Day 2: Izu SkylineAll I can say is, you MUST ride this, and any/everywhere on the Izu Peninsula at some point in your life. You must do this especially if you consider yourself a keen moto tourer. The scenery and corner carving cahoonery is OSM (panorama). OSM. Sometimes when you read moto magazines they talk about an ear to ear grin when riding a bike. I had one of these. A lot. It was OSM. I felt so ecstatic because here I was, a total newbie to Japan, second d...

Day 3: Izu Peninsular to Lake SuwaThis was another fantastic day, although to be honest all of them were. This was the best moto/road trip of my life! I road up the west coast of Izu Peninsular, including a couple of fruitful diversions (take Route 127, turn left onto Route 18 and head to the coast for some corners to rival the Izu Skyline – in fact better than it if it weren’t for the Skyline’s views) inland which made permanent in my mind the ...

Day 4: Venus Line and Utsukushi - Ga - Hara Open Air GalleryI didn’t think things could get any better than the past two days on Izu Peninsular. The day started off confirming this, for about 20 minutes. Then I detoured up Route 199 off Route 142 out of Suwa and my morning grumpiness was quickly dispatched. There’s something so unstoppably grin inducing and therapeutic about a good set of bends on a quiet back road when you’re on a motorcycle. I...

Days 5 and 6: Shiga Kusatsu Road and Hakone Open Air GalleryI woke bright and early keen to tick the final route off the list. It was nice having a clear and simple route after the previous day’s faffing about. I’m glad navigation was easy as the ride itself was the toughest so far. It went up quite high (snowboarding places were mentioned on the map, and I went by a few ski lodges and lifts), there was fog, a bit of a breeze and it was chilly at abou...

This was a tough climb. I wasn’t expecting it to go on for so long. I knew it was a mountain, but it was colder and steeper than expected. We had a group of 44, only myself and one other guy were foreigners. There was a very enthusiastic guide who kept us all together very well and seemed very authoritative and experienced despite my not understanding anything he said. There was also a helper who stayed at the back of the group, the whip. He said he did abo...