Bukhan River and Chuncheon
A 195 km loop
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Why this ride
A proper escape from Seoul with roads worth waking up for. A 195 km loop that starts and ends near Seoul, about 3 h 32 of riding. The line favours views over speed.
Roadbook
- Seoul
start
Seoul is a capital that sits in a bowl of granite mountains, and that is why it feels so layered. Bukhansan rises behind the old palaces to the north, Namsan stands in the middle with its tower, and the Han River slides through the south. The city has been the Korean capital since 1394, when the Joseon dynasty chose it, and the royal palace of Gyeongbokgung was built soon after. A fortress wall still climbs some of the ridges, and walking even a short section gives a fine view over the roofs. Insadong, with its tea houses and craft shops, and the hanok streets of Bukchon preserve the old style of wooden courtyard houses among the modern towers.
Riding in Seoul is not for the faint-hearted. Traffic is dense, lanes are fast, and delivery riders thread through everything at high speed. The city has a ring of expressways and a web of bridges across the Han, and parking is scarce and often expensive. If you must ride in, plan your route with care and consider leaving the bike outside the centre and taking the metro, which is clean, cheap and extremely efficient. The rewards of a ride out of the city are close: within an hour you can be in Bukhansan National Park, or on quiet mountain roads east of the capital with long views and few cars.
Food is the reason many people come. Barbecue restaurants fill the evenings with smoke and talk, street vendors sell tteokbokki, a chewy rice-cake dish in red sauce, and the markets at Gwangjang serve fresh bindaetteok, a mung bean pancake fried to order. Coffee shops are everywhere and open late. The Cheonggyecheon stream, restored from under a highway in 2005, makes a pleasant walk through the middle of the city.
Fuel is easy to find, although petrol stations in the centre are fewer than on the outskirts. Spring brings cherry blossom, autumn brings crisp air and clear sky, and both are the best times to visit. Winter is bitterly cold with dry winds, and summer is humid, with heavy monsoon rain through July.
- Chuncheon
food
Chuncheon is a lake city. The Bukhan and Soyang rivers meet here and have been dammed several times over, so the city of some two hundred thousand people sits in a basin ringed by green mountains and wrapped in long, still reservoirs: Uiam Lake right on its doorstep, Soyang Lake in the hills to the north-east, Chuncheon Lake upstream. Mist hangs on the water most autumn mornings, and the light here has a soft, washed quality you notice as soon as you come over the last ridge from Seoul.
You come to Chuncheon to eat, and specifically to eat two things. Dakgalbi is the city's own dish: chicken marinated in a fiery red pepper paste and stir-fried at your table on a huge round iron pan with cabbage, sweet potato, rice cakes and perilla leaves, and when it is nearly gone, the staff fry rice in what is left. There is a whole street of dakgalbi restaurants near Myeongdong in the city centre. The second is makguksu, buckwheat noodles served cold in a tangy broth with a little sugar, mustard and vinegar to adjust as you like, perfect after a hot ride.
Soyang Dam, finished in 1973, is the largest earth-fill dam in Korea, and it holds back a huge lake that winds through the mountains towards Inje, with ferries to remote temples like Cheongpyeongsa. Nami Island, in the river just south-west of the city, became famous across Asia after the television drama Winter Sonata was filmed among its rows of trees, and it is crowded with visitors, especially in autumn, so it is a stop for the curious rather than for peace.
The riding to and from Chuncheon is some of the best close to Seoul. Route 46 follows the Bukhan valley with long curves, river views and plenty of company on weekends, and the smaller roads north and east climb into the mountains of Gangwon, towards Hwacheon, Yanggu and Inje, with real passes, tight bends and thick forest. Remember that expressways are closed to motorcycles in Korea, so the national roads are your routes, and they can be busy around the lakes on Sundays. The best seasons are spring, for blossom, and October, when the hills go red and gold.
Fuel, convenience stores and motels are easy to find all over the city, and the lakeside paths are good for an evening walk. Order dakgalbi for two even if you are alone; nobody will mind, and you will need it for tomorrow.
- Seoul finish