Twistybutt on Nanikore

Coast to Coast 2025

Sun, 29 Jun 2025 10:22:00 +0000

It was time again … time for the Coast to Coast 2025! Was I doing it on a fun little bike, like my Hunter Cub from last year? Nope! No, this year I was back to the good old Tracer, so it was time to mount up with the usual crew, and get ready to get twisty.

Odawara in Kanagawa prefecture, to Joetsu in Niigata prefecture via mountain roads to the tune of 500Km. Bring it on.

We were ready. Maps were loaded, and we and many others were at the start point, admiring that sun rising over the Pacific Ocean. Then more dedicated riders turned up, and instantly started swapping out brake pads. Now that’s a statement of intent.

How can I describe this year’s run? In a word … smooth. Really. I don’t think I’m even retro-tempting fate here, it went well, smooth. Fun, and with no drama. No broken bikes, no revving a 125cc bike to hell in first gear to get up slopes, no one disappearing off the road - just simple, twisty fun.

It was one of those rides where you just flow, the curves came and went, we took turns leading, and had some laughs at the rest stops. There were some odd things; we had to stop at a rail crossroads at one point, and it only occurred to me when I looked at the photos, that we had stopped at exactly the same crossing two years previously (different train though). How random is that.

We made it to Joetsu with a decent amount of daylight left, though we had taken it very easy, and we were all quite impressed at just how smooth things had gone.

At the Route Inn hotel, there was time for a bit of a soak in the onsen, before meeting up for a spot of Italian food with a bunch of other Twistybutters at a nearby restaurant, which looked very nice from the outside, but inside looked like the nicest nuclear bunker you’ve ever seen.

As always, a tip of the helmet to Touge Express for putting the maps together for the ride; be sure to check that site out if you’re riding in Japan.

(This all happened at the beginning of May. I’ve just been very lazy sorting this post out. Thanks.)

Coast to Coast on the Cub

Mon, 06 May 2024 12:50:24 +0000

Another Golden Week, and another opportunity to ride from the Pacific Coast of Japan via just over 500Km of twisties to the Japan Sea - from Odawara to Joetsu - and just to add to the fun, this time I did it on my new 125cc Honda Hunter Cub.

The Twistybutt has always been an interesting 2 days because for me, no two have been the same and this time, trading in the Tracer for the Cub was going to make a huge difference for sure.

The Build Up

Preparation went pretty well, I’d been doing some runs through the Tsubaki line and around Hakone to get used to the Cub on winding slopes and learned a few things such as not completely rolling off the throttle uphill unless really necessary since it doesn’t have the world’s greatest pick up with 9 horses, and perhaps because of the riding position and the nature of the bike and its tyres, going down steep corners with any kind of speed can be a little nerve wracking at times.

Aside from that, it’s a fun bike to ride in the twisties once you get a bit of practice in, so come the day I felt relatively well prepped.

Maps are always fun, and as always the biker brains over at TE issued the routes for both the 500Km and 650Km routes. Don’t ask me about the 650Km option - I’ve never done it, and likely never will (until I finally prep for an 18 hour day…really, how does anyone do 650Km of this?)

I mention maps because you need to know how maps, map files, map apps and devices and all that work before you turn up. I have a bit of a page about it here.

On the day…

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So at dawn - near 5am - we gathered. For me that mean’t almost an hours riding the backstreets mostly in the dark - no fast toll roads or expressways for us mere 125cc riders. Fortunately again the weather was great - and more on that later.

One of the great things about this ride is that each year you get to see those people who you haven’t seen for a while, and it’s not uncommon to make a team on the morning - in fact I was planning to ride with one friend, and another person I knew was there, but their riding partner had to drop out due to sickness, so we invited him along, though with the massive caveat that I was going to be on 125cc time. Speaking of the Cub, there is actually a pretty active contingent each year, and I was kind of honoured to be asked to ride with them, but I know their pace, and as a Cubster newbie, I knew I wasn’t going to keep up with them. Maybe next year … maybe next year.

…and we’re off.

