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.
375 km from Xunzhong to Xunzhong, about 5 h 32 of riding. On the way it passes Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang, Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions and back through Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Dehua, a county in the mountains of Fujian province, in south-eastern China, has been making porcelain for over a thousand years. Its white porcelain, known in the West as blanc de Chine, is famous for its pure, creamy white colour and its fine figures, especially statues of Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, and other Buddhist and Taoist figures. The ancient kiln sites of Dehua, including long dragon kilns built on hillsides, are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China, inscribed in 2021.
Read the complete Sites of Dehua Kilns write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sites of Dehua Kilns is where the day begins. Next is Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang.
In the green hills of Anxi county, inland from the port city of Quanzhou in Fujian, the Xiacaopu site preserves the remains of an iron industry that flourished during the Song and Yuan dynasties, roughly from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries. Archaeologists found furnaces, slag heaps, ore-roasting pits and workshops on a hillside, evidence of large-scale production. The iron produced here was shipped down the rivers to Quanzhou and exported to Southeast Asia and beyond, and that is why the site is part of the World Heritage listing of Quanzhou, Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China, inscribed in 2021. At that time, Quanzhou was one of the largest ports in the world, visited by Arab, Persian and Indian merchants, and described by Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta.
Read the complete Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang comes up about 76 km into the recorded legs. Next is Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions.
Before the sailing season, officials and merchants climbed a hill above Quanzhou to ask the gods for wind. The Jiuri mountain inscriptions, carved on cliff faces and boulders between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, record these prayers, and they are among the most unusual documents of China's maritime past. They were written by local officials of the Song dynasty, and they appeal to the sea gods and to the spirits of the mountain to send a favourable monsoon, so that the trade ships bound for Southeast Asia, India and Arabia could set out in safety and return. Standing before a rock face carved with neat columns of characters, you are reading a note that someone left when the world's biggest port was run by hand and weather.
Read the complete Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 188 km into the recorded legs you reach Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions. Next is back through Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang, late in the day. Next is Sites of Dehua Kilns.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sites of Dehua Kilns write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Sites of Dehua Kilns. That is the ride.
Sites of Dehua Kilns → Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang is 76 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang → Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions is 112 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions → back through Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang is 104 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Xiacaopu Iron Production Site of Qingyang → Sites of Dehua Kilns is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.