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.
239 km from Saku to Saku, about 5 h 07 of riding. On the way it passes Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites, Takayama-sha Sericulture School, Tomioka Silk Mill and Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
High in the mountains of southwestern Gunma, near the border with Nagano, a series of stone-walled pits sit among the trees on a hillside. They look like ruins, and in a sense they are, but in their day they were cutting-edge technology. The Arafune cold storage, built in the early twentieth century, used the cold air flowing out of crevices in a rocky slope, a natural wind cave or fuketsu, to keep silkworm eggs cool and delay their hatching. This allowed silk farmers to raise several batches of silkworms a year instead of just one, greatly increasing production. At its peak, the facility stored eggs for farmers from across Japan and even abroad. It is part of the UNESCO listing of the Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites, inscribed in 2014, which tells the story of how Japan became the world's largest exporter of raw silk.
Read the complete Arafune Cold Storage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Arafune Cold Storage is where the day begins. Next is Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites.
In 1872, barely four years after the Meiji Restoration had ended the rule of the shoguns, Japan's new government opened a model silk-reeling mill in the small town of Tomioka in Gunma prefecture. It hired a French engineer, Paul Brunat, imported French machinery, and recruited young women from across the country to learn the new techniques and take them home. The long brick buildings, a curious mix of Japanese timber framing and European brick, still stand, and the mill operated until 1987. In 2014 it was inscribed on the UNESCO list together with related sericulture sites, such as farms where silkworm rearing methods were improved and a cold storage cave used to control the hatching of eggs.
Read the complete Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites comes up about 32 km into the recorded legs. Next is Takayama-sha Sericulture School.
Silk built modern Japan, and the hills of Gunma prefecture were its engine room. In the second half of the nineteenth century, farmhouses across this region raised silkworms on the upper floors, and the quality of the cocoons decided the fortunes of families and, eventually, of the nation's exports. At the Takayama-sha site in Fujioka, a farmer named Takayama Chōgorō developed a method of raising silkworms that balanced ventilation and temperature, and he trained students from across Japan in his large farmhouse. You can still see the building, with its distinctive roof vents running along the ridge, designed to let warm, moist air escape.
Read the complete Takayama-sha Sericulture School write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 53 km into the recorded legs you reach Takayama-sha Sericulture School. Next is Tomioka Silk Mill.
Tomioka Silk Mill is a long, low brick building with a timber frame, and it looks stranger than it is. In 1872, only a few years after the Meiji government opened Japan to the West, the state built this factory to produce silk by modern methods and sold it abroad to pay for the country's modernisation. A French engineer, Paul Brunat, designed it and hired French instructors, and the brick, laid in a pattern known as Flemish bond, was made locally by workers who had never seen a brick building before. The cocoon warehouses, with their sturdy roof frames, are still among the biggest wooden-framed brick buildings in Japan.
Read the complete Tomioka Silk Mill write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tomioka Silk Mill, about halfway. Next is Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm.
Silk transformed modern Japan, and Gunma Prefecture was its heartland. In the village of Shimamura, now part of Isesaki, on the north bank of the Tone River, stands the farmhouse of Tajima Yahei, a sericulturist who developed a method of raising silkworms in the nineteenth century. He built a two-storey house with a ventilation structure on the roof, allowing air to circulate through the upper floor where the silkworms were kept, and his design was widely copied across Japan.
Read the complete Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm sits at 112 km, about halfway. Next is back through Tomioka Silk Mill.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tomioka Silk Mill write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tomioka Silk Mill comes up about 162 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Takayama-sha Sericulture School.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Takayama-sha Sericulture School write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 183 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Takayama-sha Sericulture School. Next is back through Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites, late in the day. Next is Arafune Cold Storage.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Arafune Cold Storage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 239 km.
Arafune Cold Storage → Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites → Takayama-sha Sericulture School is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Takayama-sha Sericulture School → Tomioka Silk Mill is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tomioka Silk Mill → Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm → back through Tomioka Silk Mill is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tomioka Silk Mill → back through Takayama-sha Sericulture School is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Takayama-sha Sericulture School → back through Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites → Arafune Cold Storage is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.