Being on a slower bike, and just being a relatively slower rider, I’m used to and quite comfortable waving the quicker riders past me, and this year was no different. There’s a lot of talented people around for sure.

It’s always nice to get those first 50Km under your belt, and a couple of hours of riding to warm up for the veritable all you can eat twisty-fest for the day. For our small group, we munched along taking in the side view of old man Fuji, winding up to the Tenkachaya tea shop. It wasn’t open of course, but it’s a breath taking view on any day.

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Following that, it’s down into Kofu and some suburban riding, before getting back into the mountains again, and that’s the model for many hours - beautiful landscapes when you can take your eyes off the next corner which is likely only a few metres away, with the exception of some of the farmlands, which can have what looks like a whole kilometre of straight road, which is an odd sight anywhere on the main island of Honshu.

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As you can see from the photos, the weather was superb - in fact it was a little too superb - up to 28degrees C at times in the valleys. At stops for fuel and convenience stops, we were opening jacket vents and checking layers, aware that the highest point of the trip was yet to come and it can indeed get chilly.

As it was, we moved on, just that endless ribbon of asphalt of varying levels of quality streaming past, and we were making decent time for a low capacity lead bike - I figured that since it was me causing the other two to be so slow, I should at least take point and make sure we were on the route, so the others could enjoy the view a little more.

It’s also worth noting that on any group tour, there’s always that person who doesn’t cancel his signal / indicator / winker in a timely fashion, and I’m ashamed to say that this year I was that person. It’s one thing I need to work on with the Cub - the light is just out of your vertical peripheral vision and is completely silent and along with a switch which sometimes in gloves doesn’t cancel means I have to work on that!

The Top

It’s such a long ride you get to see all manner of different vistas, and one of my favourites is just north of Kusatsu and the 292 road as it climbs through broken volcanic areas - complete with shelters - with the remains of the winters snow still at the sides. Coming up from the south side of the range, climbing through the snow walls to the highest point of any national road in Japan. Of course, I had to take a photo of the Cub there - it had earned it (I got one of the Tracer in the same place, several years ago).

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Even though there’s quite a few upward hills still to climb, this sort of marks the top of the trip, and you feel like it’s downhill from here, with about three hours riding left to go, which would mean doing the last serious set of twisties through the fields in the darkness, but we’ll get to that.

Unexpectedly, it wasn’t that cold up at the top either, so once we got down to the Yamanouchi village - a place I usually come through on the way to snowboard trips - we stopped for a bit longer, checked our layers, and prepared for that one last push.

These last sections are rural - the road quality is generally good but there are virtually no street lights, safety barriers or other road markers, and as there are almost no [cats-eyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat's_eye_(road%29) in Japan, its dark and you really have to stay focussed for these last twisties, which is its own challenge given we’d now been on the road for twelve hours.

This illustrated another issue with the Cub - it’s lights, including full-beam aren’t great - it’s fine for urban and sub-urban riding, but it could do with a little more lumens, so that’s on the future mod list. Fortunately, having two other riders meant that between us we could easily illuminate enough of the road, and we weren’t exactly charging through and could take our time and enjoy it.

I even enjoyed that random metre of gravel across the road in the middle of nowhere - at least there was a sign!

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Down into Joetsu

Just after this it levelled out a little, through a stretch of farmland, then it’s on to Route 18 and into the town of Joetsu and the hotel.

If there’d been some daylight, I might have done the beach, but I’ve been there in the dark before and … well, it’s just dark!

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In total then it had taken us 14 hours from Odawara to Joetsu, and it had been thankfully stress free, and there’d been no incidents, which is always good news.

There’s usually a few beers being drunk at the usual hotel bars, but for me, it was time to just sort my gear out and get some sleep - another long day tomorrow!

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The Day After

Of course going to Joetsu is one thing, but what to do the next day? How to get home? Quite a few people continue the tour and take a few more days to ride around the nearby mountains or head up the coast. Usually I’d do some expressway, then jump off, check out some twisties and repeat all the way back home, but of course this time that wasn’t an option as the Cub can’t go on expressways by law, and so I knew I was staring at around 420Km of main roads, and potential traffic jams on the way back with it being [Golden Week](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Week_(Japan%29).

