Why this ride
988 km from Kimitsu to Chōfu, about 17 h 11 of riding. On the way it passes Ōhara, Scenic stretch near Ishige and Annaka. near Ami is the high point. It tops out at about 1,250 m. Much of it runs through woodland.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Tomiura to Nojimazaki Cape Loop + Tokyo · Hakone Turnpike and Lake Ashi Short Loop
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 988 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 17 h 11
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
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.
Scenic road chapters
Hakone Turnpike and Skyline
The valley floor is behind you and the road starts working for its height at about 7.3%. Corners stack above one another where the ground allows nothing straighter — first and second gear more often than not. Look through each corner to the next one and let the engine do the holding.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 12 km
- Climb
- 835 m
- Average gradient
- 6.4%
- High point
- 850 m
Hakone Turnpike and Skyline
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 18 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go. Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 31 km
- Descent
- 270 m
- High point
- 720 m
- Named road
- Hakone Turnpike and Skyline
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Fuel stop near Kimitsu
Kimitsu runs from the industrial shore of Tokyo Bay deep into the forested hills of the inner Boso peninsula, and the contrast is striking. On the coast, the Nippon Steel works stretches for kilometres, a tangle of furnaces, chimneys and cranes. Inland, within half an hour, you are among steep green hills, narrow valleys and reservoirs, with hardly a building in sight.
Read the complete Kimitsu write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Tomiura to Nojimazaki Cape Loop is where the day begins. Next is Tomiura to Nojimazaki Cape Loop food stop.
2. Ōhara
Every September the men of Ōhara carry portable shrines straight into the Pacific, running through the surf to the beat of drums in a festival that has been held for centuries. It is a wild, joyful sight, and it sums up this small fishing town on the eastern coast of the Boso peninsula, where life still revolves around the sea and the boats.
Read the complete Photo stop near Ōhara write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Tomiura to Nojimazaki Cape Loop food stop is where this day stops to eat. Next is High point near Ami.
3. High point near Ami
Ami is a town in southern Ibaraki on the western shore of Kasumigaura, the second-largest lake in Japan, a broad, shallow sheet of water fringed with reeds, lotus fields and fishing villages. The land around it is flat to gently rolling, with fields, woods and scattered settlements, and Mount Tsukuba rises to the north-west, the only real mountain for miles.
Read the complete High point near Ami 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 Ishige.
4. Scenic stretch near Ishige
In September 2015, after days of torrential rain, the levee of the Kinu River broke near Ishige, and floodwater spread across a huge area of the city of Jōsō, stranding thousands of people on rooftops while helicopters circled overhead. The images shocked Japan. The levees have since been rebuilt and strengthened, and the landscape has returned to its calm rhythm of rice paddies, villages and river embankments, but the event is a reminder of how much this flat land depends on its defences.
Read the complete Scenic stretch near Ishige write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Scenic stretch near Ishige, early in the day. Next is Tokyo / Kanto rides return.
5. Near Annaka, on the way back
South-west of Takasaki the Kantō plain runs out and the mountains begin, and this stop lies right on that edge, between Annaka and Tomioka. Look west and the strangest skyline in Gunma comes into view: Mount Myōgi, a crown of jagged volcanic spires that looks as if someone took a rasp to an ordinary mountain. It is one of the three famous peaks of the old Jōmō province, and the road that skirts its flanks is a favourite with local riders for its tight, wooded bends.
Read the complete Near Annaka, 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 286 km, about halfway. Next is Photo stop near Enzan.
6. Photo stop near Enzan
Takeda Shingen, the warlord who dominated Kai province in the sixteenth century and remains a folk hero in Yamanashi, lies buried at Erin-ji, a Zen temple on the edge of Enzan. Its garden, laid out by the great medieval designer Musō Soseki, is a quiet masterpiece of pond, rocks and moss, and the temple is the spiritual heart of a town that now forms part of the city of Kōshū.
Read the complete Photo stop near Enzan write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Photo stop near Enzan comes up about 517 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tomiura to Nojimazaki Cape Loop checkpoint 8.
7. Near Kawaguchi
Kawaguchi was Japan's foundry town. For centuries its workshops cast iron pots, kettles and temple bells from the sand and clay of the Arakawa, and by the twentieth century the town was famous for its cupola furnaces, whose chimneys filled the skyline. A classic 1962 film, set among the foundries, made the town a symbol of working-class Japan. Most of the furnaces have gone, replaced by apartment towers for Tokyo commuters, but a few workshops still cast metal in the old way.
Read the complete Near Kawaguchi write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Tomiura to Nojimazaki Cape Loop checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is Back to Tomiura to.
8. Back to Tomiura to
Futtsu, with its long cape reaching towards the Miura peninsula, is a few kilometres to the south. The coast here is industrial, with the huge Nippon Steel plant at Kimitsu, but the hills behind are green, wooded and full of small valleys.
