We are so sorry for that we have not posted anything for a while. We have been doing busy though we have had lots of guests enjoyed good weather and good condition of Norikura. Colors of leaves are turning prettiest time and it would be a best season for MTB riding.

To tell the truth we had a full house group guest for this coming weekend but due to influenza, they needed to cancel. Then we offer following MTB tours. It is so sudden though the tour comes with the Hida Beef BBQ. Don’t miss this special offer!.

Fall MTB Ride

Tour A: From 9:30AM on Sat. Oct 10th to 12:00PM on Sun. Oct 11th.
Tour B: From 1:30PM on Sun Oct 11th to 3:30PM on Mon. Oct 12th

Fee: ¥17,000 (incl: 1.5 days of guiding, 1 night lodging with 2 meals, Hida-Beef BBQ)
Group Size: Up to 20 people.

Reservation: Please visit our Reservation Page
Contact: E-mail or Phone (0263.93.1688)

*Also the following weekend (Oct 17th to 18th) is available for 8 people. Please contact us.

We have been using Rocky Mountain Bicycles ”FLOW RAW” as our rental bikes the last three season. Since we are planning to replace them with new bike, this fall is our last season to ride them. There are some dings and a few scratches but they are still great bikes. This is a great chance for someone who is looking to start mountain biking to get a great deal on a real Canada built Mountain Bike.

Size 15″ for 155cm tall and up
16.5″ for 165cm tall and up
18″ for 175cm and up

*The retail was ¥123,900. The price will be adjusted based on the condition of each bike. The bikes are maintained by our bike staff and are in good running order. But we also recommend that you bring it to a pro bike shop to have it check out. We can hold a bike for you if your interested and then ship it to you be the end of October. Shipping will be about 3000 yen.

Well we have been waiting for what seems like forever for Summer to get here and now that we finally have some Summer weather, it feels like fall is on the way. Wow, I never thought Summer could be so fast.

And now that we have had some good weather people are enjoying Mt. Biking, River Hiking and many more great outdoor activities you can do here in Norikura. Below you can see some photos from a recent River Hike and a guided Mt. Bike tour. We will be running the River Hike activity until the end of August and Mt. Biking until end of October, so please come enjoy the outdoors with us in Norikura.

In the green season at NORTHSTAR, we are doing a variety of activities such as mountain biking, climbing, hiking, each day. Patagonia’s Dispatch Pants can done everything. The nylon fabric stretches and is strong enough to not get worn out from riding a bike almost every day. They stay dry with little bit of rain and even if they are wet will dry while you are taking a break.

Even though they are a little bit expensive if you have a pair, you can do anything with them. Of corse you use a different pair of pants for each activities but these can go though from spring to fall. Seth and Ymkn have been using them and Ymkn has been using them over a year so the durability is proved. Please check them at your local Patagonia Store.

It has been an uncomfortable rainy season this year. We have not had any dry condition even for our staff free riding since starting actual mountain bike season this summer. Even though trails or Norikura have such great natural drain systems, we sometime need to cancel MTB tour to protect trails. Of course we want our guests to ride, when the condition allows we have a short breaking clinic before we start each tour.

It is really basic technique and most riders might know it. Moving your waist and your Center of Mass to the rear wheel helps when breaking. For breaking, using front break much more than the rear break, actually almost not using rear break. This technique will help you to go down steep and slippery section of trails. Both shifting your weight and breaking make this happen and it is kind of hard to learn but once you learn you will not hurt trails as much. Basically the best way to save a trail is to not ride on rainy day.

This season, I installed NS Bikes parts on my bike.

I installed a Proof Bar, Quark Stem and Arial Pedal. Gold parts make my bike have some Bling Bling .

We have not updated our blog in a few days so here is a short post. We visited Trail Cutter “Mashi” in Ina CIty in Nagano the other day. He got a new bike rack which can hold 6 bikes on the back of his van.

The trail we rode is a 10km long trail with some ups and downs and berms. We enjoyed the ride. You cannot stop laughing.

We worried about the weather because of rain but the rain stopped while we are riding. It ended up as a great trail riding day.

You can tell how good the ride was with all the smiles.

We rode two trails and ended up at a classic Japanese country scenic with the Souther Japan Alps.

“Mashi”, guide and AI from Aloha Bike Trip.

We finished our trip with some local food “Deer Meat Curry”

It was a great “staff training trip”.

We had so many different things happening this week. We had Bicycle Magazine come on Tue. and Wed. Their chief editor and Ai from Aloha Bike Trip came here to take lots of pictures and write about the Norikura MTB trails. We will be in the June issue, so please check it out.

On Wednesday afternoon, we had a meeting for the annual trail running event here in Norikura. Mr. Miura from Run-Walk Style, a running shop in Osaka, which runs the Run & Walk, 11th annual trail running event, and Mr. Tsuyoshi Kaburagi, a top trail runner in Japan, came to Norikura for the meeting about another possible trail running event starting this fall. After the meeting, I was was able to run with them and show our MTB trails to them as alternate trail running routes. I was in my red zone from the beginning while they were chatting behind me! It seemed like Mr. Kaburagi liked what he found on our Norikura Trails. He left with the words, “I will run one more lap.” and he was gone, back onto the trail.

We have also had so many people asking about NZ, although basically it is like this. Sorry for those who were “fooled.” It is interesting that we have had more responses about the NZ branch in May than from April.

On July 15-16th we will host a Mt. Bike tour here in Norikura and ride some of our best downhill and freeride trails with some of the biggest shop riders and owners in Japan. All this week we have been preparing trails and working on new lines to ride. It should be a great two days of riding.