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 264 km round trip from Hangzhou - roughly 4 h 03 in the saddle. It goes by way of Area of City Site, Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal, Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal and back through Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal. Lakes are the scenery here.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 31 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
There is a Chinese saying that in heaven there is paradise, and on earth there are Suzhou and Hangzhou. The West Lake, on the western edge of Hangzhou, has inspired poets, painters and garden designers for more than a thousand years, and its blend of water, hills, causeways, pagodas and temples became a model for landscape gardens across China, Japan and Korea. UNESCO inscribed it as a cultural landscape in 2011. The Su causeway, built by the poet-governor Su Dongpo in the eleventh century, and the Bai causeway, named after the Tang poet Bai Juyi, cross the lake, lined with willows and peach trees.
Read the complete West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou is where the day begins. Next is Area of City Site.
Five thousand years ago, on the plain south of Lake Tai, a society built a city without metal tools. Liangzhu, now in the suburbs of Hangzhou, was a centre of a culture that carved jade into ritual objects, tubes called cong and discs called bi, and that grew rice in irrigated fields, and that built a complex water system of dams, dikes and canals, on a scale that no one expected from a Neolithic culture. UNESCO listed the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City in 2019, and the entry covers the city walls, the palace area, the waterworks and the burial grounds of the elite.
Read the complete Area of City Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Area of City Site comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal.
The Grand Canal of China is the longest artificial waterway in the world, a chain of canals and rivers linking Beijing with Hangzhou that was begun in sections well over two thousand years ago and unified under the Sui dynasty in the seventh century. Its southernmost stretch, the Jiangnan Canal, crosses the flat, watery plain between Jiaxing and Hangzhou, and this section is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site. Grain, silk and salt moved north along it for centuries, and the towns that line its banks grew rich on that traffic.
Read the complete Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 90 km into the recorded legs you reach Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal. Next is Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal.
Nanxun is one of the water towns of the Yangtze delta, south of Lake Tai, where life has revolved around canals for more than a thousand years. In the nineteenth century, it became immensely rich through the silk trade, and its merchant families, known by nicknames like the four elephants and the eight bulls, built mansions that mixed Chinese courtyards with European columns, stained glass and Western-style furniture, an unusual blend you will not find in many other water towns. The canal running through the town is part of the Grand Canal, the immense waterway linking Beijing with Hangzhou, which UNESCO listed in 2014.
Read the complete Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal, about halfway. Next is back through Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal sits at 189 km, about halfway. Next is back through Area of City Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Area of City Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Area of City Site comes up about 230 km into the recorded legs. Next is West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou closes the day.
West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou → Area of City Site is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Area of City Site → Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal → Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal → back through Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal → back through Area of City Site is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Area of City Site → West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.