One other tradition of sorts for some of the Twistybutters is the morning meet up at Starbucks. Yes, it’s quite tongue in cheek to kick of the next day at the home of the BMW GS riders! Joking of course, but we do meet up, have a morning beverage before we all go our seperate ways.

For me, I followed Route 18 south, then cut through to Chino City, Route 20 a hop over to Gotemba and then Odawara and home - quickly said, but another 11 hours of riding. There was a little traffic, but actually I was quite pleased and surprised how little there was, so it was a fun ride. I rode with a friend for the first half, before he made for the expressway to try to get home himself at a reasonable hour and I finished again in darkness, but a decent sense of accomplishment.

So there we are, another Twistybutt - good riding, good times and good people. Also, knowing I could use my Cub for this kind of thing is nice to know.

Till next year…

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Original Comments

Comments from the original WordPress blog post.

C — 2024-05-06

Brilliant G! Well done.

gurahamu — 2024-05-10

Thanks C, and thanks for pulling together this fun ‘challenge’.

Twistybutt Map Tips

Sun, 10 May 2020 14:40:49 +0000

[2022 May Update] I wrote this in late Summer 2019 as a reminder for myself. It's had some good feedback, and I've learned a bit too, so please go to this updated page which I'll update going forwards!

What is GPS?

The Global Positioning System [GPS] is a US military Global Navigation Satellite System which gives you a location pretty much anywhere on the planet Earth as a set of coordinates. There’s actually a growing number of these systems being deployed as countries and companies look to reduce their dependency on something which could be taken away at some point. There’s a decent list here for those interested.

What about Twistybutts?

So when you do a Twistybutt, unless you’re one of the brave few (and probably on a Ducati classic) using a piece of paper taped to your handlebars, you’ll be using some form of GPS navigation system on the ride, aiming to follow the path TougeExpress has carefully crafted for us.

You get this file, shove it into your device or phone and then just go right? Oh, it’s not that simple? When is it ever. Let’s review this to ensure happy happy Twistybutts.

The file is usually sent by TougeExpress as a .kml or .gpx file created on Google Maps, so let’s start there.

What is .kml?

KML(Keyhole Markup Language) is a standard file type usually associated with Google Maps and Google Earth. It’s called that because Google bought the company Keyhole to start it all. These are usually .kml files but there’s also a .kmz file, which is a zipped format containing the .kml file and any other useful meta info. It’s designed as a presentation format for annotating maps.

What is .gpx?

GPX is another file format which is designed to encapsulate a lot of data about topography, including GPS data and other locations. The format has explicit formats for routes, waypoints, and tracks as distinct data types.

.gpx is generally considered the better option for transferring data between GPS devices and it’s widely supported.

However, there’s more to it than that. Again.

Waypoints, Routes and Tracks

Waypoints: These are single fixed locations which you may have set yourself, or the application may have chosen, such as a good restaurant or a geographic location, stored as a GPX location.

Track: this a larger file, but has a higher resolution, a higher number of GPS points to follow, meaning an app can usually place them on a map and get the roads you wanted more accurately. A potential downside being that some apps and devices may have a limit to how many of these points they can render. These are also usually the type files created when you record a run/hike too, like a bread-crumb trail.

Route: this is lower resolution, has fewer waypoints, fewer GPS positions and your app/device may use its own logic to decide how you will navigate from one waypoint to the next, depending on your settings. This means that two riders with two different apps or devices and settings, may go down different roads.

Basemaps

The maps we use, be them paper or digital are not the same. Indeed, some are intentionally not the same. These differences can make a difference as to how a device sees and chooses your route (also see ‘Why is my route different?’). We need to be aware then of what map we’re using and test to see what differences that has to the one the route/track was created on.

All other factors being equal, OpenStreetMap and Google Maps are sufficiently different that designing a route on one may not get you the exactly same sequence of roads as on the other. This is often because we’re going on small, minor roads with lots of branches.

So what do I do for the Twistybutts?

Let’s look at my own example:

My first year I had the source route “golden master” [GM] .kml from TougeExpress made in Google Maps. I imported that .kml file into trip planning website Furkot.

