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.
217 km from Xi’an to Xi’an, about 3 h 41 of riding. It goes by way of Xingjiaosi Pagodas, Small Wild Goose Pagoda, Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor and back through Small Wild Goose Pagoda. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Chang'an, now Xi'an, was the eastern end of the Silk Road, and in the Tang dynasty it was probably the biggest city in the world, a grid of walled wards with a million people, Persian merchants, Sogdian horse traders, Japanese students and Buddhist pilgrims from India. This point is south of the modern city, at the Xingjiao Temple, where two small brick pagodas stand on a bluff over the Fan river. They hold the remains of Xuanzang, the monk who walked to India in the seventh century and came back after sixteen years with hundreds of scriptures, and of two of his disciples. His journey inspired the later novel Journey to the West, with its Monkey King, and the temple has a quiet, scholarly atmosphere.
Read the complete Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an is where the day begins. Next is Xingjiaosi Pagodas.
When the monk Xuanzang returned to Chang'an in the seventh century after sixteen years of travel to India, he brought back hundreds of Buddhist scriptures, which he spent the rest of his life translating, and his journey later inspired the classic novel Journey to the West, with its Monkey King. After his death in 664, his remains were buried at Xingjiao Temple, on the slopes south of the city, and a five-storey brick pagoda was built over them in 669. Next to it stand two smaller pagodas for two of his disciples. The three pagodas, in a peaceful temple setting, are part of the Silk Roads World Heritage site, a tribute to one of the most famous travellers along that route.
Read the complete Xingjiaosi Pagodas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Xingjiaosi Pagodas comes up about 44 km into the recorded legs. Next is Small Wild Goose Pagoda.
Xi'an was Chang'an, the capital of the Tang dynasty and the eastern end of the Silk Road, and the Small Wild Goose Pagoda is one of the survivors from that golden age. It was built between about 707 and 709 to house Buddhist scriptures brought back from India by the monk Yijing, who travelled by sea and returned with hundreds of texts. It stands in the grounds of the Jianfu Temple, in a quiet garden just south of the city walls, a slim, tapering tower of brick with fifteen tiers of narrow eaves.
Read the complete Small Wild Goose Pagoda write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 72 km into the recorded legs you reach Small Wild Goose Pagoda. Next is Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.
Beneath a large, tree-covered mound at the foot of Mount Li, east of Xi'an, lies the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, who unified China in 221 BC and became its first emperor. He ruled for only eleven years more, dying in 210 BC, but in that time he standardised weights, measures, writing and the axle width of carts, linked the northern walls into an early Great Wall, and conscripted hundreds of thousands of labourers for his projects. The tomb mound, which still rises about fifty metres, has never been opened. The ancient historian Sima Qian wrote that the burial chamber held a model of the empire with rivers of mercury, and modern soil tests have found high levels of mercury around the mound.
Read the complete Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, about halfway. Next is back through Small Wild Goose Pagoda.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Small Wild Goose Pagoda write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Small Wild Goose Pagoda sits at 145 km, about halfway. Next is back through Xingjiaosi Pagodas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Xingjiaosi Pagodas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Xingjiaosi Pagodas comes up about 175 km into the recorded legs. Next is Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an closes the day.
Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an → Xingjiaosi Pagodas is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Xingjiaosi Pagodas → Small Wild Goose Pagoda is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Small Wild Goose Pagoda → Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor → back through Small Wild Goose Pagoda is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Small Wild Goose Pagoda → back through Xingjiaosi Pagodas is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Xingjiaosi Pagodas → Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.