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 Sakai-nakajima it runs 409 km to Sakai-nakajima; allow about 7 h 09 of riding. It goes by way of Arafune Cold Storage, Kawaguchi Asama-jinja Shrine and back through Arafune Cold Storage. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Arafune Cold Storage.
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 comes up about 68 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kawaguchi Asama-jinja Shrine.
Mount Fuji was never meant to be seen only from a distance, and the shrines at its foot are where the older idea of the mountain as a god survives. The Kawaguchi Asama-jinja sits among tall old cedars on the north side, near Lake Kawaguchi, one of the five lakes that ring the mountain's northern foot, and it is one of the shrines that were used by pilgrims before they began the climb. The deity honoured at the Asama shrines is Konohanasakuya-hime, the princess of the blossoming trees, who is linked with the mountain and its volcanic fire.
Read the complete Kawaguchi Asama-jinja Shrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 205 km into the recorded legs you reach Kawaguchi Asama-jinja Shrine. Next is back through 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.
back through Arafune Cold Storage, late in the day. Next is Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm. That is the ride.
Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm → Arafune Cold Storage is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Arafune Cold Storage → Kawaguchi Asama-jinja Shrine is 137 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Kawaguchi Asama-jinja Shrine → back through Arafune Cold Storage is 136 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Arafune Cold Storage → Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.