It didn’t go so well.

When I missed a turn the app running on my smartphone would then try to recalculate to get me to the next waypoint, since it was the only real information it had, and to get there may or may not on the GM route since it was finding the way between waypoints.

Some of this was my lack of understanding of the application (See ‘Know your navigation system’) but I also didn’t understand that the exported Furkot route was still using Google Maps base, and OSMAnd + is based on OSM (OpenStreetMap). An exported track would’ve been better, but not perfect.

The next year I used Kurviger which also uses OSM. I went the long way of making a 1:1 copy of the GM by comparing the route natively in Google Maps and Kurviger side by side and then exporting from Kurviger as a .gpx track. This meant I had to split the route into 3 sections as this is a high resolution solution, and at the time Kurviger seemed to struggle with more than a certain number of its route designing points.

[2022 edit - it seems that Kurviger is now able to handle more route designing points.]

Breaking it into multiple parts as a track also meant my OSMAnd+ phone app could follow it, and guide me back to the track, not a waypoint if I went off it. This took a long time but you should know what to look for along the way anyway. This worked well for me.

These days, TougeExpress will give you a Google derived .gpx track if you ask, so all you have to do now is to import that into a site / app which has your system’s basemap and check it against that GM. You may have to carve it up for the site or your navi to handle.

This was my last way - I imported that into Kurviger, did a quick side by side, made some minor tweaks, and then sliced it into 3 parts and exported it as a track.

Also, don’t forget to mark the fuel stops / places of interest in your system too, and that the fuels stops are open - sometimes they aren’t open when you think they are (sigh).

The Final Checks

Now you have your 3 .gpx files (or what is appropriate for your system - see below). Now load them on your navigation system and quickly compare to the GM - did it get it? Even at this point I’ve seen some subtle issues which could put you on the wrong road, so I’ve gone back, tweaked, re-exported/imported and checked again. I’d attribute this to very minor differences in the way the application renders the way.

(aka ‘Why is my route different?’ )

I didn’t fully understand some of OSMAnd+’s options on my first run - as well as not appreciating routes vs. tracks. It all added up to wasted time and missed turns - to the tune of ~3 hours. That was on me.

You need to know what maps your system uses. You need to know if you have a track or a route file and what map that’s from. You need to understand what your settings are for routing too. For example, if you have ‘get me there quick’ enabled, there’s a good chance it could generate an unintended route, or when you go off a route, it’ll put you on a main road to the next waypoint - that is not The Twistybutt Way. This may even happen with a track on some devices. Essentially, you need to know how you app or device works.

Some people have tried to use Google Maps, only to find on the day no data signal in the mountains, so no streaming Maps. Some people found on the day they didn’t know how to tell Google Maps to follow a specific route. You don’t want to discover these gems on the day. Learn your app.

[As of late 2019, Google Maps now allows downloads in Japan which should reduce issues with not being able to get map data when out of signal areas - providing you remember to download the map data beforehand.]

Map Not Keeping Up?

Another factor to remember is that on some systems there can be a lag (or accuracy issue) where the device/app thinks you are based on the GPS information its receiving, meaning if you’re going quickly - but still inside legal limits obviously - you might miss a turn, so be aware a bit before and keep an eye out for the kind of turn you’re going to be making.

Getting hot.

One issue phone users face (and this is seemingly less of an issue for dedicated device users) is that their devices can get hot, and either become functionally unstable or flat out shut down.

Firstly, local map solutions like OSMAnd+ seem to have this less as they’re not streaming map and position information in and out.

There are other things you can do: remove any covers on the phone, close any applications you aren’t using, turn WiFi off (even Bluetooth if you don’t really need it) and reduce the screen brightness as much as you can. Also, mount the phone where it’ll get some breeze. This might mean moving it on your handlebars, or adjusting/removing your screen. Anything to get some cooler air around it.

All good?

Get out there and ride, and be sure to talk about any issues as opportunities for exploration at the bar later.

