Why this ride
856 km from Honchō to Matsudo, about 16 h 23 of riding. It goes by way of near Ishige and Ōtsuki. The climbs: near Sakai, Scenic stretch near Hannō and near Ōiso. It tops out at about 1,150 m.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Bandai Azuma Skyline Weekend + Shosenkyo Gorge and Lake Kawaguchi
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 856 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 16 h 23
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
Scenic road chapters
Back to Bandai → Shosenkyo Gorge and Lake Kawaguchi fuel gate
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 23 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 22 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Fuel stop near Honchō
Honchō is the central district of Funabashi, a big commuter city on the northern shore of Tokyo Bay in Chiba Prefecture. This is not riding country in itself; it is the urban sprawl you have to pass through to get from Tokyo towards the mountains and coasts beyond, and the best attitude is patience and a full tank.
Read the complete Fuel stop near Honchō write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Bandai Azuma Skyline Weekend is where the day begins. Next is Food stop near Ishige.
2. Food stop near Ishige
Ishige is a rural district of south-western Ibaraki, now part of the city of Jōsō, on the Kanto plain between the Kinugawa and Kokai rivers. It is a gentle, open landscape of rice paddies, vegetable fields, groves of trees around old farmhouses and shrines in small woods, with Mount Tsukuba standing alone on the horizon to the north-east.
Read the complete Food stop near Ishige write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Food stop near Ishige is where this day stops to eat. Next is High point near Sakai.
3. High point near Sakai
Sakai, in the far south-west of Ibaraki, sits on the Tone river, Japan's largest river by drainage basin, at a point where the river makes a broad sweep across the Kanto plain. In the Edo period, Sakai was a busy river port, where boats loaded with rice, soy sauce and other goods passed on their way to and from Edo, and the town grew rich on the trade.
Read the complete High point near Sakai write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
This is where the road stops climbing. Next is Scenic stretch near Hannō.
4. Scenic stretch near Hannō
Hanno is where Saitama's flat suburbs run out and the green ridges begin, at about 100 metres above the sea, on the Iruma river at the mouth of the valley that leads up toward Okutama and Chichibu. It is a city of about eighty-six thousand people, so a fuel stop is easy, and it has a long history as a timber town. For centuries the cedar and cypress felled in the mountains upstream were floated or hauled down here to supply the building boom of Edo, and the old lumber trade gave the place much of its wealth.
Read the complete Hanno fuel gate write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The high point of this section. Next is Tokyo / Kanto rides return.
5. Near Ōtsuki, on the way back
The Katsura river runs below, cutting a gorge near Ōtsuki that is crossed by Saruhashi, the Monkey Bridge, one of Japan's three great strange bridges, a wooden cantilever construction that has been rebuilt many times since the Middle Ages. Enzan, to the north-west, is the gateway to the Daibosatsu mountains and the Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park.
Read the complete Near Ōtsuki, on the way back write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Tokyo / Kanto rides return sits at 222 km, early in the day. Next is Photo stop near Ōiso.
6. Photo stop near Ōiso
Ōiso is a quiet seaside town on Sagami Bay, west of Hiratsuka, and it has an important place in Japanese social history: in 1885 it became the site of Japan's first public sea bathing beach, promoted by an army surgeon who believed that sea bathing was good for health. Wealthy families from Tokyo built villas here, and the town became a fashionable resort for politicians and aristocrats.
Read the complete Photo stop near Ōiso write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Photo stop near Ōiso is the summit of this stretch. Next is Bandai Azuma Skyline Weekend checkpoint 8.
7. Near Wako
In 1964 the world's best oarsmen raced on a straight, two-kilometre channel dug beside the Arakawa at Toda, a few minutes from this finish. The Toda rowing course was built for the Tokyo Olympics and is still busy with university crews, whose coaches cycle along the bank shouting through megaphones at dawn. Next door, crowds gather to bet on the motorboat races at the Toda kyōtei stadium, one of the few forms of legal gambling in Japan.
Read the complete Near Wako write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Bandai Azuma Skyline Weekend checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is Back to Bandai.
8. Back to Bandai
The city has more than half a million people, and the district here is a mix of apartment blocks, shops and small parks, with the bay a few kilometres to the south. Nakayama racecourse, home of the Arima Kinen, one of Japan's biggest horse races, lies a short way to the north-west.
Read the complete Bandai write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Finish at Back to Bandai. That is the ride. Next is Shosenkyo Gorge and Lake Kawaguchi.
