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.
411 km from Fujiyoshida to Fujiyoshida, about 6 h 07 of riding. On the way it passes Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces, Musée National des Beaux-Arts de l’Occiden and back through Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 61 km this is Hakone Turnpike and Skyline, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Eight ponds of astonishingly clear water lie in the village of Oshino, at the northern foot of Mount Fuji, and the water in them is snowmelt from the mountain, filtered for many years through layers of volcanic rock before welling up here. The Oshino Hakkai, the eight seas of Oshino, were once part of a lake that dried up, and they became places of pilgrimage for people climbing Fuji, who purified themselves in the springs before their ascent. They are included in UNESCO's inscription of Fujisan as a place of worship and source of artistic inspiration.
Read the complete Oshino Hakkai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Oshino Hakkai is where the day begins. 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.
Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Musée National des Beaux-Arts de l’Occiden.
Ueno is where Tokyo keeps its museums, and the National Museum of Western Art sits at the park's southern edge, a few minutes on foot from the station. The building is the point. Le Corbusier drew it in the late 1950s to house a collection of European art that Japan had won back from France after the war, and it later joined the UNESCO list of his works spread across several countries. It is a raised concrete box on pillars with a ramp-like logic inside, meant to grow outward as the collection did. In the forecourt Rodin's Gate of Hell and The Thinker sit in the open air, and on a grey morning the bronze looks wonderfully out of place against the Tokyo sky.
Read the complete Musée National des Beaux-Arts de l’Occiden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 205 km into the recorded legs you reach Musée National des Beaux-Arts de l’Occiden. Next is back through Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces, late in the day. Next is Oshino Hakkai.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Oshino Hakkai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Oshino Hakkai. That is the ride.
Oshino Hakkai → Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces is 61 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces → Musée National des Beaux-Arts de l’Occiden is 144 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Musée National des Beaux-Arts de l’Occiden → back through Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces is 144 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces → Oshino Hakkai is 62 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.