lightcycle
Nomad
Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/394.html
We're up bright and early to try to make as much of the short daylight hours as possible.
Except that's it's not so bright this morning. A bit overcast and very chilly! Other than the bikers at Izu Skyline, we haven't seen a lot of other motorcycles on the road. Still too early in the season, I guess.
We hop back on the Skyline where it turns into a non-toll road and continue south into the interior of the peninsula. Our bikes take in more twisties in the mountains, but it's nowhere as scenic as the coastline views of the Skyline.
Until we see this fantastical structure in front of us! The Kawazu-Nanadaru Loop Bridge!
The high elevation road we're on needs to connect to a smaller one 45 meters below us. The problem is that we're in a narrow valley between two steep mountains and there's only about 80 meters of space to achieve that vertical drop. A ramp of those dimensions would give you a 56% grade, which is venturing into elevator-shaft territory.
So the Japanese engineers have created a circular ramp. In fact, they built two of them, one on top of the other, spiraling down to the valley below. This weird gigantic corkscrew looks so out-of-place set in the middle of the wilderness!
The ramp is over a km long!
When you're taking a corner on a motorcycle, typically, you're only ever leaning for the duration of the turn for no more than 180°, which is a hairpin. A popular activity for sportbikers in urban areas is "ramping", where you find a cloverleaf ramp on the highway system to get your lean on. But still, the turns are at most 270° before you need to straighten out and zoom over to the next ramp.
The Izu Loop Bridge is a 1080° turn - three full circles, ultimately spitting you out in the same direction you went in at! It feels so weird leaning a bike for over a kilometer! If there's no traffic in front of you and you keep a constant speed, you don't even need to provide any additional input at the handlebars to keep that lean angle going for what seems like an eternity! So cool!
Thankfully it's not a toll ramp, because we did it three times! Once going down, then back up and then down again! Each time going a bit faster to get a more entertaining lean angle out of the bike...
We're up bright and early to try to make as much of the short daylight hours as possible.
Except that's it's not so bright this morning. A bit overcast and very chilly! Other than the bikers at Izu Skyline, we haven't seen a lot of other motorcycles on the road. Still too early in the season, I guess.
We hop back on the Skyline where it turns into a non-toll road and continue south into the interior of the peninsula. Our bikes take in more twisties in the mountains, but it's nowhere as scenic as the coastline views of the Skyline.
Until we see this fantastical structure in front of us! The Kawazu-Nanadaru Loop Bridge!
The high elevation road we're on needs to connect to a smaller one 45 meters below us. The problem is that we're in a narrow valley between two steep mountains and there's only about 80 meters of space to achieve that vertical drop. A ramp of those dimensions would give you a 56% grade, which is venturing into elevator-shaft territory.
So the Japanese engineers have created a circular ramp. In fact, they built two of them, one on top of the other, spiraling down to the valley below. This weird gigantic corkscrew looks so out-of-place set in the middle of the wilderness!
The ramp is over a km long!
When you're taking a corner on a motorcycle, typically, you're only ever leaning for the duration of the turn for no more than 180°, which is a hairpin. A popular activity for sportbikers in urban areas is "ramping", where you find a cloverleaf ramp on the highway system to get your lean on. But still, the turns are at most 270° before you need to straighten out and zoom over to the next ramp.
The Izu Loop Bridge is a 1080° turn - three full circles, ultimately spitting you out in the same direction you went in at! It feels so weird leaning a bike for over a kilometer! If there's no traffic in front of you and you keep a constant speed, you don't even need to provide any additional input at the handlebars to keep that lean angle going for what seems like an eternity! So cool!
Thankfully it's not a toll ramp, because we did it three times! Once going down, then back up and then down again! Each time going a bit faster to get a more entertaining lean angle out of the bike...
