Arch of Japan Motovlog fame had posted an open invitation for some people to join him on a ride around Saitama prefecture.
Unfortunately we encountered a few minor trials and tribulations which caused the ride to take a bit longer and people headed back to Tokyo before finishing the tour. Nevertheless we had a fantastic ride-out with great scenery and good laughs along the way.
Unlike the others I continued on to do my own thing and along the way my bike also hit its next major milestone – 20,000km.
Day 1 – Saturday 2025-04-19
Up early, I reached the meeting spot at Miyoshi PA shortly before 7am to find several people had already arrived. There was some meet-and-greet, a bit of banter, and general carrying-on while more people arrived. I took the time for a very necessary coffee and a bite of brekky.
Arch was trying to share his route with some people but one had a brand-new bike and hadn’t gotten his phone mount sorted yet, and another wasn’t able to load his GPX file. When I mentioned that I’d created the route for OsmAnd he asked me to help guide the group so that he could drop back for filming from time to time.
Once everybody was ready we set off down the highway which was its usual busy self. While it mostly moved along there were a few sections where it was pretty much stop-and-go. Being in a larger group it wasn’t really feasibly to filter.
Luckily Arch was leading at this point because when he took the exit off the highway I discovered that I had set up my route the wrong way around.. oops! At a traffic light I let Arch know and he said he’d stop at a kombini, which he was wanting to do anyway to change batteries on his cameras, giving me time to fix up the route on my phone. Luckily OsmAnd has an option to reverse a route and I only had to tweak a couple of waypoints to get it all sorted..
The other hiccups were one guy running out of petrol just in front of the longest tunnel on the entire route – lucky and unlucky in equal measures, and another guy had a fall on some gravel in the middle of a corner. Thankfully he was uninjured, and there were only some minor scrapes on the engine guards of his bike.
Apart from that the ride went smoothly and Arch’s planned route had us going along some amazing roads, with a combination of larger roads and fast sweeping bends, as well as minor forest roads bringing us close and intimate with the japanese mountainous wilderness. Along the way there was fantastic scenery, often a river or stream alongside the road and great vistas and quaint villages.
A highlight for me was a section of the 462 with a big dam and a bit further down the road a huge boulder lying in the river with a small shrine next to it. From the 462 we turned onto the 45, and then the 93 which is a fantastically windy little forest road running alongside a stream.
Due to the various incidents we had not yet reached Arch’s intended stop by lunchtime, and after the shock of the fall, we stopped at a kombini to recover and have a quick bite to eat. Funnily enough another couple of bikers were there, one with an RS1200 in 40-year anniversary colours! So of course there was a chat and obligatory photo shoot..
By this stage we were down to only 5 people and one said his good-byes and started heading home as the rest of us continued on. We then had a nice quick blast along the 254 and turned up the 196 which is another great curvy road over the mountains going past a temple complex with a big golden statue before reaching the original lunch stop. As we had eaten not so long ago nobody was very hungry and so we had very delicious sakura ice-cream instead!
By now it was getting on and the intended route was another few hours in the opposite direction from Tokyo, so people decided it was maybe better to start heading back. As I had no other plans and the weather forecast for Sunday had improved I jumped online and booked a hostel to continue the weekend on my own. The cheapest I could find in a hurry was in an onsen town a couple of hours away.
After leaving the rest of the group, I headed a few minutes back up the way we’d come to visit the temple with the golden statue which I’d spotted as we went past earlier. As well as having a quick wander around the temple complex I also went on a little hike. I thought it was going to be a walk around a huge rock which the top temple had been build under, but it turned out to be quite a bit of a climb to the top of the rock!
So much for health-and-safety though! The very last bit of the climb to the top of the rock only had a couple of metal chains hammered into the rock to help people clamber up. No wonder a small group going up had a guide, hard-hats, ropes, and clamps with them.. not entirely sure what they were thinking as a gaijin clambered past them in motorbike gear! The view was worth the effort though.
Some more great roads and a couple of picture stops later and I made it to Kusatsu, where I’d actually been before. The previous time I had stayed in a hostel on the outskirts of town, and when I got there there was another guy in my dorm who’d just had a bad fall on his motorbike and was all bandaged up. It was also his birthday! So I went to a kombini, grabbed some food and beers, and had a party with the guy in the hostel.
This time around my accommodation was a bit closer to town. The hostel owner/manager was very kind and let me park my bike out the front even though they don’t offer parking – in my hurry to book I had forgotten to check. He gave me a good overview of town and made a restaurant and onsen recommendation. After checking in and freshening up quickly I made my way into town.
Amazing!
The town is actually build around a natural hot spring which comes out of the ground in the middle of the town. Maybe I should do a bit more research ahead of time when I go on trips, but it turns out Kusatsu is one of Japan’s most famous onsen towns.. this was my second time here and I still had no idea until afterwards!
For dinner I had the local speciality, maitake mushroom tempura, which I ate with soba noodles. The restaurant I ate at (Tabelog) is part of a hotel and right on the town square with its hot spring. After dinner I visited the Ohtaki onsen for a nice relaxing hot bath after the long days’ riding and then wandered around town a bit more. It has very impressive wooden hotels in the roads leading up to the square, and there is a temple with a traditional japanese wooden tower overlooking it all.
400km and a fair bit of sight-seeing. Oyasuminasai!
Day 2 – Sunday 2025-04-20
As I’d gone to sleep quite early I was awake again pretty early, which I like when touring as it gives me a chance to explore roads before the traffic starts up. I quickly got ready and crept out of the dorm, then rode down to the town square which, unlike the evening before was nearly empty. I sneakily parked the bike next to the 7-11 right on the square and had a quick cuppa and sandwich to get me started.
Even though it wasn’t raining the weather had become a lot more cloudy and hazy than the day before. Still as long as it’s dry it’s great riding weather!
I had planned to head further up into the mountains to Mt Shirakane, an active volcano, but the roads leading up to it were still closed. At one road closure I chatted to a couple of guys that were about to set off up the mountain on eBikes with cross-country skis strapped to their backs, so I guess there’s still quite a lot of snow at higher altitudes.
Instead I found some other places to visit, including Shimagawa Dam, a flower festival, and Onouchi gorge.
I had bought some extra food and drink at the 7-11 and was hoping to find a nice mountain pass with nice views to stop at for a light lunch. But unlike in Europe, the mountains passes here in Japan are often barely marked and just go through forests with no viewpoints, let alone cafes or restaurants.
So I kept going and when I accidentally saw a small fair in a side road just after lunch, I did a u-turn and stopped there, thinking it was a sakura (cherry-blossom) festival. It turned out to be a flower festival, and I had arrived just in time for a kitsune no yomeiri, a fox’s wedding. Kitsune are magical creatures resembling foxes in japanese folklore and are known for playing tricks on humans. It was amazing watching the procession and dances.
From there I enjoyed a few more nice mountain roads and stopped at Onouchi gorge, which is famous for icicles in winter. In summer, not so much, but at least there were no crowds there either and I could wander down to the small waterfall enjoying the peace and quiet of the surrounding forest.
What a fantastic weekend!
