Tuesday was the “Sea Day” holiday in Japan, so I took the opportunity to make my first bicycle ride to the sea. Kyoto is about as far from the sea as a big city gets in Japan, so even though I've been to a lake that looks like an ocean, I'd not yet been by bicycle to the actual ocean.

この間のは海の日で初めての海までのサイクリングをしました、京都市内から。二時間の帰り電車を含めて17時間掛かりました。157キロを走って、一番山が多い道を選びました。 獲得高度は2,800mでした。 楽しかった。

It was a long trip.

I left the house at 4:24am, and returned 17 hours later at 9:33pm, though two hours of that was the return from the ocean by train. All in all it was 151km (94 miles) of cycling to and along the ocean, followed by a train back to Kyoto, then another 6km (4mi) of cycling from Kyoto Station to home.

Befitting the length of the trip, this post is also long.

I was joined by Antti, whom we saw shining in this day of mishaps last month, and Eric Findlay, who I'd run into by chance the day after that ride when he recognized me from my blog while we were both at the same bicycle shop.

We met at 4:30am in the early-morning dusk (sunrise was 4:58am) and headed north towards the mountains. Before diving into the mountains for the real climbs of the trip, we stopped at a convenience store that would be our last access to food for about five hours...

I picked a route with as many mountain passes as I could fit in... Hanase Pass (花背峠/760m/2500'), Sasari Pass (佐々里峠/739m/2400'), Gonami Pass (五波峠/656m/2200'), and two smaller unnamed passes.

With this in mind, I took it easy going up the first and biggest climb of the day, Hanase, only to be shocked the next day when looking at the stats for that climb that I missed my PR (34:20) by only 10 seconds. Not only wasn't I trying, the road in many places was a shallow river due to runoff from a typhoon that had hit two days prior, and one can feel the slowdown as the tires have to cut through the water.

I did keep the camera in the back bag instead of around my neck, so perhaps that sped me up a bit.

Antti wasn't even trying either, it seems, since his time was almost 5 minutes slower than his best, but even then he was 2½ minutes faster than me.

It was absolutely beautiful in the mountains, perhaps in part because of the early time of day. The first six or seven hours of the ride were the most beautiful I'd ever done.

While flying down a long hill between Sasari and Gonami Passes, we came across a turtle smack in the middle of the lane. Both sides of the road were extremely steep slopes — one up the mountain as seen above, the other down to a river — so even if the turtle didn't get smooshed by a truck, his outlook wasn't good.

I found a slightly less-sleep slope heading down to the river, and left the turtle in the ferns. Hopefully it's a good spot for him.

Not long after that, at the turnoff to Gonami Pass, we were surprised to find a cafe that was sort of open. They were hosting overnight river-rafting customers for breakfast and so weren't really open, but they kindly spared some coffee for us.

Once on the bike again, it was all new roads for me, starting with my first ascent to Gonami Pass. 23 minutes later, a the peak we cross into Fukui Prefecture.

This is Eric's first long mountain ride with his new Trek bike (the one he was ordering when we met), and so the rock-strewn road was perhaps new as well.

After crossing the small valley, we could have continued on a fairly flat and direct route to the sea, but instead we jigged west for 20km (12mi), taking a little-traveled road over two unnamed mountain passes. I don't think we saw a single car for over two hours.

Just after the first little pass at 342m (1,125'), 7 hours after starting the trip, we got our first distant and hazy view of the ocean...

Along with our first view of the ocean, we got our second view of a flat tire...

A bit farther down the mountain there was a little lookout with a nice view of the ocean...

I didn't realize it while taking the photos, but in looking at them after the fact, I find it odd to realize that Antti is never smiling in any of the shots. He's such a pleasant guy to ride with and chat with, such that I always see him as smiling, but I guess it doesn't come across to the camera.

We moved east along the beach on a beach-front bicycle path, and upon rounding a bend found the crowds that I'd have expected on a holiday...

Without the tree cover of the mountains, the sun was really hot, with a temperature to being with of 35℃ (95℉). The route called for a little excursion to a view spot on a nearby mountain, but Eric was feeling tired, so he relaxed in the shade at a temple while Antti sprinted up and I plodded up.

It took me 11 minutes to climb the 160m (530') to the top (Antti just nine), and by the time I got there the heat was sucking energy from me at an alarming rate. The view was worth it, though...

We descended back to the beaches to collect Eric and load up on cold drinks, and continued East.

There's a train station across the bridge, and Eric took up my suggestion to avail himself of it to head home. He was clearly quite tired, but never once complained or asked us to go slowly or in any way modify our plans. Of course we would have, but he didn't want to impose.

I don't think he estimated the level of the ride quite right, but having done 118km over more than 10 hours and 2,300m (7,575') of vertical climb, it was more than enough to be proud of.

So, as Eric headed across the bridge to a train station, Antti and I headed for the next big mountain climb.

Except we didn't make it... it turns out that the road we intended to take becomes rough gravel:

My usually-meticulous route preparation had failed us this time, as I thought it was paved the whole way. I was bummed because I was really hot and tired, but had resigned myself to just exit my body and do it semi-consciously. I was also hoping to get great shots from 500m up.

Instead I had to make do with a rare break in the foliage on the way back down the little paved road that we'd done...

Since the beaches, we'd been heading deeper out onto a peninsula, so had to double back to the bridge to return to the mainland.

Then it was 20km or so along big roads and bicycle paths toward the town of Obama.

Antti and I both brought bike bags so that we could bring our bikes on the train. But I'd loaned mine to Eric earlier in the day, and Antti had forgotten his at the beach. But we stopped by a 100-yen shop and bought some bicycle covers, tape, and Velcro... we then removed the front wheel of the bike and used Velcro to afix it midbike, then covered everything and taped up the bottom.

I wasn't sure that the train company would let this haphazard cover through — I'd heard that they were quite strict — so I was fairly stressed about it, but it turns out to have been just fine. Being the end of a three-day weekend, the trains were packed and we had to stand most of the way, but we got a great connection and it took only two hours to reach Kyoto Station.

A short ride from there to home, and I was enjoying a cool shower by 9:45pm and a cold beer by 10pm.

I was quite achy the next day, but got talked into riding up to Hanase Pass again. This time I actually did go very slowly, but it somehow seems to have broken the achy feeling, and I actually felt better after that.