In part 1 about last weekend's cycling into the mountains north of Kyoto, I ended the story 23km into the journey at the top of the Hanase Pass (花背峠). At 769m it would be the highest point of the trip (a trip that started and ended at an elevation of about 60m).

With a nice downhill to look forward to, I didn't linger long at the pass. After a minute-and-a-half's rest and a selfie, I carried on.

I couldn't let myself build up much speed because the road was quite snowy/icy, so I dragged on the rear brake most of the time. Still, the slow speed allowed me to appreciate the scenery a bit. I suppose it's difficult to see in this next shot, but at times the ground dropped away from the road at perilous rates...

The big tower seen above is not far from Hanase Pass where I'd been a few minutes earlier. The tower can be seen from Kyoto (in the hazy clouds in the upper left of this photo), or up close (here). When I took those photos five years ago, I was 100kg of out-of-shape frumpiness, and I'd never in a million years thought I'd bicycle that far.

The turning point for me came 2½ years ago in “Yesterday’s Hike: The Agony Where Bravado Yields, In Spectacular Fashion, To Painful Reality”, after which I vowed to get in shape. Even just two months later I was starting to show progress. I've been at it in various ways for 2½ years, and now at 48 I'm in by far the best shape of my life. Whoo-hoo!

Anyway, I soon descended into the little village on the other side of the mountain...

I'd visited the shrine beyond that gate five years ago and had thought to do so again on this trip, but didn't. Judging by the amount of undisturbed snow on the path, (which goes 250m back up into the mountains to the shrine), it's probably just as well that I didn't.

In preparing for the trip I imagined a slow lazy ride, with many stops to check out hopefully-photogenic mountain temples and shrines. When I passed this shrine it was only 11am, but I was already starting to worry about the time: I had to get home and cleaned up in time to make it to 5pm Mass. According to my original plan, I still have 80km of unknown terrain left to ride.

One stop I would have made was at the cafe “Cowbell” moments later. Unfortunately, they were closed:

I would have liked a cup of coffee, but had no choice but to press on.

Fifteen minutes of mostly downhill later, I decided to pause to put on some warmer clothes. As expected, I'd gotten quite chilly in the half-hour descent. My toes were the worst, but otherwise I was pretty okay... just chilly. But not knowing what to expect going forward, I thought it would be prudent to put on another layer.

So, I broke out some things I'd bought in preparation for the trip: a Uniqlo Ultra-Light Down Half Coat (it weighs nothing and can roll up into a ball) under my windbreaker, and Uniqlo Warm Easy Cargo Pants (fleece-lined polyester sporty winter pants) over my Under Armour leggings.

I snapped a photo of my legs just to mark the location on my tracklog.

I continued on, and after 20 minutes of ups and downs, I found a place to have that cup of coffee.

My shirts were well soaked, so I took the opportunity to try to dry them by hanging them over chairs near the heater. I was the only customer, yet after a while one of the workers came to ask me to use the heater in the lobby (the cafe being part of a larger semi-public non-profit recreational area), commenting that the cafe was “for customers only”. I looked at her incredulously as I pointed to the coffee I was still enjoying. Geez. She and another worker then helped arrange my stuff for better drying.

This was my first real rest since starting in earnest. I was there for 29 minutes.

A cursory look at a map makes it appear that the road I wanted to take was the main path that goes straight here, but in reality it's a 90-degree right turn. I knew I wanted to get to Route 367 so I'm sure I would have been fine without my iPad's map, but I was happy to stop to confirm.

There had been lots of up and down segments — as mountains are apt to do — but I knew I had another major pass to eventually ascend to, and the moment I turned onto Route 110 I knew the ascent had started...

It was clear weather, but throughout the trip, clumps of snow would fall onto the road from the trees in big splats. My luck in avoiding them was gone with the shot above, as it made a direct hit on me and the camera. I didn't have anything to clean the ice off the front of the lens, and didn't want to stop anyway, so I just left it.

It was difficult to ride smoothly, as the semi-hard snow/ice/slush was thick and the tire had to cut through it. Sometimes it would “grab” the tire and force it one way or the other as if in a rut, so I had to spend more effort to keep control.

Still, it was all really quite pleasant, though that feeling wouldn't last long...

I'd been stopping much more frequently than on the initial ascent up to Hanase Pass, and the refreshed feeling from the rest lasted much less. I was getting tired.

It eventually dawned on me that perhaps I should eat something. So far I'd had just a cup of coffee at home before leaving, and a cup of coffee at the cafe. I normally don't eat breakfast or lunch; unless a social occasion dictates otherwise, I eat when I feel hungry, not when the clock says everyone should eat. For me that means I generally eat just dinner.

I'm quite used to doing a day full of heavy exercise without having eaten anything, and I don't know that today was any different. I didn't feel hungry and didn't know whether eating something would impact my level of energy, but with not knowing what the route held, I thought it prudent to have a candybar.

I didn't bring along anything to drink, and Japan's seemingly-ubiquitous vending machines were nowhere to be seen in the last few hours, so I ate some snow along with my frozen Snickers.

It was a picturesque spot for a meal.

I soon felt better, not due to the Snickers, but because I reached Nomi Pass (能見峠) nine minutes later...

It took about 42 minutes to get here from the turnoff, 25 of which were actually riding. Strava says that I am “KOM” (King of the Mountain) for this segment this year, which in this case must mean that I'm the first person to do it this year. Others in the Kyoto Cycling group can do it finish-to-end in under 14 minutes, though I suppose these snowy conditions might slow even them down a bit.

