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 Tomioka it runs 101 km to Tomioka; allow about 2 h 10 of riding. On the way it passes Takayama-sha Sericulture School, Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm and back through Takayama-sha Sericulture School. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
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 is where the day begins. 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.
Takayama-sha Sericulture School comes up about 21 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 50 km into the recorded legs you reach Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm. 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.
back through Takayama-sha Sericulture School, late in the day. Next is 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 at Tomioka Silk Mill. That is the ride.
Tomioka Silk Mill → Takayama-sha Sericulture School is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Takayama-sha Sericulture School → Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tajima Yahei Sericulture Farm → back through Takayama-sha Sericulture School is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Takayama-sha Sericulture School → Tomioka Silk Mill is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.