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.
A proper escape from Tokyo with roads worth waking up for. 785 km round from Yokosuka - plan on about 13 h 05 of riding. The stops in between: Scenic stretch near Ōtsuki, near Yoshii and Kashima-shi. Atami is the high point. It tops out at about 1,100 m. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Yokosuka occupies much of the Miura Peninsula, south of Yokohama, and it has been a naval town since the 1860s, when the Tokugawa shogunate built a shipyard here with French help. Today it is home to the US Navy's Seventh Fleet and a major Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force base, and the mix of cultures gives the town a distinctive feel. Dobuita Street, near the base, is full of bars and shops, and Yokosuka navy curry is a local speciality.
Read the complete Fuel stop near Yokosuka write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Next is Boso Peninsula Pacific Sweep high point.
Atami is a hot-spring resort on the eastern coast of the Izu Peninsula, a town that climbs the hillside above Sagami Bay in a tumble of hotels, apartment blocks and narrow streets. It has been a place of rest for centuries, and the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu is said to have visited for the waters. Today the town is quite easy to reach from Tokyo, with a bullet train stopping here, which makes it a favourite weekend escape, and it still has a faintly retro seaside air, with old inns, souvenir shops and steaming vents.
Read the complete Atami write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
You top out here; the road stops climbing. Next is Scenic stretch near Ōtsuki.
Ōtsuki sits in a deep, narrow valley in the mountains of eastern Yamanashi, where the old Kōshū Kaidō highway from Edo to Kōfu meets the road south towards Mount Fuji and the Fuji Five Lakes. The Katsura river runs through the valley, and steep, forested mountains rise on every side, giving the town a closed-in, mountain feel despite being only about an hour from western Tokyo.
Read the complete Scenic stretch near Ōtsuki write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 201 km into the recorded legs you reach Scenic stretch near Ōtsuki. Next is Photo stop near Yoshii.
One of the oldest written stones in Japan stands near Yoshii. The Tago stele, carved in the early eighth century to commemorate the creation of a new district, is part of a group of three ancient monuments in the area that were added to UNESCO's Memory of the World register in 2017. It is a modest stone under a protective roof, but its age and significance give pause in a landscape of fields and low hills.
Read the complete Photo stop near Yoshii write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Photo stop near Yoshii, about halfway. Next is Tokyo / Kanto rides return.
Kashima's great shrine claims to be one of the oldest in Japan, and its deity, Takemikazuchi, is a god of thunder and swords. A stone in the shrine forest, the kaname-ishi, is said to pin down the head of a giant catfish beneath the earth whose thrashing causes earthquakes. Only a small rounded top shows above ground; legend says that no amount of digging has ever reached its bottom. The forest around the shrine, with tall cedars, deer and a spring-fed pond, is a cool, dark refuge on a summer day.
Read the complete Kashima-shi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tokyo / Kanto rides return sits at 397 km, about halfway. Next is Food stop near Kashima-shi.
Kashima's great shrine claims to be one of the oldest in Japan, and its deity, Takemikazuchi, is a god of thunder and swords. A stone in the shrine forest, the kaname-ishi, is said to pin down the head of a giant catfish beneath the earth whose thrashing causes earthquakes. Only a small rounded top shows above ground; legend says that no amount of digging has ever reached its bottom. The forest around the shrine, with tall cedars, deer and a spring-fed pond, is a cool, dark refuge on a summer day.
Read the complete Kashima-shi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Food stop near Kashima-shi is where this day stops to eat. Next is Boso Peninsula Pacific Sweep checkpoint 8.
Studio Ghibli's Pom Poko tells the story of raccoon dogs fighting the bulldozers that turned the Tama hills into a new town in the 1960s and 1970s, and this finish lies right in that landscape, between Inagi, Chōfu and Tama. The hills are now covered with apartment blocks, roads and shopping centres, but pockets of woodland and farmland survive, and the Tama River runs through the valley below.
Read the complete Near Chōfu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Boso Peninsula Pacific Sweep checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is Back to Boso.
The Tokyo Bay ferry is the secret of this point. It carries motorcycles, and it is the pleasant way to link the two peninsulas, since the alternative is a long drive around the head of the bay or the tunnel and bridge of the Aqua-Line.
Read the complete Boso write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Back to Boso. That is the ride.
Scenic stretch near Ōtsuki → Photo stop near Yoshii is the technical section. Hairpins, gradients and mixed traffic can stack up quickly; use low drama inputs, stay wide of centre lines and expect buses or riders appearing exactly where optimism says they will not.
This Photo stop near Yoshii → Kashima-shi stretch is for rhythm and scenery. Keep your head up, let the view breathe, and resist turning every open bend into a target. Stop once properly rather than half-stopping everywhere.
Food stop near Kashima-shi → Near Chōfu is the logistics leg. Watch junctions, villages and speed changes, then let the roadbook do its job: move you out of the clutter without spending your best attention too early.