Nice report. I had to get the map out, but it looks like Ogawagawa is a turn off 406 that takes you to the Olympic Road, not back to 148 itself. There is some nice scenery in Ogawa with people living on steep hillsides nowhere near anything really. If you stick on 406 a bit longer, there is the turn off on the north side for Okususunobana, a nice valley with great autumn leaves and a park at the end with a wetland full of mizubasho flowers in spring. There is a really nice bridge over a dammed reservoir on the road too.

The tunnels to Itiogawa are much longer and darker that the ones coming into Hakuba. I wouldn't go through them on a bike, and especially not uphill back into Hakuba. Its asking for trouble. Itiogawa is also a real dump of a place. The road into Hotaka going south (turn right at the Lawsons at Kizakiko and just keep going) is a much nicer runout, I reckon.

Thanks for the correction.... In summary from Hakuba up 406 down 406 up a small road (goat track) to Ogawagawa river...down the road that follows the Ogawagawa river to Route 31 then back to Route 33 then to Route 148 Hakuba. 47kms on the map but did an extra 4kms back tracking and re-routing. 51kms in total.

Still thinking about the Japan Sea route....

You'll be fit as a lop in no time if you keep climbing up to the viewpoint. I'll have to give your route a try. The back mountain road I always wanted to do (esp. when we had a convertible!) is from Otari Onsen to a lake near Myoko, but I never got round to it.

Some photos of Okususunobana in autumn are here
http://sinanozi.web.infoseek.co.jp/kinasa.html

The road to Hotaka is Route 306. There is not very much traffic on that road and its open all the way for views of big mountains (i.e., the Northern Alps). They use it for the Omachi Marathon in autumn. Its false flat all the way, downhill on the way south. The tourist part of Hotaka you come out at is better maintained than Hakuba. Its a little hard to find, but there is also a road bike shop literally 100m from the route. The guy in there is a former pro roadie and will tell you lots of great routes in the region.

http://homepage2.nifty.com/lavenir-oishi/index.htm

Seeing as Itoigawa is a dump and I came up here for cycling...I'll take your advice and head to the cycle shop. Always good to know of a good shop around with a real rider running it. I bet he even knows a lot of my friends... Plotted it on my GPS and it's about 43kms from where I am. Plus the work out part of the ride will be on the way home.

I've been to the top of 406 about 6 times now for the sole purpose of getting fit. It's a great work out with a nice reward at the top and a speedy return back down to Hakuba.

So many routes I want to try... but so little time.

Okususunobana looks good... may take my MTB there and on the way back head up to Ogawagawa again.

Will have to study up some of those other places you mentioned. All my maps are in Japanese so if I can't figure out the kanji or see the route numbers on the maps for the places it takes me a while to work it all out.

Thanks for your suggestions as it saves me a lot of time.

Did the ride to Hotaka yesterday. Went down as you said around the lakes (west side of both of them) to route 306 and then mostly followed the rice paddy roads parallel to 306 for added off road excitement. On arrival at my destination somewhere near the cycle shop (I assumed) I spent about 30 minutes trying to find it but gave up due to heat and hunger and ended up in Jusco for lunch.

On the route home, once I got to Omachi I headed East and up some long perspex covered tunnel which was very very steep. I then went up and down a few steep climbs and ended up back down on route 31 not too far from Kogawagawa again and headed home.

A very nice hard ride, 101km in total with quite sun burnt arms and thighs. Thankfully it was raining today to keep me home and rested. Thanks for the suggestion to go this way. Very nice ride. I'll look at the map a lot closer for the shop next time before heading off. Wasn't expecting there to be so many houses around that area.

What is there to do in Hakuba on a rainy summer weekend?