If this all seems like a lot of work, and yours works fine out of the box, that’s great, but if you do the Twistybutts and have ‘issues with the map/route’, take the time to see if there are any potential fixes here.

Also, bring a paper map and a paper list of road and town names. It never hurts.

Remember: The is NO substitute for knowing your route, or at least recognizing when you are not on it.

[Apps I know people use include the OSMAnd+ I use, Google Maps, MotionX and Kurviger, as well as the dedicated Navis from Garmin and OEMs. For paper maps, the Mapple Touring books are excellent.]

Twistybutt 8 - Coast to Coast 2018

Tue, 19 Jun 2018 21:04:19 +0000

TL;DR: An awesome 500Km TwistyButt run across Japan, having a great time on bikes with friends before food and beer. No bad way to spend a day.

“This is not an easy ride! You will be on the road for the best part of daylight and maybe more than 12 hours with little time to just cruise and zone out. It is a true feast of twisties that even gluttons have trouble swallowing.”

Touge Express

The Coast to Coast Twistybutt is an informal event put on each year for bikers in Japan by the Touge Express site. We would be riding from sea level at Odawara in western Kanagawa prefecture by the Pacific Ocean, all the way over the spine of Japan to 2,172m on the highest national road in the country, and then on to Joetsu in Niigata prefecture, on the Japan Sea coast.

This was my second attempt at the 500Km route, having clocked in a 15 hour time last year, rolling in tired and wet to the hotel at 8pm. I loved it, I was hooked.

This year I had a few goals - to ride better, to ride smarter, but overall, to be better prepared.

I’d trimmed my gear down from not-so-much, to downright minimal, so that instead of a waistbag and a camping drybag, I was just using a jacket pocket and one of my bicycle’s panniers, down to puncture kits, tools, fasteners, safety kit and a change of clothes. I’d spent more time really understanding my navigation app ( OSMAnd +), and understood how gpx GPS tracks worked on it, and spent a few hours in Kurviger.de making a track from the ‘official’ route.

This year I was riding with an old friend (CS), who has been riding far longer than me, but this was his first go on the C2C. We woke around 3am, got prepped, got that all important cup of tea in, and with gear safely strapped to the bikes, we set off into the dark, under that weird illumination of a full moon.

The few other bikes we saw en route were all fellow twistybutters it seemed, and rolling down the coast road to Odawara we were all waves and enthusiasm.

We met at the base of a toll road as it has a small but convenient car park, which we promptly filled with just over 80 motorcycles, from 110cc SuperCub copies, to elegant and classic Kawasaki’s, to big BMW 1200GSs and pretty much everything in between.

It’s a totally international field of riders as well as the machines, and everyone took photos, exchanged last minute tips, realised flaws in their plans and eagerly awaited the off. After a reminder from the Touge Express team about road etiquette and safety, at around 5.15am we set off with a mere 500Km of twisties ahead.

I again found the first 50Km awkward as I was navigating for the two of us, and generally I don’t ride following a route, so I had to remember to check my turns and not disappear along a beautiful road, but which wasn’t the specific beautiful road I should be on.

(It also became apparent from the profanity levels at stops, that my riding partner’s Google Map / Smartphone system was not working for him at all, so it was looking like I’d be leading the whole way!)

Bounding along on my Tracer with CS’s Triumph Tiger 1200 Explorer’s familiar lights in my mirror felt good in the brisk morning sun, as we twisted towards Fuji, and I had to keep to a point I’d made: I wasn’t going to stop for photos every few kilometres early on like I had the previous year. It’s a difficult promise to keep as many of the views we’d pass by are stunning, and at one point we skirted Fuji, with low cloud barreling down a valley towards it looking like a wave lapping up on a beach. OK, maybe I should’ve have gotten that picture.

(I should also say we were riding with another chap, EP, but for reasons unknown he took another route, but thankfully he made it to Joetsu! )

The roads on the south end of the route were decent as some are well travelled tourist roads, so we made good time as at this early hour there were just a few cars around, mainly photographers looking for that early morning Fuji shot.

