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.
From Beijing it runs 349 km to Beijing; allow about 5 h 02 of riding. On the way it passes Summer Palace, Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian, Western Qing Tombs and back through Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian. The line favours views over speed.
33 km on Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial → Summer Palace.
The Temple of Heaven was where the emperor of China, as Son of Heaven, performed the annual ceremonies of prayer for a good harvest. It was built in the early fifteenth century under the Yongle emperor, the same ruler who raised the Forbidden City, and its layout expresses a view of the cosmos: the altar is round, for heaven, set within a square park, for earth. The great Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, with its triple blue-tiled roof and wooden pillars, rests on a marble terrace and was built without nails.
Read the complete Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial is where the day begins. Next is Summer Palace.
The Empress Dowager Cixi is said to have spent money meant for the Chinese navy on rebuilding the Summer Palace, and the story is captured in stone: a marble boat moored permanently at the edge of Kunming Lake, a ship that will never sail. Whether the tale is entirely fair to her is debated, but the palace itself is beyond argument, a vast imperial garden of lakes, hills, halls, pavilions, bridges and covered walkways on the north-western edge of Beijing, laid out in the eighteenth century under the Qianlong Emperor, burned by British and French troops in 1860, rebuilt and burned again in 1900, and restored once more. It was listed by UNESCO in 1998 as a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design.
Read the complete Summer Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Summer Palace comes up about 33 km into the recorded legs. Next is Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian.
In the 1920s and 1930s, excavations in the limestone caves of Dragon Bone Hill at Zhoukoudian, south-west of Beijing, uncovered the remains of early humans who lived here hundreds of thousands of years ago. They became known as Peking Man, a population of Homo erectus, and in 1929 the Chinese archaeologist Pei Wenzhong found a nearly complete skull. The fossils caused a sensation, offering evidence of early humans in Asia and their use of fire. Then, in 1941, during the Japanese occupation, the original bones were packed for shipment to the United States and vanished; their fate remains one of the great mysteries of archaeology. The site is listed by UNESCO, and a museum displays casts and later finds.
Read the complete Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 78 km into the recorded legs you reach Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian. Next is Western Qing Tombs.
Ninety minutes from Beijing, where the North China Plain runs into the Taihang mountains, a line of tombs lies in a landscape of old pines. These are the Western Qing Tombs, in Yi County of Hebei province, the burial ground of four Qing emperors, including Yongzheng, Jiaqing, Daoguang and Guangxu, along with a crowd of empresses, concubines and princes. The Qing had a second great cemetery, the Eastern Tombs, on the other side of Beijing, and the two were laid out according to feng shui principles with hills behind and open ground in front.
Read the complete Western Qing Tombs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Western Qing Tombs, about halfway. Next is back through Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian sits at 234 km, about halfway. Next is back through Summer Palace.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Summer Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Summer Palace comes up about 315 km into the recorded legs. Next is Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial closes the day.
Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial → Summer Palace is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Summer Palace → Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian → Western Qing Tombs is 93 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Western Qing Tombs → back through Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian is 97 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian → back through Summer Palace is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Summer Palace → Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.