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 318 km round trip from Sakai - roughly 5 h 28 in the saddle. The stops in between: Byodo-in, Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji and back through Byodo-in. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Southern Osaka has a secret that is hard to see from the ground: its suburbs are woven around ancient burial mounds, some of them among the largest tombs ever built. In Sakai, these kofun belong to the Mozu group, which, together with the Furuichi group further east, was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 2019. Tatsusayama is one of the smaller mounds, a wooded hill surrounded by houses and roads, but it is part of the same story. Between roughly the fourth and sixth centuries, the rulers of the Yamato court and their elite were buried in tombs shaped like keyholes when seen from above, with moats around them and clay figures called haniwa placed on their slopes.
Read the complete Tatsusayama Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tatsusayama Kofun is where the day begins. Next is Byodo-in.
Take a ten-yen coin out of your pocket in Japan and you are holding a picture of this place. The Phoenix Hall of the Byōdō-in in Uji, with its wings stretching out on either side of a central hall and bronze phoenixes on the roof, is one of the most famous buildings in the country. It was built in 1053 by Fujiwara no Yorimichi, a member of the most powerful aristocratic family of the Heian period, who converted his father's villa into a Buddhist temple. Its reflection in the pond in front was meant to evoke the Pure Land paradise of the Amida Buddha.
Read the complete Byodo-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Byōdō-in comes up about 59 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 159 km into the recorded legs you reach Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji. Next is back through Byodo-in.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Byodo-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Byodo-in, late in the day. Next is Tatsusayama Kofun.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tatsusayama Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Tatsusayama Kofun. That is the ride.
Tatsusayama Kofun → Byodo-in is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Byōdō-in → Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji is 100 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji → back through Byodo-in is 99 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Byodo-in → Tatsusayama Kofun is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.