After the initial barrage of turns, as we neared Kofu, we traversed a kind of valley bottom between mountain ranges, and you’re reminded that there exist flat, and even straight roads, which suddenly feel wrong. It wasn’t many kilometers though before we were back climbing up into new mountains and more touge, meandering through small villages.

We really only stopped for fuel or for a quick snack, drinks and to stretch our legs around every 100Km. At the 200Km stop for refreshments (and for CS to get caught with his trousers down again, adjusting his knee protectors), we encountered probably Japan’s most minimally stocked convenience store. It was like some homage to late eighties eastern bloc shops I remembered seeing - empty shelves, and half of what products they had were local wines and other alcohol. The staff though were two very friendly old ladies who chatted with us, and made a point of bringing out their personal rubbish bin when I was trying to find somewhere to throw some rubbish.

This kind of interaction seems normal when motorcycling here in Japan, everyone in the mountains just has time for people, and if you’re on the road, then that’s a talking point. When we took on fuel around 300Km, we had a good chat with the old gents running the place about why we were on the road, where in Japan we had set off from, how long it had taken, and where we were going. In fact we were quite appreciative as we’d passed a few petrol stations which were either closed for good, or closed for the Golden Week holiday which had just started. (Oddly, I really start looking for fuel when I’m down to half, even though half would still likely get me ~ 150Km.)

We bumped into a fellow Twistybutter just a few kilometers later when we were looking for some more refreshments at a large Seven Eleven, and he was relaxing with a cigarette, his CBR600 parked up, and with that riding position for a few hundred kilometres, I can see why you’d be stretching out. We exchanged tales of the ride thus far, and other riders we’d seen.

One thing we’d both seen was another biker on a big BMW coming the other way with his pannier wide open at the back. I remembered as I was waving at him and pointing at the back of my bike and him. I don’t think I got my point across.

One reason for that is the ‘biker wave’ - we wave at each other as a salutation as we pass, to say hello, or to pass on information, but sadly I don’t know what the correct gesture is for ‘your side box is open and I think everything has fallen out’. I think he just interpreted my motions as sheer enthusiasm.

It has to be said though, as the day went on, the road quality started to get patchy. Or indeed non existent. We had a stretch of about 100m of basically gravel and stone downhill where they were looking to put asphalt down at some point. Going down this wouldn’t have been much of an issue for either of us, except that there were a couple of cars coming up who apparently had to be in the centre of the track, and would not negotiate, so we were left to get through the rough side sections. It’s all good practice.

I should say at this point that there isn’t much traffic on most of this route, and the vast, vast majority of cars on twisties will move to the side and wave you past. These were the exceptions to that.

We went over some quite badly maintained roads, down through some valleys where there was plenty of debris on the road, as well as the required tar snakes, ripples of asphalt and general subsidence leading to significant drops from mountainsides.

It’s part of the deal - we have great mountains and thus touge and twisties because of Japan’s location on the rim of fire, and the typhoons and long deep winters take their toll. Indeed this year there was a change of route due to one road being closed for nearby volcanic activity. That’s the trade-off - not all of these places can be maintained beyond adequate levels, and I’m fine with that.

We pushed on, savouring the views. At one point I got myself caught in a ragged trench running down the centre of the road when I was looking to overtake a farm vehicle, and had to wrestle the front wheel out of the rut and get back into a lane before anything came the other way, I managed it, but it made me a lot more wary of passing in that area.

Almost the only photo stop we made was at the snow walls on route 292, not far from the highest national road in Japan sign, and a truly beautiful view to see, and something of a tourist attraction, and after several hours of there not being much humanity, it’s a friendly reminder. I have to say this is my favourite section I think, riding between banks of snow, awesome vistas, small streams of melt rolling across the road, and the dedicated skiers getting the last runs of the year in before strapping things back to their cars and heading down, whilst the hotels reconfigure themselves for cycling and hiking season.

Winding down into the next valley, and cutting through a small town it was getting into later afternoon, and we were about to start on the last full set of twisties, which are mainly unmarked single lane farmers roads, and which the previous year I’d done in the dark, in the rain and hadn’t really enjoyed it. This time I was a few of hours earlier, it was dry, so I got to enjoy a wonderful ride down into Joetsu during the golden hours towards sunset, with the light bouncing off the fields and ponds.

