Disclaimer:
This is about a 3 day trip I took in September 2021. Most of it was written in October 2021 but for many reasons it wasn’t added to the site for 5 years in September 2026. Anyway, it now has its correct place in the site!
In 2021, when there was a break in the COVID travel restrictions you knew it’s time to take the cover off the bike at get out there whilst you still can. Safely of course.
So what was my overall plan?
The plan was three days of mixing it up - roads I knew and roads I didn’t; from express-ways or motorways to us Brits (though these are often toll-roads here) to mountain passes to farm roads. It was definitely time to get out there and do a big loop across central Honshu and to see what was on offer.
Day 1
Day one started at about 6.30 am - not super early in the great scheme of things and the first couple of hours of riding was familiar territory - running the elevated R134 toll road which runs east-west along the Pacific coast of Sagami Bay south of Tokyo, looking down on the dark volcanic sand, local fishing enthusiasts casting from the shore into the surf, and small fishing boats just a little further out from the coast.
It’s always relaxing to see the sun rising over the ocean even as I headed west towards the gathering clouds above the Hakone mountain area. I was on Route 1, the old Tokaido route which has connected old Edo (now Tokyo) to the western cities of the main island for centuries.
Eventually those dark and heavy clouds began to unleash torrential rain. Japan certainly has a love affair with precipitation which on the plus side produces world class powder snow in the winters, on the down side … this. Descending the western side of the mountains into the town of Mishima the surface water was noticeable, especially since this is an industrial area and the asphalt had been pressed out into two troughs from years of heavy lorries and hot summers. This isn’t fun to ride in good conditions, let alone with this rain turning them into small rivers with slippery sides.
I decided then that I was due a break and a cup of tea, and I knew there was a Michi-no-eki up ahead I hadn’t visited yet, and since I’m a bit of a sucker for yet-to-be-visited michi-no-eki.
‘Michi no eki’ (which translates literally as ‘road-station’) are federated local service areas which usually sell local produce or promote local foods and areas of interest. They’re usually quite nice places to stop, stretch your legs and learn at least one thing about the local area.
This particular michi-no-eki is called ‘Mt. Fuji Michi-no-eki’. Given you can see Mt. Fuji for hundreds of kilometres this doesn’t equate to a view or value. This place certainly wasn’t what I had hoped for - it had some toilets, an udon noodle shop (closed), and about twenty car-parking spaces, mainly for larger vehicles but with a small area set aside for two wheelers, which is where I parked up.
After being a little disappointed with this first rest stop I was off again, safer in the knowledge that the rain looked like it was easing up, and my next scheduled stop should be more picturesque.
Having skirted south of Mount Fuji (which was still unseen somewhere in the mist and cloud), I turned right and was now heading north up its western side. The roads were now more the Japan roads I love, just carving, sweeping ribbons with far fewer other vehicles.
I’d planned to take a few forest roads and they did not disappoint, especially with the cloud coming in as mist between the trees, meaning I even stopped off to take some photos.
The next stop was at Tanuki lake, which I’ll be honest I chose it because of the name. Tanuki are small mammals which are popular in Japanese folklore, where they’re considered lucky and are often portrayed as having large … er… scrotums. There’s no other way to describe that. Arriving at the lake though, I saw no sign of any tanuki as the kanji actually have a different meaning.
I took the short walk down to the lake, which is beautiful, and more to the point, Mt. Fuji catches a beautiful reflections across the lake’s still waters. Alas, not for me today, just a reflection of the grey-white clouds. Still, very tranquil for another cup of tea.
Back on the bike, and a couple of hours in and at another Michi no eki - Asagiri Kogen - which was more what I was expecting. This one is in dairy country, so there were lots of milk based products such as boiled milk sweets, which I picked up as omiyage (gifts you traditionally bring back from trips and holidays). This road station was much larger with quite a few bikers making a stop including one chap I got talking to who had loaded his old SR400 up for some touring and camping and was actually looking forward to a bit of bad weather.
Riding up through more highlands, between slowly terraced rice fields in some drizzle it was good to get up onto the Fruit Line, a series of roads primarily in Yamanashi prefecture, where the rain finally stopped and the sun came out for a change. A late afternoon run through the fruit farms of the area was great and most have farm shops where you can stop off and buy the grapes and other fruits for which the area is rightly famous.
The last real set of roads I had planned for was part of the Crystal line, one of the areas I hadn’t really done before. It’s one of those roads in Japan - fairly wide, intended to carry a lot of traffic, yet the concrete and asphalt had clearly not been often used and the were solid weeds in the middle of the road and at the sides, some over a metre tall.
