My friend Sean and I drove from Nagoya to Wing Hills Shiratori resort in Gifu, Japan (ウイングヒルズ 白鳥リゾート) to do some Summer mountain biking.

They have the gondola / lifts running during the summer, which can be used for both mountain biking and for snowboarding / skiing on a synthetic snow course. They have a variety of different lift passes, but we ended up doing the full day package set, which was about 5,600 yen (plus 500 deposit), and included an all day lift ticket, a 1,000 yen meal voucher, a drink voucher, and entrance into the onsen (hot spring).

All in all, it was money well spent. There are 3 main courses from the top of the gondola: beginner (初級), intermediate (中級), and advanced (上級). I found the level difference between these courses to be very extreme. The beginner course is mostly just open grass and rocky roads, which are all steep and not enjoyable to ride down. The intermediate course was pretty enjoyable, and still ride-able on cross country bikes. Parts of the advanced course can be ridden on an XC bike, but I wouldn’t recommend it..

There was also an extra course, which branched off of the beginner course near the hot spring parking lot, which was called the “taiken course” (体験コース), which means like “hand on experience”. This was actually my favorite of the courses, since it was closer to “flow” style XC, which is my preferred style of mountain bike riding.

All in all, it was a fun day of mtb riding at the Wing Hills resort.