9. Fuel stop near Matsudo
Planning note
Next is Food stop near Kurihashi.
10. Food stop near Kurihashi
Planning note
Food stop near Kurihashi is where this day stops to eat. Next is High point near Shiraoka.
11. High point near Shiraoka
Planning note
555 km in you reach High point near Shiraoka. Next is Scenic stretch near Hachiōji.
12. Scenic stretch near Hachiōji
Mount Takao stands at the edge of Hachiōji like a patient dog, a green hill of about six hundred metres that Tokyoites climb in their hundreds of thousands. For a rider, it is a start and finish point, a convenient place for fuel, parking and a good bowl of ramen before the mountains begin. The city sits at the foot of the Tama hills, and the climate here is a few degrees cooler than central Tokyo.
Read the complete Hachioji fuel gate write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Scenic stretch near Hachiōji, late in the day.
13. Near Uenohara, on the way back
Route 413, the Dōshi road, is the motorcycle road of western Kanagawa. It runs from Sagamihara up the long, narrow valley of the Dōshi river to Lake Yamanaka at the foot of Fuji, and on a weekend morning the parade of bikes heading west is almost continuous. This stop lies in that valley, south of Uenohara, where the river runs clear and green between forested slopes and the villages are strung out along the road.
Read the complete Near Uenohara, on the way back write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Tokyo / Kanto rides return sits at 666 km, late in the day. Next is Photo stop in Zushi.
14. Photo stop in Zushi
Zushi is a small, relaxed seaside town on the western side of the Miura Peninsula, tucked between Kamakura and Hayama, with a crescent of sandy beach facing Sagami Bay. It has long been a retreat for Tokyo families, and in summer the beach fills with swimmers, windsurfers and stand-up paddlers. Out of season, it is quiet, with dog walkers and joggers on the sand and fishing boats pulled up at the end of the bay.
Read the complete Photo stop in Zushi write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Photo stop in Zushi comes up 722 km in. Next is Shosenkyo Gorge and Lake Kawaguchi checkpoint 8.
15. Wako
Honda's engineers have tested ideas in Wako for decades; the company's research and development arm grew up here, and the name still turns up on buildings around town. So does RIKEN, Japan's largest research institute, whose headquarters and laboratories occupy a large campus in the city. For a rider ending a long weekend, there is a pleasing symmetry in finishing a ride where so many motorcycles were born on drawing boards.
Read the complete Wako write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 833 km. Next is Back to Shosenkyo Gorge.
16. Back to Shosenkyo Gorge
Matsudo is a city of nearly half a million people on the Chiba side of the Edo River, the border with Tokyo, and nothing about it says Shosenkyo or mountains. It is a commuter place, an hour or so from the gorge's Yamanashi valleys, and so a natural endpoint when the day's riding has taken you back through the whole sprawl of the Kanto plain. Think of it as the dock where the ship comes in.
Read the complete Shosenkyo Gorge write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back to Shosenkyo Gorge closes the day.
Leg by leg
Fuel stop near Honchō to Food stop near Ishige
Fuel stop near Honchō → Food stop near Ishige is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Food stop near Ishige to High point near Sakai
Food stop near Ishige → High point near Sakai is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
High point near Sakai to Scenic stretch near Hannō
High point near Sakai → Scenic stretch near Hannō is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Scenic stretch near Hannō to Near Ōtsuki, on the way back
Scenic stretch near Hannō → Near Ōtsuki, on the way back is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Photo stop near Ōiso to Near Wako
Photo stop near Ōiso → Near Wako is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Back to Bandai to Fuel stop near Matsudo
Back to Bandai → Fuel stop near Matsudo is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuel stop near Matsudo to Food stop near Kurihashi
Fuel stop near Matsudo → Food stop near Kurihashi is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Food stop near Kurihashi to High point near Shiraoka
Food stop near Kurihashi → High point near Shiraoka is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
High point near Shiraoka to Scenic stretch near Hachiōji
High point near Shiraoka → Scenic stretch near Hachiōji is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Scenic stretch near Hachiōji to Near Uenohara, on the way back
Scenic stretch near Hachiōji → Near Uenohara, on the way back is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Photo stop in Zushi to Wako
Photo stop in Zushi → Wako is 75 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
More motorcycle rides nearby
- Bandai Azuma Skyline Weekend · 480 km
- Shosenkyo Gorge and Lake Kawaguchi · 355 km
- Gunma Three Mountain Day · short arc · 352 km
- Izu Skyline and Jogasaki Coast · short arc · 360 km