I didn't have much interest in shrines or temples at this point, but looked around for a vending machine. I really wanted something to drink and I was getting tired of eating snow.

There wasn't one at the shrine, nor at the Kyoto City ward office across the street (yes, officially I've been in Kyoto City the entire trip), but happily I came across one before leaving the village...

15 minutes of some ups but mostly downs later, I came to Route 367. I was feeling great.

I've driven on this road many times... it gets a lot of traffic, including buses and lots of dumptrucks, but at times it's fairly narrow, so I didn't think it'd be all that pleasant on a bicycle, especially considering that I'd had to share the entire last hour of road with only three cars and one motorcycle.

But I was feeling great because it's downhill all the way to Kyoto; all the hard work was behind me, and now I just had to coast home.

Or so I thought.

I don't know why I had it in my mind that it was downhill from here, because it's not at all. It's mostly uphill, though broken more or less into smaller ups and downs. The ups felt very long, and the downs not very “down”... I could never get up much of a coast, and even some downhills felt like they were uphill.

The mismatch between expectation and reality is what really wore me out. That, and the saddle of my bike.... my rear was really hurting by now.

Then we had tunnels.

Not thinking I'd need them on a daylight trip, I didn't bring my lights. This turned out to be a mistake, because at times it was so dark inside that I literally could not see what I was riding on. With all the traffic, I didn't feel safe to ride on the narrow road without a light (even my orange jacket became a subdued dull gray in the tunnel lighting), so I “road” on the sort-of side curb that was perhaps two feet wide.

The lights in the tunnels are spaced for maximum efficiency, which is perfect if they're all working. If one goes out, it's utterly pitch black for a short segment of road. During these times, I just kept my hand on the side of the tunnel and felt my way along. It's not a particularly fast way to travel, but it has the nice side effect of keeping me alive.

More ups (always ups) and downs later, finally at about 2:40, I exited yet another tunnel to find a monster twisty descent waiting for me. Here even coasting I'd pick up considerable speed, but the impressive hairpin turns made speed dangerous, so I kept it relatively slow... I maxed out at 57kph prior to the first hairpin.

(I did snap a few pictures while in the hairpins, at a relatively-mild 32kph, but they don't really show anything but the “caution” strips painted across the road, so I'm not bothering to include them here.)

When I came across this big cell tower and its long stairs, I opted not to pause to climb to the top as I did once before. Perhaps next time. 😉

My original route called for me to turn at Tochu (途中)... I love that name. It's a village in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, and the name literally means “on the way” or “in progress”. Every time I drive by I think it's well named... I'm on the way home, or on the way somewhere. I'm never there.

Anyway, I had been planning to cut over to Lake Biwa and return to Kyoto that way, but that would add 10km to my trip, and some steep ascents. With 5pm Mass looming, I didn't think I had the time, so I continued straight on Rt 367.

If I wasn't pressed on time I would have done my original route. I was tired, for sure, but that was part of the point. The only real problem I had was my rear end did not like sitting on the seat any more, so when a downhill segment afforded the opportunity, I'd stand and coast just to get some relief.

My wrists were also quite achy, leaning on the handlebars as I'd been for the last six hours.

This is the convenience store we always stop at when going through Ohara with the family, such as on a family outing to the Sanzen'in Temple, and the one we stopped at two weeks ago when out with folks from Cycling Kyoto on my first “real” bike ride.

30 minutes and 14km of mostly (but not all) down-ish later, I was home.

I parked the bike and my rear end was happy for the relief. I was dead tired, but still shocked at how difficult it was to walk up one flight of steps... I had to consciously work to lift myself each step. This was unexpected.

I still managed to snap a photo of myself at the end.

I dumped everything but the shoes, helmet, sunglasses, and camera into the washing machine, and while a bath was being drawn, ate a bowl of cereal.

The tracklog-analysis software I wrote for Lightroom after the trip gives the following stats:

Distance ridden: 91.3km. (The 90.2km shown at the base of the graph is distance without accounting for elevation changes. To account for how much distance was actually traveled, one must bring in Pythagoras and such, you know.)

Total time: 6.8 hours (4.8 riding, 2 resting, though 20 minutes of the rest was before I really started). It's interesting to note that it took longer to write this one post than it did to do the whole ride.

Elevation climbed: 3,850 meters.     (Update: it turns out that the elevation climbed was actually only about 1,500 meters, and that Strava wildly inflates elevation gain.)

Anything with elevation must be taken with a grain of salt, because GPS (or in my case GPS/GLONASS) receivers are not very accurate in this respect. It's tempting to look at data like this and take it at face value, but even a highly-accurate unit set down in an open field will record a “track” drifting around the local area in three dimensions.

One must also consider how a tracklog is inspected. Considering that there's that natural small drift even when stationary, one must make a best guess at what constitutes “movement”?

I uploaded my tracklog to Strava, and their analysis of the distance and time were completely different from mine. I've sent them a note to ask about their methods.

Aftermath

My inner thighs really hurt... not the kind of “I had a great workout and now I'm pooped” hurt, but full-on “Mommy make it stop!” pain. A long hot bath helped, but I knew I'd be hurting the next day.

Except I didn't. I was fine on Sunday, with no aches at all. I even went for a bike ride with Anthony.

I was fine on Monday as well for my normal workout, starting with a warmup of 65 pushups in three minutes, then a group workout in the “hot studio” where Hot Yoga is normally done. Even during the leg workout... about 50 squats were not a problem.

But everything changed when we started to do lunges. Wow, it hurt. We didn't do that many, but I was left in a sniveling pile of pain. It's been several days since then, and my inner thighs still hurt... the lunges “awoke” the pain, I guess.