Myogi Mountain and Karuizawa + Tokyo · Okutama Lake and Forest Road Day

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Fuel stop 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

   Myogi Mountain and Karuizawa is where the day begins. Next is High point near Uenohara.

2. 2. High point near Uenohara

   Planning note

   You top out here; the road stops climbing. Next is Food stop near Miura.

3. 3. Food stop near Miura

   At the very tip of the Miura Peninsula, south of Yokosuka, the land ends in low cliffs, rocky shelves, cabbage fields and a fishing harbour that has supplied Tokyo with tuna for generations. Misaki port is the heart of Miura, and that is where you go to eat. The city has around fifty thousand people, but it feels like a coastal country town, with the sea always close and the smell of salt and fish on the wind.

   Read the complete Miura write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   A break here. Next is Tokyo / Kanto rides return.

4. 4. Tokyo / Kanto rides return

   Chiba prefecture is the thumb of land that sticks into the Pacific east of Tokyo, and its southern end is lower, softer and far more rural than most visitors expect, with ridges of forested hills, small rice valleys and a long coast of surf beaches. Katsuura, with twenty-two thousand people, and Ōhara and Kamogawa, both a little further along the coast, are the main towns.

   Read the complete Tokyo / Kanto rides return 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, early in the day. Next is Photo stop near Mitsukaidō.

5. 5. Photo stop near Mitsukaidō

   Mitsukaidō, now part of the city of Jōsō in south-western Ibaraki, lies on the vast, flat Kanto plain north of Tokyo, beside the Kinugawa river. The landscape is one of rice paddies, irrigation channels, farmhouses with windbreak trees and long river embankments, under a big sky. To the north-east, Mount Tsukuba rises alone from the plain, its twin peaks visible from far away, and on clear winter days Mount Fuji can sometimes be seen far to the south-west.

   Read the complete Photo stop near Mitsukaidō write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Photo stop near Mitsukaidō sits at 202 km, about halfway. Next is Scenic stretch near Noda.

6. 6. Scenic stretch near Noda

   Noda is a city in the north-west of Chiba prefecture, between the Edo and Tone rivers, and it smells, faintly, of soy sauce. For more than three centuries, Noda has been one of the main centres of soy sauce brewing in Japan, and it is the home of Kikkoman, whose origins lie in the brewing families of the town. The company's museum offers tours where you can learn about the brewing process and taste the results.

   Read the complete Scenic stretch near Noda write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Scenic stretch near Noda comes up about 353 km into the recorded legs. Next is Myogi Mountain and Karuizawa checkpoint 8.

7. 7. Near Kokubunji

   Western Tokyo does not look like much from the train, a continuous sprawl of houses and stations, but walk a little and the old landscape shows through. Springs emerge at its foot, feeding small streams like the Nogawa, and some of the paths along them feel almost rural, with bamboo groves, old trees and the sound of running water.

   Read the complete Near Kokubunji write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Myogi Mountain and Karuizawa checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is Back to Myogi Mountain.

8. 8. Back to Myogi Mountain

   Hachioji sits where the Tokyo plain finally runs into the hills, a city of well over five hundred thousand people at the foot of the Tama mountains, and the Myogi ride comes back to it as to a front door. In the old days it was a post town on the road to the western provinces, famous for silk, and merchants carried raw silk down the Hachioji road to the ports of Yokohama for export. That trade made the city rich, and the old route is still remembered as the Silk Road of Japan.

   Read the complete Myogi Mountain 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 Myogi Mountain. That is the ride. Next is Tokyo west.

9. 9. Tokyo west exit

   The reading of forty metres above sea level tells you the geography: the Musashino plateau, a broad terrace of the Tama River's old floodplain, flat as a table and covered in houses, farms and the long green ribbons of watercourses. Kokubunji, the nearest town, is a commuter hub on the Chuo Line, and the route out toward the west starts here, heading for the mountains that appear as a blue line on clear winter days.

   Read the complete Tokyo west exit write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The day opens at Tokyo west. Next is Hanno.

10. 10. Hanno fuel gate

    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

    Hanno is the fuel stop for this leg. Next is Okutama lake road, climbing 430 m.

11. 11. Okutama lake road

    Lake Okutama is not a natural lake at all. It is the reservoir behind the Ogouchi dam, completed in 1957 to supply water to Tokyo, and it fills a deep, narrow valley in the mountains at the western end of the city's territory. Several hundred families had to leave their homes to make way for the water, and the drowned villages, together with the old roads, lie somewhere beneath the surface. The lake is still one of the main sources of drinking water for the capital, so it is kept clean, the shores are wooded, and there is little building around it.

    Read the complete Okutama lake road write-up.

    Recorded stop-planning note

    May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

    Planning note

    about 553 km into the recorded legs you reach Okutama lake road. The road climbs 430 m on the way up to it, steadily. Reckon on about 3 °C colder than the valley, and more in the wind. Next is Kazahari pass road, climbing 616 m.

12. 12. Kazahari pass road

    Kazahari is a high saddle on the border between Tokyo and Yamanashi, at around 1,150 metres, and the road over it is one of the quietest and prettiest in the Kanto mountains. It climbs from the Okutama lake country through dark cedar forest and then through deciduous woods that glow in autumn, with occasional views through gaps in the trees. The pass is narrow, with a limited number of corners where two vehicles can pass, and the surface is patchy, so a relaxed pace is the sensible choice.

    Read the complete Kazahari pass road write-up.

    Recorded stop-planning note

    May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

    Planning note

    You top out at 1146 m here. The road climbs 616 m on the way up to it, steadily. Reckon on about 7 °C colder than the valley, and more in the wind. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Akiruno food stop, mostly downhill.

13. 13. Akiruno food stop

    Akiruno is a young name on an old place. The city was created in the 1990s by merging Itsukaichi and Hikawa, two towns at the western edge of Tokyo, and the name comes from the Aki river, which runs through a pretty valley of wooded slopes and clear water. At about 180 metres, it is where the mountains of Okutama begin to fall away toward the flat Kanto plain, and it marks the point where Tokyo's suburbs give way to forest. The transition is abrupt: one moment you are among shops and houses, and the next the road is lined with cedar.

    Read the complete Akiruno food stop write-up.

    Recorded stop-planning note

    May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

    Planning note

    Food at 605 km, roughly 11 hours into the riding. You lose 966 m on the way down to it, steadily. Next is Back to Tokyo west.

14. 14. Back to Tokyo west exit

    Return visit. Read the place description above.

    Read the complete Tokyo west exit 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 Tokyo west. That is the ride.