【Forest Road Ride】To the Saitama-Gunma Border ~ Futagoyama Forest Road ~

Hello! It’s Shibuya, missing autumn already due to the consecutive days of intense heat.

During my summer break, I went back home to visit my parents in Saitama.

Since I was there, I really wanted to take my WILDE Dark Star and ride some forest roads in Saitama, so I asked my father, who often rides his motorcycle on forest trails.

My father has been riding forest roads for a long time and has owned a succession of off-road bikes capable of handling such trails. (He’s been riding motorcycles since he was in high school.)
He even marks the forest roads he’s ridden on a map with red lines.

Even now, he spends his days off riding his bike here and there. When I returned home this spring, he told me about how he had to clear fallen trees by himself to move forward on a snowy forest road in Fukushima.

I sent him a message and received a reply in less than 30 minutes.

He recommended a forest road (about 11km long) called the "Futagoyama Line," located on the border of Saitama and Gunma prefectures.

A side note about my father: about 10 years ago, he actually rode a "mamachari" (city bike) over 100km from Saitama City all the way to Nammoku Village in Gunma Prefecture (where my mother's family is from).

Maybe it was inevitable that I, his son, would end up traveling everywhere and riding forest trails on a bike, too.

Aim for the trail entrance

It takes about two and a half hours from my parents' home in Saitama City to get to the Chichibu area. There are almost no expressways for traveling horizontally across the northern part of Saitama, so it takes quite a while to get around.

A leisurely drive while gazing at the mountains of Saitama. On the way to the forest road, my clutch slipped twice (sweat).

I decided to have lunch before heading onto the trail, so I grabbed a bowl of oyakodon at the diner "Yokami" in Ogano Town. Old-school vibe, old-school oyakodon. I really appreciated that it came with pickles and a salad.

The regulars and the landlady were talking with an intonation that sounded like a Gunma dialect? I really felt that North Kanto vibe. There was a history book on the shrines and temples of Chichibu in the restaurant, and it had a lovely, deeply-rooted local feel.

In Minano Town, before entering Ogano Town, I couldn't find any convenience stores or restaurants and was getting nervous that I’d have to head into the woods without lunch, but Ogano Town had plenty of local eateries and seemed to be a favorite spot for touring riders.

By the way, the last convenience store on the way to the forest road is the Lawson along Route 299.

Arrived at the forest road. It was already around 1:30 PM. I really should have left earlier (as always).

You can enter the Futagoyama Line from the Ogano Town side in Saitama, but apparently, there's about 3km of paved road if you enter from the Saitama side.

Since my mother’s hometown is Nammoku Village in Gunma, I’ve visited the Dinosaur Center in Kanna Town, which is close to Nammoku, when I was a kid.

The map below shows the entrance to the forest road, which starts as a fork in a curve on a road with a center line.

Futagoyama Line, exploration starts

First, let me introduce my outfit for the day.

I’m 182cm, 70kg, and wear a size 28cm shoe, and these were the items I was wearing.

When I left home, my grandparents worriedly asked, "Are you sure you're okay going into the mountains in such light clothes?" but since the mountain elevation was low and the temperature was about the same as in the city, I was fine. It was actually hot.

Also, I wasn’t going into a bunch of dense brush, so light clothes were fine.

I proceeded along the forest road while being careful not to get shot, being mistaken for a wild animal. It started off as a paved road, but soon turned into an unpaved one, and the gravel road continued from there.

There are some ups and downs, but it’s easy to ride because it’s a road where cars can also pass.

I’m glad there are occasional spots with nice, open views.

I find it a luxury just to spend time riding my bike in the quiet mountains.

By the way, my cell phone signal cut out. I do worry about not having service in case of an emergency, but there’s a fun aspect to being in a situation where you can’t even rely on Google Maps.

While riding the forest road, I discovered a trail leading off to the side. It was wide enough and looked really interesting, but since it was close to 4 PM, I just did a bit of exploring. I want to open up this trail next time.

I think it’s precisely paths like the Futagoyama Line, with both gravel and trails, where a Dark Star equipped with the rigid Future Proof Fork shows its true capability.

Since this forest road is relatively well-maintained, a rigid fork that makes it easy to maintain speed is great. But when you get into trails, you start wanting that MTB-like geometry. Unexpectedly, I found the perfect place for the Dark Star, an all-around MTB.

If you live in the Kanto region, please try exploring this forest road!

※There was water flowing from a PVC pipe near the entrance of the forest road, so it seems like you could replenish your water supply there if needed.

After the trail exploration, I freshened up at "Seion no Yu" in Chichibu City. They had reclining outdoor chairs and lukewarm water, and all the "conditions" for enjoying a sauna were met.

I’d spent a perfect holiday doing these activities, but on the way home, my clutch started slipping quite frequently.

It became difficult to start from a stop at traffic lights, and it got to a point where I had to keep revving the engine just to finally get the clutch to engage.

I managed to make it back to my parents' home, but I couldn't drive that car all the way back to Nagoya, so I decided to store it at my parents' place for now…

The craving for endless forest road exploration

I sometimes search online for forest roads I can access from Nagoya, but I get the impression that there are mostly blogs about forest roads for motorcycles. That said, I think there are very few blogs about forest roads in general.

Because of that lack of information, there’s a fun aspect to "digging" and finding the routes for yourself.

You can find the gravel roads of the Futagoyama Line if you search online, but the trails I showed in the photos earlier don't pop up.

It’s interesting to develop a list of "roads that someone taught me, paths that only I know," which are hard to find on a map.

From here on out, I want to find many such paths along with my Dark Star.