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.
A 177 km round trip from Xi’an - roughly 2 h 46 in the saddle. It goes by way of Xingjiaosi Pagodas, Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor and back through Xingjiaosi Pagodas. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The ride follows Site of Daming Palace in Chang’an City of → Xingjiaosi Pagodas for 31 km.
At its height in the seventh and eighth centuries, Chang'an, the Tang capital, was probably the biggest city in the world, with a population of around a million and a street plan so precise that Japan copied it for Kyoto and Nara. At the north of the city, on a plateau above the rest, stood the Daming Palace, the imperial residence from the 630s, with a great audience hall, the Hanyuan Hall, set on a raised platform, from which the emperor looked out over the city. It was the political heart of the empire, and a place of ceremony, intrigue and banquets, receiving envoys from Persia, Japan, Korea and Central Asia.
Read the complete Site of Daming Palace in Chang’an City of write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Site of Daming Palace in Chang’an City of 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 31 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 88 km into the recorded legs you reach Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. 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, late in the day. Next is Site of Daming Palace in Chang’an City of.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Site of Daming Palace in Chang’an City of write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Site of Daming Palace in Chang’an City of. That is the ride.
Site of Daming Palace in Chang’an City of → Xingjiaosi Pagodas is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Xingjiaosi Pagodas → Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor → back through Xingjiaosi Pagodas is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Xingjiaosi Pagodas → Site of Daming Palace in Chang’an City of is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.