One of the reasons I don’t ride my mountain bike very often is because there are not many decent trails nearby where I live in Japan. It’s mostly just steep dirt road climbs, but nothing that I would consider a real mtb trail, and anything that is halfway decent is quite far from where I live. Since I don’t have a car, it is a bit difficult and so I unfortunately don’t get to do much mtb riding currently.

Fortunately, my friend Junji started riding mtb recently and has a big car, so this might mean that there is more mountain biking ahead in my future 🙂

This trail is located in Gifu, but it’s right by Inuyama city, which is right on the border of Aichi prefecture, which is where I live. Although it’s only really about 40km away, it took us about 2 hours to get there due to tiny roads (traffic in Japan is not the best..). But it was well worth the wait, as these were by far the best trails that I’ve ridden in Japan so far.

I tried to include as much of the trail as possible in raw video, so hopefully it will serve as a reference for anyone interested in coming out here.

Here’s the website information. Be careful to not ride on areas that are not designated mountain bike course areas.
http://kakamigahara-kanko.jp/?p=228

Address: 6797-1 各務車洞 Kakamigahara, Gifu Prefecture 504-0102
Hours: 9-5 everyday

Overall, there are a little less than 10km of different trails that can be ridden in this area that are all well maintained and completely free to ride. Some are beginner friendly, while others are a bit more intermediate (mostly just tree roots and narrow paths). Another important thing is that there is a decent amount of elevation gain on this course which will leave you pretty tired by the end of your session.

The post Autumn Mountain Biking in Japan at Kakamino Trails in Gifu 【各務野自然遺産の森】 appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

We searched for quite a while without any luck, but eventually found a scooter shop that had some old “new” mountain bikes in the back corner collecting dust.

We were able to get 2 bikes for about $300, which was a bit pricier than what I was expecting, but I was desperate to have something to ride. They cleaned up the bikes for us and delivered them back to Thuong’s home, so we were able to go for a quick ride later that day.

Also can’t forget to mention these awesome blue aero spokes on my new bike 😉

Once we were back home, we quickly set out for a ride on our new bikes to explore the nearby Vietnamese countryside.

There were lots of farming nearby, as well as some rivers and pretty interesting bridges.

We decided to ride to Thuong’s old high school, and her commuting path was a pretty bumpy road filled with buffalo poop, watch out!

We ended up having a pretty fun ride, but didn’t have much time remaining as the sun was starting to set.

Very happy to finally get some wheels here in Vietnam, and excited to go on some longer rides from now on 🙂

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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.

The post Mountain Biking at Wing Hills Resort in Gifu, Japan マウンテンバイク ウイングヒルズ appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.