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 Chang’an it runs 95 km to Chang’an; allow about 1 h 32 of riding. On the way it passes Great Wild Goose Pagoda, Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an and back through Great Wild Goose Pagoda. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
When the monk Xuanzang returned to Chang'an in the seventh century after sixteen years of travel to India, he brought back hundreds of Buddhist scriptures, which he spent the rest of his life translating, and his journey later inspired the classic novel Journey to the West, with its Monkey King. After his death in 664, his remains were buried at Xingjiao Temple, on the slopes south of the city, and a five-storey brick pagoda was built over them in 669. Next to it stand two smaller pagodas for two of his disciples. The three pagodas, in a peaceful temple setting, are part of the Silk Roads World Heritage site, a tribute to one of the most famous travellers along that route.
Read the complete Xingjiaosi Pagodas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Xingjiaosi Pagodas is where the day begins. Next is Great Wild Goose Pagoda.
The Great Wild Goose Pagoda rises seven storeys above the southern part of Xi'an, a plain, tapered tower of grey brick that has been leaning slightly for centuries. It was built in 652, in the Tang dynasty, to store the Buddhist scriptures that the monk Xuanzang brought back from India after a journey of seventeen years, returning to the capital Chang'an in 645. His travels, over deserts, mountains and kingdoms, inspired the famous sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West, with its Monkey King, one of the best-loved stories in Chinese literature. In the temple of Da Ci'en that surrounds the pagoda, Xuanzang worked with a team of translators for the rest of his life.
Read the complete Great Wild Goose Pagoda write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Great Wild Goose Pagoda comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an.
Chang'an, now Xi'an, was the eastern end of the Silk Road, and in the Tang dynasty it was probably the biggest city in the world, a grid of walled wards with a million people, Persian merchants, Sogdian horse traders, Japanese students and Buddhist pilgrims from India. This point is south of the modern city, at the Xingjiao Temple, where two small brick pagodas stand on a bluff over the Fan river. They hold the remains of Xuanzang, the monk who walked to India in the seventh century and came back after sixteen years with hundreds of scriptures, and of two of his disciples. His journey inspired the later novel Journey to the West, with its Monkey King, and the temple has a quiet, scholarly atmosphere.
Read the complete Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 47 km into the recorded legs you reach Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an. Next is back through Great Wild Goose Pagoda.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Great Wild Goose Pagoda write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Great Wild Goose Pagoda, late in the day. Next is Xingjiaosi Pagodas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Xingjiaosi Pagodas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Xingjiaosi Pagodas. That is the ride.
Xingjiaosi Pagodas → Great Wild Goose Pagoda is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Great Wild Goose Pagoda → Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an → back through Great Wild Goose Pagoda is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Great Wild Goose Pagoda → Xingjiaosi Pagodas is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.