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 226 km round trip from Fujinomiya - roughly 3 h 54 in the saddle. The stops in between: Lake Yamanakako, Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces and back through Lake Yamanakako. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 59 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Murayama Sengen-jinja is the quieter ancestor of the Fuji pilgrimage. Long before the climbers of Edo came in crowds, ascetic mountain priests of Shugendō trained at Murayama on the southern slope of Mount Fuji, and the shrine stood at the beginning of a trail up the mountain. The old name for the place is a reminder that this was a monastery as much as a shrine, a base of mountain monks who practised purification and climbed in rigorous seasons. Large cedars shade the grounds, and a stone path leads between moss-covered stones and old wooden buildings, so the place feels more like a forest sanctuary than a tourist stop.
Read the complete Murayama Sengen-jinja Shrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Murayama Sengen-jinja Shrine is where the day begins. Next is Lake Yamanakako.
Yamanakako is the largest and highest of the Fuji Five Lakes, lying at nearly a thousand metres at the eastern foot of Mount Fuji, and on a clear winter morning, with the snow cone of the mountain mirrored in still water, it delivers the view that sells a million postcards. The lake was formed when lava flows from Fuji dammed the valley, and it is shallow, with reed beds, swans and boating piers along the shore. In summer it is a cool escape from the heat of Tokyo, busy with families, rowing boats and lakeside cafés; in winter the crowds thin and the mountain is at its most impressive.
Read the complete Lake Yamanakako write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lake Yamanakako comes up about 51 km into the recorded legs. Next is Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces.
Two pairs of tall brick chimneys stand in a quiet suburb at the base of the Izu Peninsula, looking strangely European against the green hills. They belong to the Nirayama reverberatory furnace, built in the 1850s to melt iron for casting cannons, at a time when Japan felt threatened by Western warships arriving in its waters. The project was led by Egawa Hidetatsu, the local magistrate, a forward-thinking official who studied Western military technology from Dutch books. He died before it was completed, and his son finished the work. It is the only surviving reverberatory furnace of its era in Japan that was actually used for casting, and since 2015 it has been part of the UNESCO site of the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution.
Read the complete Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 113 km into the recorded legs you reach Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces. Next is back through Lake Yamanakako.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lake Yamanakako write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Lake Yamanakako, late in the day. Next is Murayama Sengen-jinja Shrine.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Murayama Sengen-jinja Shrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Murayama Sengen-jinja Shrine. That is the ride.
Murayama Sengen-jinja Shrine → Lake Yamanakako is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lake Yamanakako → Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces → back through Lake Yamanakako is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lake Yamanakako → Murayama Sengen-jinja Shrine is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.