Sunday, October 25, 2009

Izu, a Rider's Playground

The Izu peninsula, about 100km from Tokyo, a hot destination for motorcycle riders. Most tourists just take the train to Atami. But the rest of this massive piece of land is not to be missed. There's palm trees, waterfalls, meadow-ed highlands, and coastal radness.

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If nature isn't your thing, you can almost always see hella Ferraris. Or, like today, a Fairlady Z club.

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If cars ain't your bag, Izu has the food thing going on. Lots of fresh fish, local wasabi, and some odder things. Here's my lunch of shish kebabed wild boar.

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So gimme some pictures already!

The problem with me and Izu is that when I ride with my camera, the weather turns to shit. You can't see Fuji from the Izu skyline when you can't see the side of the road 2m away.

And when the weather is good, I'm riding with my track racer friends, and we never stop long enough to take out big bulky SLR cameras.

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Anyways, stay tuned for Izu part 2, sometime in the next year hopefully.

6 comments:

blaine said...

this is some beautiful stuff.

i would love to travel around hokkaido when given the chance someday.

seems like your trip is quite the undertaking. how do you even plan for everything?

what kind of camera do you use and how do you make your hdr images?

Ramen Adventures said...

Hi Blaine. A day trip, like this one to Izu, I just get up and go. I have a bike touring atlas for the area, and it highlights good roads and spots to go. For a big trip like Hokkaido... well for that I just got up and went as well. I don't really plan much when I ride solo. With group rides, we choose campgrounds to stay at and everything else is spur of the moment.

I use a D90, take 3 shots in bracketing mode, and make an HDR image in Photomatix. I also use Lightroom for tweaking the shot.

Anonymous said...

Are there any gas stations on the Izu skyline? We are taking our motorcycle from Atsugi city and are wondering if we should get gas before we get on the skyline or if they have gas stations on the skyline itself? My husbands motorcycle gets 150miles/tank (240km) Where are the restaurants at? That food looks delicious! Also should we ride the whole route or turn around at some point? We only have a day to spare.

Ramen Adventures said...

There are many gas stands in Izu. Actually, I ran out of gas once. But 240km for a tank is fine if you stick to main roads. The skyline is easy to ride in 1 day. I like to go down the Izu Skyline, then back up on the west side (route 411). Have fun!

Restaurants are everywhere. The photo here is from somewhere on the 414.

Alex Ngan said...

Hi Brian, I have following your Blog, great job. I went to Hokkaido and had some motorcycle rides there last year. Would like to go to Japan for some rides again in late June or early July. I am thinking about the Izu peninsula area and Shiga Kusatsu Road. What will the weather be like around early July? If it rains frequent, I will go to Hokkaido again (since I haven't been to most part). What's your suggestion for a one week ride?

Ramen Adventures said...

Late June has a very high chance of being rainy. Today's weather report keeps talking about torrential downpour.