Page 2, Moonshine Mt. Fuji Ride

James used to ride a Blackbird and is still on a forum with me. He had offered to let me ride his wife’s black Suzuki DRZ400. I am still amazed at his generosity, but that is very Japanese so I understand. He has lived in Japan for 16 years and I think it is wearing off on him. He rides a blue BMW F650GS Dakar, a very nice on-off road bike. We ended up taking an overnight loop around Mt Fuji.

In the morning we met near my hotel in Yokohama where his bikes are stored. The ride out of Yokohama was fun; it was not too hard to remember to stay on the left side of the road. I just always yelled "LEFT" in my helmet every time we pulled on to a road. We went over to his place and picked up some gear. His wife even made us some breakfast, she is also very nice. Good people. I am honored to have met them. James had mentioned that filtering/lane splitting was the norm and to be ready. This was my first experience and I loved it. Although at more than one point I did think to myself "Wow, I hope my bars are not wider than his" ;-) Between trucks and buses was close. We finally got out of town on the toll expressway. We stopped at a rest area; these rest areas are huge and we saw at least a hundred bikers meeting up. Out on the road seemed like 10 times the number of bikes on the road here. Maybe 10 percent Harley, the rest ranged from every bike made. Lots of domestic bikes, ones we can't get. Like the CB1300 SUPER BOL D'OR, I like that one. I even got a brochure at the dealer later.

After we got off of the expressway we rode up on this tiny narrow road into the mountains; turns out all the roads are tiny and narrow when not on an expressway. That is why folks drive such small vehicles. Normal American cars almost take up the whole road. But the bikes were perfect for narrow situations.

We rode tight twisty roads toward Mt Fuji. We stayed at the end of Lake Yamanakeko with a view of the mountain and the lake. After we checked in we went for a quick ride up the mountain as far as we could. The road was closed, but we just went around the sign. But maybe we should not have. Up the road we passed a bunch of military vehicles going the other way, including some Hummers. It turns out this was an area where the Japanese Self Defense Forces practice. Apparently they lob shells onto Mt. Fuji a dormant volcano. But they didn't seem to mind us so we kept going a little ways until the road was completely blocked. There must be snow on the road above that point. On our way out we went down a road that was not posted keep out, it looked like a place where tanks must practice, it had some steep sloped concrete ramps and terrain like a track. We took a small trail to get out and had to stop to lift a rope gate to get out. I looked down and saw what looked like a functional artillery shell next to my front wheel. It was about a foot long and a couple inches in diameter. It must have fallen off of a truck or something. We did get off of the mountain without being arrested though. I guess we didn’t try hard enough.

We rode back to our Ryokan (motel) and on the way stopped at a great Italian restaurant. I was looking for some protein so I had the salmon pizza, very good. Later we went to our traditional room and put down the futon mattresses and made our own beds. I was beat, very sleepy after riding in all that fresh air. We were on the east side of the mountain, the side you see from Tokyo, the next day we would ride around the mountain and see it from all angles. We saw Monkey bikes in the morning...

Continued on Page 3 of 5…

Jeff

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