Fuji Five Lakes and Misaka Pass
3 passes in 282 km, topping out at 1560 m
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Why this ride
Leave the city behind and spend the day on roads with texture. Out of Tokyo and back again: 282 km, roughly 5 h 07 in the saddle. The plan has 1 food stop marked.
Roadbook
- Tokyo
start
Every ride from Tokyo begins with a negotiation. The roads are good and the drivers are disciplined, but traffic lights are many and the pace is steady rather than fast, so patience is part of the toolkit. A Sunday dawn is the easiest time to slip away.
Tokyo is a city of more than thirteen million, and the metropolitan area around it is the largest in the world. It was once the fishing village of Edo, and it became the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate in the early seventeenth century, then Japan's capital in 1868. That history is visible in odd places: a small shrine tucked between apartment blocks, a stretch of old canal, a temple with incense drifting over a car park. For a rider, it is worth looking up between traffic lights.
Practicalities are simple, because everything is close. Fuel stations are everywhere, with attendants at many of them, and the city's convenience stores sell hot coffee, rice balls and sandwiches at any hour. The expressways are tolled, and an electronic toll card makes them smoother, though paying at the booth works. Parking for motorcycles is trickier than in many places, so choose a hotel with a bike space in advance and check the rules before leaving the bike anywhere on the street.
Once you reach the open road, the contrast is striking. Heading south-west along the coast toward the Izu Peninsula, the landscape changes from concrete to hills, tangerine groves and sea views, with Mount Fuji appearing on clear days. The best time to ride is autumn, when the air is dry and cool and the visibility is highest, and spring, when the cherry blossom runs up the coast. Summer is hot and humid, and the rainy season in June can be grey and heavy, so pack proper waterproofs.
- Fuji
food
Fuji is the city at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain dominates everything. On a clear winter morning, the great snow-capped cone rises straight up behind factory chimneys, rooftops and rice fields, so close and so huge that it seems painted on the sky. The city itself spreads across the coastal plain on Suruga Bay, where the fast, wide Fuji River meets the sea, and it is an industrial place, long known for its paper mills fed by the abundant water that flows from the mountain.
The water is the key to the region. Snow and rain soak into the porous volcanic rock of Mount Fuji and re-emerge years later as cold, clear springs that feed the rivers and the factories. Next door, in Fujinomiya, the Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha, the head shrine of the mountain's sacred tradition, sits beside a spring pool that fills with this water, and pilgrims once began their climb there. Fujinomiya is also famous for its own chewy style of yakisoba, and the fishing port at Tagonoura is known for shirasu, tiny whitebait served raw or boiled over rice.
The riding begins once you leave the plain. Route 139 climbs north from Fujinomiya across the Asagiri plateau, through dairy farms and grasslands with the mountain looming over them, past the Shiraito Falls, where water pours from the rock in a curtain of white threads. The road continues to Lake Motosu and the Fuji Five Lakes, where routes around the lakes lead to the Misaka Pass and the view-filled roads above Lake Yamanaka. The climb is gentle and well surfaced, with long sweepers and good sightlines.
Timing is everything for the view. Fuji is often hidden in cloud or haze, especially in summer, and the best chances are in the early morning and from late autumn to early spring, when the air is cold and clear. Winter brings frost and occasional snow on higher roads, so check conditions. The coastal plain is busy with lorries, and the Tomei and Shin-Tomei expressways run through the city, convenient but tolled.
Fuji has fuel, convenience stores and restaurants everywhere, though petrol stations in the mountains are fewer and some close early in the evening, so fill up in the city before you climb. Remember that Japan drives on the left, and that the mountain roads can be busy with tourists on weekends and holidays.
- Tokyo finish