Later, in the more wooded areas, there was a carpet of leaves and pine needles across the road suggesting very little traffic. Indeed, in all the kilometres I did of the road, I only saw a couple of vehicles and that was two bikers I met coming the other way who stopped to chat whilst I was taking photos, mainly to find out if the road was open (roads are often closed after typhoons, quakes and landslides).
As I came down from these mountain and forest roads into the valleys, it was getting to the end of the day and the sun was going behind the mountains, so I stopped at a supermarket to get some sandwich ingredients, since, from the Expedia map, I knew my hotel wasn’t near any restaurants, so I planned on making something vaguely healthy in the room.
Indeed, Expedia showed the hotel to be in a wooded area near some golf courses and I slowly rode down unlit roads between cabins, the rain falling on the map screen. It was at this atmospheric point that I had to accept the truth - there’s no hotel here. Expedia says there is, but there really isn’t. Honest. Just a dark house with a chain over its driveway.
Also, there’s virtually no cell signal.
I rode back the way I’d come for a few minutes until I could get a trickle of data into my phone and went back into the app. Yep, it was sure it was here, where it wasn’t.
I wanted a second opinion, so searched for the hotel name, copied the address and fed it into a map site. According to that site, the hotel was about 9Km due west.
Given this was new lead, I cautiously set off and yes, there it was, next to a fair sized road and multiple eating establishments too. Maybe don’t always trust Expedia. (Addendum: I sent this info to Expedia, and the location is still wrong. I tried.)
In short the room was great, and I could get a nice bath and a good night’s sleep. The buffet breakfast wasn’t bad either.
Sometimes, booking apps can be wrong. Sometimes you need a second opinion.
Day 2
In daylight and under blue skies I gave the bike a quick once over and all looked good. So far it was just the expected amount of dirt from these kinds of days on a lot of back roads. So off I went heading deeper into Nagano on some nice straight roads, skirting some small lakes and stopping by others to try iced coffee and some ice cream.
Riding along I saw a few of what looked like miniature torii structures. Torii are usually large, often red, pi shaped structures big enough to walk under and many even arch over whole roads which often mark entrances to Shinto shrines. These were all less than a metre tall. I eventually stopped at one to see what I was missing, but I’m still none the wiser - a mystery for another day. They do look nice though, and gave photos an odd sense of scale.
I’d chosen some real farming roads for a few hours, and was frequently riding by the sides of rice fields, which at the time of year were being harvested, the rice stalk straw being dried over frame in the fields. The fun about farming roads is they frequently change from a nice asphalt single lane to broken gravel only a metre wide with little warning, and sometimes just stop.
This is Nagano though, so at some point you’re going to need to get back up into those mountains, I mean this is the prefecture which has hosted Winter olympics, so you know they’re there.
As it was I rode through some areas which in Winter are fantastic snow resorts, along roads which are closed for several months of the year, up to the highest national road point in Japan, at 2,172m, which has great views.
As you wind away from this point you catch the sulphur smells from open volcanic vents, and the emergency concrete shelters regularly along the roads remind you that this is quite a seismically active area, and recently Japan has been upgrading its shelters in these areas.
My next real stop was the town of Kusatsu in neighbouring Gunma prefecture. It’s a nice little tourist town, rightly known for its hot spring baths (onsen), but also that the town centre is dominated by a large open hot spring, which is lit up at night, showing off the steam and bubbling waters.
More importantly for a biker taking a break, there is seating for the public to rest their feet in the nice warm spring water, which is exactly what I did. I wont lie, I spent more time resting my feet there than I planned.
It does look fantastic, but I had to head out since it was getting dark and I still had an hour or so to the hotel, and given my issue the previous day, I was really hoping the hotel was where I expected to find it.
The ride took me down a lot of decent rural roads but there was virtually zero street lighting and few cars on the road, meaning it was dark; dark to the point where I had my high beams on and was still wishing I’d decided to get the auxiliary lights on the front. It went like that for almost the full hour, the road twisting up and down and side to side, until finally I could see town-lights off in the distance, and I was suddenly back in civilization, and the brightest thing wasn’t the dashboard backlight.
I also needed to sort out some food, and settled for a local place which did katsudon - pork cutlet in breadcrumbs with egg on a bed of rice and soy sauce. Absolutely fantastic.
It was a simple ‘business hotel’ meaning a tiny room, and some buffet breakfast. It was all I needed, and I got a great night’s sleep.
Day 3
The last day was going to be a mix of things. I started down some farm roads, and for some reason kept crossing small railway lines. There was also some
Claimed Location: https://www.expedia.co.jp/en/Matsumoto-Hotels-Family-Lodge-Hatagoya-Chino-Tateshina.h41059977.Hotel-Information?langid=1033