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.
204 km from Tongzhou to Tongzhou, about 3 h 16 of riding. On the way it passes Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial, Summer Palace, The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D and back through The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D.
31 km on Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial → Summer Palace.
For centuries, Beijing depended on grain shipped from the south along the Grand Canal, the longest artificial waterway in the world, and Tongzhou was where the boats arrived. The Tonghui canal connected Tongzhou with the capital, carrying grain, timber and goods to the city's markets and granaries. The Grand Canal, built and rebuilt over more than two thousand years, was listed by UNESCO in 2014, and the Tongzhou section is its northernmost part. Today, the waterfront has been landscaped into parks, with walkways, bridges and the old Ranteng pagoda rising above the water.
Read the complete Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal is where the day begins. Next is Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial.
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 comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Summer Palace.
The Summer Palace is the Qing court's idea of escaping the city, and even with the modern capital spread out around it, the idea still works. The core is Kunming Lake, a large artificial basin, with Longevity Hill rising from its northern shore and covered in halls, pavilions and the tall Tower of Buddhist Incense. The Qianlong Emperor shaped the garden in the mid eighteenth century, reportedly to celebrate his mother's birthday, and modelled parts of it on the scenery around West Lake in Hangzhou. British and French troops burned it during the Second Opium War in 1860, and the Empress Dowager Cixi rebuilt it later in the century, which is where the famous story comes from that she paid for it with money meant for the navy. The marble boat moored at the lakeshore, which cannot sail, has become the punchline of that tale.
Read the complete Summer Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 55 km into the recorded legs you reach Summer Palace. Next is The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D.
The Forbidden City is the largest palace complex in the world, and from 1420 to 1912, it was the home of twenty-four emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It was built by the Yongle emperor, who moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, and who used tens of thousands of craftsmen and hundreds of thousands of labourers to finish it in about fourteen years. It covers about seventy-two hectares, with some nine hundred buildings, surrounded by a moat and a high wall. The name comes from the fact that ordinary people were forbidden to enter without permission, on pain of punishment.
Read the complete The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D, about halfway.
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 sits at 104 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D comes up about 134 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 153 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Summer Palace. Next is back through 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.
back through Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial, late in the day. Next is Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 204 km.
Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal → Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial → Summer Palace is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Summer Palace → The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D → Summer Palace is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Summer Palace → back through The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing D → back through Summer Palace is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Summer Palace → back through Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial → Tongzhou Section of Tonghui Canal is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.