years. The Crusaders took and fortified it in the twelfth century, and it was finally surrendered to Saladin in 1190 after a long siege. Later it was held by the Mamluks, rebuilt and repaired by local rulers, and in the twentieth century it became a fiercely contested military position, occupied by Palestinian fighters and then by the Israeli army from 1982 until its withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. Its stones have been battered by everything from siege engines to modern artillery.
Read the complete Qalaat al-Chakif write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Qalaat al-Chakif sits at 195 km, about halfway. Next is back through Qalaat Chama’.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Qalaat Chama’ write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Qalaat Chama’ comes up about 244 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through 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.
about 301 km into the recorded legs you reach back through North Slope of Mount Carmel. Next is back through Tel Megiddo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tel Megiddo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tel Megiddo, late in the day. Next is Sebastia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sebastia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 389 km.
Sebastia → Tel Megiddo is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tel Megiddo → North Slope of Mount Carmel is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
North Slope of Mount Carmel → Qalaat Chama’ is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat Chama’ → Qalaat al-Chakif is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qalaat al-Chakif → back through Qalaat Chama’ is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Qalaat Chama’ → back through North Slope of Mount Carmel is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through North Slope of Mount Carmel → back through Tel Megiddo is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tel Megiddo → Sebastia is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.