This post picks up from “Bridget and Sarah’s Tour-de-Kyoto, Part 1” about a great ride with a couple of Aussie girls visiting Kyoto. That first part of the story left off 3½ hours and 41km into our ride, after Eric had fixed his flat.

We got almost four whole minutes farther down the road before the next flat, this time on Sarah's bike.

Despite the rain, things got bright after that because we didn't get another flat for almost a full 30 minutes!

The rain abated a bit, so later when after having crested a short mountain pass, I went ahead to try to set up for an “action shot” of the others coming down...

Unfortunately, the whole “come down one at a time” idea seems to have been lost in the translation, because Sarah came down so quickly after Bridget that I had almost no time to prepare for her shot...

... and Eric came even more quickly after Sarah ...

And by the split second later when Kumiko came by, I gave up even trying.

After that we had a while to ride on generally-flat country roads...

Sarah's first flat had been due to a tear in the sidewall of her tire, which left the new tube vulnerable to puncture, and sure enough she got another flat. We had plenty of spare tubes among us as a group, but since Sarah and Bridget had deep-rim wheels, none of our short-stem tubes would work for them.

So, they made do as best they could patching the punctures on the tubes they had, and using patch kits (and candy-bar wrappers) to try to add support where the tire had ripped (support to stop the rubber of the tube from trying to squeeze out under the intense pressure of inflation.)

The only plausible reason that I can come up with for the dog to be that gratuitously annoying is that at least one member of our group must have been a space alien masquerading as a human, and the dog noticed and was trying to sound the alarm. I wonder who it was.

With all the tire troubles we cut short the intended route and instead popped over to the Joshokoji Temple (常照皇寺), which has been seen on my blog a few times including this introduction and this snowy photo shoot. It's far out in the middle of nowhere, so doesn't see a lot of tourists.

Just as Sarah was starting up the long flight of steps, Bridget asked her to step aside so that she could get a clean shot, but Sarah didn't hear her and so not realizing she was blocking anyone's shot, took her sweet time to enjoy the pleasant stroll up, leaving Bridget to laughingly complain in mock anger the whole time.

This is the only temple I know that allows photography inside the sanctuary (or whatever it's called; I'm not sure of the proper term).

It was a simple 40km ride back to the city... how hard could that be?

To be continued...