We also passed a lady on a mobility scooter coming the other way. Uphill. In the middle of nowhere. The biker spirit never leaves some people it seems.

The last section is a quick highway burn into the town itself, and we rolled into the Hotel car park literally twelve hours after we’d left Odawara, with the sun just about to set.

All that was left to do was a soak in the onsen and have a few beers with the other riders, make sure everyone was safe, exchange stories and bike scars and share a few laughs before getting some sleep, to be fresh again for the next day, where some would continue to other parts of Japan, but where I would be making my way back home.

All in All

It was another fantastic Twistybutt, good times with good people. It’s a great opportunity to challenge and improve your riding skills, or recognise where you need to put some work in. It’s also a good time to learn your bike, how to pack it, how to navigate on it, and if you’re riding with other riders, how to effectively communicate, or agree beforehand how you’ll proceed.

The main thing I learned from last year’s coast to coast, which not only saves time, but boosts enjoyment on the day: knowing the route is everything.

This could be by running it beforehand, or just having a solid mental picture of the turns from studying a map of Touge Express’s route. It also includes having a method of navigation which you know and understand. For me this also included having a far better idea of how GPS tracks, routes and maps work.

Last year I had the source route (the golden master) on Google Maps, and I exported it from Furkot as a GPX route and imported it, seemingly successfully, into OSMAnd+. It didn’t work so well. OpenStreetMap and Google Maps are subtly different, and when I missed a turn my smartphone would then try to recalculate to the next waypoint, which may or may not be on the golden master route. I also didn’t fully understand some of OSMAnd+s options, further adding to route recalculation. It all added up to wasted time and missed turns.

This year I used Kurviger (which also uses OSM) to make a 1:1 track copy of the golden master, which then looked 100% correct on my phone, and I set OSMAnd+ to just use that, so if I missed a turn, it wouldn’t recalculate, it would just point to where I left the track. that was pretty much exactly what I wanted, and was the key to making the navigation portion a case of checking turns in advance, and actually in 500Km I only missed one turn as it was a fairly small hook turn in a forest, forcing us to do a U turn a hundred metres later.

Original Comments

Comments from the original WordPress blog post.

Sanjeev Kumar — 2018-06-20

Great Post Sir !!!! Really refresh those moments of C2C, This year i used Moton GPX on my iphone & it works flawless ( i imported latest route)

After C2C, i continue my journey towards Shikoku, had a great time,

I have not started processing videos, will do so soon.

gurahamu — 2018-06-25

Thanks! Glad you made it yourself too - and went off on your own tour. I’m definitely looking forward to the videos. How did you find the navi app compared to Google Maps last time? ;)

Coast to Coast Twistybutt?

Wed, 01 Nov 2017 03:16:53 +0000

At the tail-end of Golden Week this year (May 5th to be exact) I took part in Touge Express’ 2017 Coast to Coast Twistybutt, an invitational run across Japan from the Pacific Ocean to Japan Sea purely via the mountain pass roads or ’touge’ as they’re known. 500Km of turns with the occasional short local road connecting them.

If you were on a straight road, you were probably on the wrong road.

So where is the tale of this crossing? I did write one, but it’s not here, it’s on a real motorcycle website, so thanks to Chris and everyone at RideApart for bringing tales from the touge to the broader world - they’ll be all the better for it!

The Twistybutt - Japan’s Iron Butt Challenge

Twistybutt on Nanikore

Coast to Coast 2025

Coast to Coast on the Cub

The Build Up

On the day…

…and we’re off.

The Top

Down into Joetsu

The Day After

Original Comments

Twistybutt Map Tips

What is GPS?

What about Twistybutts?

What is .kml?

What is .gpx?

Waypoints, Routes and Tracks

Basemaps

So what do I do for the Twistybutts?

The Final Checks

Know Your Navigation System

Map Not Keeping Up?

Getting hot.

All good?

Twistybutt 8 - Coast to Coast 2018

All in All

Navigation

Original Comments

Coast to Coast Twistybutt?