For my first “real” cycling ride after my USA vacation, I had a lot of Under Armour clothes to choose from. I've been enamored with the brand for a while, so took the opportunity while in The States of actually being able to find my size to buy about a thousand dollars worth of the stuff, from sportswear to casual wear to jackets.

With sportsware I'm partial to loud vibrant colors, especially for visibility when road cycling. But perhaps in retrospect I shouldn't have quite gone so full throttle. Still, with this getup I bet I could always get a job as a rodeo clown.

By the way, the man I'm talking to above is Chris Rowthorn, who just happened to be walking by when I was meeting others for the start of the ride. He's the author of the Lonely Planet Japan guidebook, among many others. He used a few of my photos in his latest edition.

Anyway, I was joined for the ride by Manseki Kanemitsu, whom I met last month for this ride, and Kumiko Naka, whom I met on my first short cycling outing in January.

We decided to ride off to see “the 100-year-old cherry tree”, a well-known tree off in the northern mountains. I mentioned it on my blog in 2007, here.

The road from Kyoto city proper to Kibune and Kurama is often too narrow to allow a bus and a car to pass each other, so in order to allow bus service several times a day, traffic is stopped until the bus passes through. Except during those brief moments of utility, the guy has to sit in the little hut seen at right in the photo above, being bored. Every time I pass them I think it must be the world's most boring job. (I've never seen them reading or the like.) This was the first time I'd actually seen them performing their task.

We were taking an exceedingly-lazy pace, so didn't mind stopping in front of the Kurama-dera Temple (鞍馬寺) for photos....

The road then dives into the mountain almost 800m (2,500 feet) up towards Hanase Pass (花背峠). This would be my second attempt, the first having been in February chronicled in “Attempting a 100km Bikeride in the Mountains of Kyoto, Part 1: Hanase Pass”.

This time I wasn't alone, so was happy to have a photo of me while riding...

I've got my camera slung to my back, and my bike is sporting a new rear bag that holds 2L of sports drink (that I ended up not using), a light windbreaker, my phone and GPS unit, among other little things. The design of the cheap rear bag is pretty bad, though, in how it attaches — just two Velcro straps that can let the bag roll sideways — so I'll have to see what I can rig up to hold it more firmly. But everything adds weight, which I already have more than enough of. 🙁

It's a gut-wrenching never-ending steep road, but I felt better than last time. I didn't need to drop into the easiest gear until 10 minutes in, rather than right away.

I stuck with Manseki (or he held back for me) until I got to the place I stopped for a rest the first time, and because I have no willpower, I stopped for a rest this time as well. But to my surprise, I didn't stop again until the top.

The main part of the climb, from the Kurama Onsen until the pass, has a 492m (1,600 ft) elevation gain over less than 6km of road. The first time it took me 47:44, and this time 43:02. I thought I'd done better than 3½ minutes faster, so I was a bit disappointed. (The best time registered on Strava for the segment is less than half my time, a blistering 20:26 by Ryo Inoue last year.)

Kumiko's leg was giving her trouble, so we decided to abandon the long hilly ride to the cherry tree, and instead return down the mountain a bit and then cut over to the village of Ohara via Route 477. This would entail a short but ridiculously-steep section of road that with Kumiko's iffy leg we ended up walking.

The tiny village of Momoi has no services that I noticed, except a phone.

The out-of-focus farmer is holding a tray of rice seedlings, moving them from his truck to his greenhouse. I thought a nice photo of this scene would make a good introduction to the rice-planting season that starts in a couple of weeks. But when shooting one-handed with little reaction time, I couldn't get the shot. Oh well.

We stopped by the front garden of a tucked-away temple. (To visit the temple would require an hour's hike, I was told, so we opted against that.)...

We then arrived in the village of Ohara, and stopped by a restaurant that Manseki knew, Ohara Riverside Cafe KIRIN...

We swung around and up to behind the Sanzen'in Temple...

I timed the photo to include the gate, knowing that it had been on my blog before.

We continued back into the mountain, past the end of the road...

According to Strava, my ride was about 60km (37 miles) over a lazy seven hours. Strava's numbers for distance (and hence speed) and moving time are pretty suspect; I've done my own tracklog analysis and I believe that they simply calculate incorrectly. But until I create my own web service and make it available for free, perhaps I shouldn't complain.