This post picks up from “Last Month’s Particularly Epic Cycling Adventure, Part 1”, about a ride that I took with Nigel Randell and Andy Clark a month ago. Part 1 ended with us having reached Minetoko Pass (elevation 888m / 2,900') on a long gravel road.

The descent down the other side was often very rough, and the rain continued, but it was worth it because the views and general scenery were often gorgeous.

One thing that set this descent apart is that the forest it traversed seemed to be mostly original virgin wood, and not farmed ceder seen almost everywhere else. The ample deciduous trees should make this path spectacular next month.

There was a sharp edge across the road where the pavement restarted, and I hit it too quickly and got a pinch flat, only the second flat I've gotten since starting to ride earlier this year. Like the first time, it was raining as I changed the tire.

Eventually the road returned to civilization, only to be blocked by a padlocked gate.

I don't understand how a public road can be suddenly gated like this... there was nothing to stop us getting here, so why not let us continue?? We certainly weren't going to spend the hours required to retrace our steps, so we went over the gate.

This let us out just east of Nomi Pass. It's an area I knew well, having done it on my first big ride last February, and three other times since.

When doing a climb, even if it's cold and rainy, the effort you put into it generates a lot of heat. But then on the descent, you can get very cold quickly, and with this long descent and my flat tire, by now we were pretty cold and miserable. Unfortunately, the area is devoid of stores or other commerce for many miles, except, fortunately, one restaurant in the middle of nowhere, the Iroha Cafe (いろはカフェ). Were very lucky to find the lady that runs the cafe outside accepting a delivery when we rolled past. She wasn't open yet, but kindly opened up for us.

She has big baskets filled with various cookies and crackers and treats, all free for the taking. When faced with such bounty, in the condition we normally arrive (cold and miserable), we always clean them out. I try to pay a bit extra to make me feel better about having been such a pig.

She was open for business by the time we left, and parked outside on the road was the logging truck of a customer:

With the clock ticking down and the rain still coming down, we decided to take the most expeditious route home, so headed east to Route 367.

Route 367 has the benefit of being a fairly fast and direct route back to Kyoto, but it's got a lot of traffic and something like six or seven tunnels, which can be quite dangerous especially since they're on uphill segments, so you're going much slower than traffic. (Taking the road from Kyoto makes it much less dangerous, because you're going downhill and so can travel with traffic.)

Most of the tunnels can be bypassed by taking the old, steep, twisty sections of road they replace, but the bypass around three tunnels in succession was closed off. We decided to give it a try anyway... roads that are closed to cars are often easily passable by bicycle (like this and this).

I mean, really, just how bad can it be?

I was thinking to just forge ahead into the river, when Nigel beat me to it...

Nigel took a short video of me slogging through the water, until I stopped at a big sandbar because I was worried about falling off while clipped in. I didn't want to fall, but particularly didn't want to fall on video. 🙂

With all our fun adventures, time was really running short, so we decide to skip the next bypass and go through the tunnel. This bypass (seen here) involves a 100m climb that we didn't have the time for.

I don't feel that tunnels are particularly dangerous if you have good lights, but I seem to be in the minority. In any case, at least on Route 367, traffic seems to come in bunches, so we waited until a bunch passed then dove into the tunnel.

On the preview post last month I included this photo:

... but that's been post-processed to bring up the light level. This photo is closer to reality:

It depends on the tunnel; some are very well lit. (On a separate ride yesterday, I ended up taking all the tunnels on this route.)

The tunnel above ends at the top of a long descent, with both twisty parts and fast straightaways...

That was the last photo I took... the rest was just vanilla “get home” riding.

All in all the ride was way more fun than its 99.8km would suggest. Fun folks, new routes, forging a river... what more could one ask for? Epic day.