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.
From Fujiyoshida it runs 409 km to Fujiyoshida; allow about 6 h 05 of riding. The stops in between: 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, one hundred yards from the road, and every one of them clear enough to count the pebbles. Oshino Hakkai takes its water from the snow and rain of Mount Fuji, which sinks into the porous volcanic rock of the mountain and takes decades to filter down, so the springs that emerge in the village of Oshino are astonishingly pure and cold. The water holds close to a constant temperature all year, so in winter mist rises from the ponds, and in summer they feel like cool air-conditioning. Carp and trout drift through the plants, water wheels turn quietly, and thatched houses stand behind the ponds, though these days they hold shops selling pickles, soba noodles and sweets.
Read the complete Oshino Hakkai springs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Oshino Hakkai springs 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 204 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 springs.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Oshino Hakkai springs write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Oshino Hakkai springs. That is the ride.
Oshino Hakkai springs → Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces → Musée National des Beaux-Arts de l’Occiden is 143 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 springs is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.