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 387 km round trip from Yoshino-chō - roughly 7 h 33 in the saddle. The stops in between: Kôyasan - Jison-in, Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K, Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja and Nisanzai Kofun. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Cherry trees are the whole point of Yoshino, and they are planted by the thousand up the side of a ridge in the mountains of Nara Prefecture, about five kilometres from the little town of Yoshino and an hour or two from Osaka. Over some three hundred years, pilgrims planted the sacred shidarezakura and the mountain cherry as offerings to the god of the mountain, and in the first half of April the slopes turn pink, white and green in four layers from the bottom to the top, a wave of flowering that rises up the hillside over about a fortnight.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama is where the day begins. Next is Kôyasan - Jison-in.
Before you ride up to Mount Koya, the great mountain monastery of Shingon Buddhism, stop at its doorstep. Jison-in sits in the Kii river valley at Kudoyama, below the mountain, and it was founded by Kukai, the monk also known as Kobo Daishi, in the early ninth century as the administrative office and supply base for the new monastery above. Its most loved story concerns his mother. Women were barred from Koyasan for over a thousand years, so she lived here, and tradition says Kukai walked down nine times a month to visit her. That, the locals will tell you, is where the name Kudoyama, nine-times mountain, comes from.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Jison-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kôyasan - Jison-in comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K.
Mount Kōya is one of Japan's great sacred places, a high basin in the mountains of northern Wakayama where the monk Kūkai founded a monastic centre for Shingon Buddhism in the early ninth century. Today it is a town of over a hundred temples, many of which take in overnight guests, set among towering cedars. South of the summit plateau, deep in the forested ridges, run the old pilgrim trails that link Kōya with the Kumano shrines, part of the network inscribed by UNESCO as the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 92 km into the recorded legs you reach Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K. Next is Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja.
In the foothills below Mount Kōya, in the village of Kudoyama, stands the Niukanshōfu shrine, dedicated to the deities who protect the sacred mountain. In the ninth century, the monk Kūkai, known after his death as Kōbō Daishi, founded a monastery on the plateau of Kōyasan as the centre of Shingon Buddhism, and he established an administrative office here, at the foot of the mountain, to manage the supply of the monastery. Nearby, the temple of Jison-in is associated with Kūkai's mother, who according to tradition lived here because women were not allowed on the mountain, and her son came down to visit her. The shrine and temple mark the start of the Chōishi-michi, the pilgrim path to Kōyasan, marked every 109 metres by stone posts, which climbs about twenty kilometres to the monastery. The sites are part of the UNESCO listing of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja, about halfway. Next is Nisanzai Kofun.
In the middle of the sprawling city of Sakai, south of Osaka, a large keyhole-shaped mound rises above a ring of moats, covered in dense forest and surrounded by houses, roads and shops. This is the Nisanzai Kofun, a monumental tomb built in the fifth century for a member of the ruling elite of early Japan. It is one of the largest of the Mozu-Furuichi Kofun Group, a collection of burial mounds listed by UNESCO in 2019, which includes the enormous Daisen Kofun, traditionally attributed to the emperor Nintoku and one of the largest tombs in the world by area.
Read the complete Nisanzai Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nisanzai Kofun sits at 150 km, about halfway. Next is back through Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja comes up about 239 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 291 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K. Next is back through Kôyasan - Jison-in.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Jison-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kôyasan - Jison-in, late in the day. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 387 km.
Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama → Kôyasan - Jison-in is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kôyasan - Jison-in → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja → Nisanzai Kofun is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nisanzai Kofun → back through Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → back through Kôyasan - Jison-in is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kôyasan - Jison-in → Yoshino and Ômine - Yoshinoyama is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.