Read the complete Tomiura to 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 Tomiura to. That is the ride. Next is Tokyo south-west.
9. Tokyo south-west exit
Getting out of Tokyo is half the ride, and this is where the first half ends. The land here is almost at sea level, forty metres up, and it is hard to believe the mountains are so close, but on a clear winter morning you can see the Tanzawa hills and sometimes the white shoulder of Fuji from the riverbank.
Read the complete Tokyo south-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 south-west. Next is Odawara.
10. Odawara fuel gate
Odawara is a castle town at the foot of Hakone, and for most riders it is the place where the mountains begin. The castle, which belonged to the Hojo clan until Toyotomi Hideyoshi besieged it in 1590, has a reconstructed keep, built in 1960, with a museum inside. The old town around it is quiet, with a modest shopping street and some traditional shops. It sits on Sagami Bay, with the coast road leading east and west and the Hakone mountains rising behind.
Read the complete Odawara write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Odawara is the fuel stop for this leg. Next is Hakone Turnpike, climbing 835 m.
11. Hakone Turnpike
The Hakone Turnpike is a toll road that climbs from the Pacific side up to the volcanic highlands of Hakone, a mountain district about eighty kilometres south-west of Tokyo. Here the road runs at roughly 850 metres, close to the northern end of Lake Ashi, a crater lake formed in an ancient caldera. On a clear day Mount Fuji rises above the water in a beautiful cone, and a red torii gate stands in the lake at Hakone Shrine, a classic Japanese view that every visitor photographs.
Read the complete Hakone Turnpike write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 859 km into the recorded legs you reach Hakone Turnpike. The road climbs 835 m on the way up to it, steadily. Reckon on about 6 °C colder than the valley, and more in the wind. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Lake Ashi view stop.
12. Lake Ashi view stop
Lake Ashi fills the caldera of the old Hakone volcano, at 720 metres, and it is one of the most visited places in Japan, partly because of the view. On a clear morning, particularly in winter, the cone of Mount Fuji rises above the water in perfect symmetry, and the red torii gate of Hakone Shrine stands in the lake in the foreground.
Read the complete Lake Ashi view stop write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Lake Ashi view stop, late in the day at 720 m. Reckon on about 5 °C colder than the valley, and more in the wind. Next is Gotemba return check, mostly downhill.
13. Gotemba return check
Coming back through Gotemba after a day in the hills has its own pleasure, because the town sits at the foot of Fuji and the mountain rules the sky above it. The city lies at about 450 metres on a broad, gentle fan of volcanic ash, with the rice fields of the plain below and the black upper slopes of the volcano above, and at the end of a day the setting sun lights the summit in orange and pink. In clear weather, the whole mountain seems to hover over the town.
Read the complete Gotemba return check write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Food at 859 km, roughly 17 hours into the riding. You lose 270 m on the way down to it, steadily. Reckon on about 3 °C colder than the valley, and more in the wind. Next is Back to Tokyo, mostly downhill.
14. Back to Tokyo
The end of the ride is the beginning of Tokyo again, and it comes in stages. First the hills drop away, and the road widens; then the first signal lights, the first convenience store, the first apartment blocks, and finally the glow of the capital spread across the plain in the dark. Arriving in Chofu at the end of a long day, with the Tama River running quietly beside the road, is a gentle way to come home.
Read the complete Tokyo 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. That is the ride. You lose 410 m on the way down to it, steadily.
Leg by leg
Fuel stop near Kimitsu to Ōhara
Fuel stop near Kimitsu → Ōhara is 60 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
High point near Ami to Scenic stretch near Ishige
High point near Ami → Scenic stretch near Ishige is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Scenic stretch near Ishige to Near Annaka, on the way back
Scenic stretch near Ishige → Near Annaka, on the way back is 110 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Photo stop near Enzan to Near Kawaguchi
Photo stop near Enzan → Near Kawaguchi is 132 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Back to Tomiura to to Tokyo south-west exit
Back to Tomiura to → Tokyo south-west exit is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tokyo south-west exit to Odawara fuel gate
Tokyo south-west exit → Odawara fuel gate is 63 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Odawara fuel gate to Hakone Turnpike
Odawara fuel gate → Hakone Turnpike climbs about 835 m in 12 km. This is the part worth slowing down for - look through the bends and use the pull-offs.
Hakone Turnpike to Lake Ashi view stop
Hakone Turnpike → Lake Ashi view stop is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lake Ashi view stop to Gotemba return check
Lake Ashi view stop → Gotemba return check is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Gotemba return check to Back to Tokyo
Gotemba return check → Back to Tokyo drops about 410 m over 84 km. Brakes and eyes forward; the views are behind the corners, not in them.
More motorcycle rides nearby
- Bandai Azuma Skyline Weekend · part 2 · 233 km
- Ashinoko Skyline Short Attack · 623 km
- Okutama and Chichibu Forest Roads · short arc · 325 km
- Tanzawa and Doshi Road · 746 km