Izu West Coast Sunset Road
A 272 km loop
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Why this ride
A proper escape from Tokyo with roads worth waking up for. A 272 km loop that starts and ends near Tokyo, about 4 h 57 of riding. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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.
- Izu
food
Shuzenji, the heart of the city of Izu, is one of the oldest hot spring towns in Japan. According to tradition, the great monk Kūkai founded the temple here in the early ninth century and struck a rock in the river with his iron staff, releasing a spring of healing water; a small bath on a rock in the middle of the stream, the Tokko-no-yu, marks the spot. The town has a more sombre history too: in 1204, the second shogun of the Kamakura shogunate, Minamoto no Yoriie, was exiled here and murdered.
Today Shuzenji is a quiet, atmospheric place, with traditional inns along the Katsura River, red bridges, a bamboo forest path and the old temple. A short walk around the town is a peaceful break from the road, and if you have time, a long bath in a hot spring is the classic Japanese way to recover from a day in the saddle.
The roads around Izu are some of the best in the Kanto region. To the south, the road climbs over the Amagi Pass, through dense forests of cedar and beech, and descends towards Kawazu via the Kawazu-Nanadaru Loop Bridge, a double spiral that carries the road down a steep valley. The route was made famous by Yasunari Kawabata's story The Izu Dancer, about a student walking over the pass. To the west, the Nishi-Izu coast road follows the rugged western shore of the peninsula, with cliffs, coves and fishing villages, and on clear evenings the sunset over Suruga Bay, with Mount Fuji rising across the water, is spectacular.
The Amagi area is famous for wasabi, grown in terraced beds fed by cold mountain streams, and a bowl of soba with freshly grated wasabi is a local treat. Fuel and convenience stores are available in Shuzenji and the surrounding towns, but they become scarcer in the mountains and along the west coast, so fill up before setting out. The roads can be narrow and twisty, with tight bends, and they are popular with motorcyclists on weekends.
- Tokyo finish