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.
89 km from Kashihara-shi to Kashihara-shi, about 2 h 03 of riding. On the way it passes Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama, Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji and back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
The mound itself is easy to miss: a small, round hump of grass in a quiet corner of the Asuka countryside, surrounded by rice fields and persimmon trees. What made it famous is what was inside. In 1972, archaeologists opened a stone chamber here and found painted walls, with women in bright, flowing robes, a procession of men, and the guardian animals of the four directions, among them the Blue Dragon and the White Tiger. The paintings date from around the end of the seventh century or the start of the eighth, and show the strong influence of Korea and China on the early Japanese court. It was the first wall painting of its kind found in Japan and caused a sensation.
Read the complete Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb is where the day begins. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama.
Cherry trees are the whole point of Yoshino, and they are planted by the thousand up the side of a ridge in the mountains of Nara Prefecture, about five kilometres from the little town of Yoshino and an hour or two from Osaka. Over some three hundred years, pilgrims planted the sacred shidarezakura and the mountain cherry as offerings to the god of the mountain, and in the first half of April the slopes turn pink, white and green in four layers from the bottom to the top, a wave of flowering that rises up the hillside over about a fortnight.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama comes up about 24 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 48 km into the recorded legs you reach Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji. Next is back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama, late in the day. Next is Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb. That is the ride.
Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb → Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama → Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji → back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama → Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.