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Review Mountain Bike Park Comparo/Reviews & Trail Tours

bloaker

Sincerely A Dick
Nov 14, 2011
3,641
5,770
From the Yokosuka area - Fujiten is the most accessible park.
Leaving from Nango-Koen, it is roughly 2 hours away and just under 4000Y in tolls (one way).
We had a coupon this past trip, so an all day lift ticket is 3500Y. Regularly it is 4000Y. The internet is great.. use it for deals.

Fujiten has 4 runs down the mountain and are easily sub 5 minute runs even with stops to regroup if riding with buddies.
All courses can be ridden on a hard tail without too much abuse and your speed truly determines the difficulty.

Stravrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Here are random clips from throughout one day of riding.



Again - this park is as difficult as you make it.
If it is your first time going to a park... this one is very newbie friendly.


Hakuba, Nagano
Iwatake Snow Field
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Iwatake is a work in progress. The two of us that rode it kind of split it up into three sections.
Section 1 - the most fun. Wall rides, drops, switchbacks, berms, etc.. fun, fun, fun.
Section 2 - Sucks balls. Super fast and straight. Was the cause of some flat tires.
Section 3 - Just gets you back down to the gondola.

Section 2 - I have heard via locals there is work going on now to offer a trail section vs the fire road of blazing fast straightness.
Section 3 - Has potential, but just not enough worker bees to finish it up. I am looking forward to going back and seeing the progress.

There is constant trail maintenance going on and I look forward to the progress.

XC Course - I saw much of this during the SSWC2015. The marked trail is fun, but there is a lot more trail in there to play on.

I would not drive the 4+ hours from Zushi to Hakuba to just ride this mountain - however it is an excellent area to "get away" with friends. Tons of nature surrounds you and plenty of non-MTB area to explore.

Videos...

Gondola



Part of the DH Course



Part of the XC Course




From the Yokosuka area - Fujimi-Panorama is an additional 2 hours past Fujiten.
Fujimi-Panorama... not so beginner friendly or hardtail friendly... It can be done, but it won't be fun.

One run on Fujimi feels like 4 times the length of Fujiten
Also - the smoothest trail at Fujimi is rougher than the roughest sections of Fujiten.
And lastly... the easiest trail at Fujimi is harder than the black diamond at Fujiten.
There is a trend and I can go on about it....

In the end - Fujimi is where you can truly challenge yourself and the bike.
There are more opportunities for features and usually some kind of bailout trail to keep it sane if you are having a bad day.

Just one of the many configurations of Fujimi



Stravrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr


The above three are listed in the order of "difficulty" for a new rider to navigate.
A more seasoned rider can make the order change by virtue of the risks they are willing to take.
 
Not a mountain bike park.
It was a trail. Will add details about that today.
 
While Mountain Bike Parks are fun for challenging yourself and you bike... sometimes you want to ride a pristine trail with a guide that knows the way.
That said... I have done 2 trail tours in Japan and both were unique fun experiences.
I won't link strava to these since the tours are mostly on private land that took an ton of effort to make them awesome.
Also - it seems dirtbikes also like to search strava for any routes they can find in the area....
And if you are not familiar... the destroy the trails for EVERYONE... I know it isn't intentional, but it is the end result.

Izu Area -
Yamabushi Trail Tours

http://www.yamabushi-trail-tour.com/

PinkBike even reviewed this trail

This was my first MTB tour in Japan. I was not sure what to expect and I pretty much agreed based on a friend's prodding.
We parked on a fishing peir and waited for the guides. I think out group was roughly 14 riders.

Here is some video of our ride on the trail...



Ride Report from 2 guys I road with...

Ride report : Guys atYamabushi spent so many years to get authorization to use mountain area for biking, then after cutting million of trees and countless digging, they made such beautiful trails around south part of Izu peninsula. Because almost all trail was based on very old roads, so there were a lot of historic points such as old temple. And if weather was fine, we should enjoy more great ocean view and Mt. Fuji.
Anyway, trail was great. Some parts were challenging, some parts were a little bit technical, but still enjoyable. Trail guides did great job to keep whole group together, and still we could enjoy for speed and even feel air over bumps.
Overall, tour was great, weather was OK, no serious crash, no major injury.

Ride report: The Yamabushi trail tour was fantastic. The Izu peninsula is beautiful and being shrouded in clouds made the whole day cool and enjoyable. For a guy used to desert riding, the soft, wet, clay soil at the beginning of the morning was the most challenging; I was never sure how much grip I'd have in the corners. The amount of work their trail crew put into the trail was impressive though and all the berms were solid and held up under all the riders and allowed me to stay on the trail. The guides did a fine job keeping the group together but allowing enough room and speed for fun and all the sightseeing stops were cool. Trail side buddha and horsehead kannon, pregnant rock, overlooks, the halfpipe we heard about all day (did we actually go through it?), rain timing, and lots of jokes.
 
Ina area -

Trail Cutter


I more recently rode Trail Cutter. It is located on the "other side" of the mountain from Fujimi Panorama.
We met up early and got in a full day or riding with a HUGE lunch.
Trail Cutter was a great experience. All the riders in our group were competent, so they went a long ways before regrouping.
The trail had less wall rides than Yamabushi - but outside of that, the flow and smoothness was a half step better.
We did 4 distinct runs - all shuttled by a bus to the top. All four I wanted to do again.
Every route has something challenging and unique that makes me want to go back over and over to take advantage of all the features.

Unlike the MTB Parks where you can work on your skills by doing the same run over and over... the tours are more of a - once you missed it, it is gone.





Each run took roughly 40 minutes to get to the bottom.

Both Yamabushi and Trail Cutter are NOT suitable for a downhill bike.
They are fun on an Enduro, however very fun on an XC bike.
 
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