I took a long bicycle ride into the mountains north of Kyoto on Saturday. It was my first long outing since recovering from what I thought was a mild but persistent cold, but turned out to be a respiratory-tract infection. Once I got antibiotics, I felt better almost right away.

Since I was mostly out of commission for three weeks, I knew I was out of shape and wouldn't be particularly fast, but at the same time, I was on my new bike, which seems to let me go faster for the same effort, so in the end I didn't know which competing effect would win.

To start my ride, I joined Andy Clark on a trip up to Hanase Pass, 710m higher than where I live, and the first big climb I ever did, so it has a special place in my heart. It was my first to try it with the new bike, so I hoped I could shatter my old record, but I could feel right away that I just didn't have the energy. Three weeks being sick had just made me too soft.

And it's just as well that I wasn't on track for a killer time, because I stopped to assist a pair of boys — maybe 10 or 11 years old — that I came upon on the deserted mountain road looking at a big map book of Japan, wondering where they were. Wanting to go to Hanase Pass, they were on the correct road, but didn't know how far along they were. I helped them with directions and info on where to get beverages. According to my tracklog, I spent 1:54 with them.

A young, fast Japanese cyclist had passed me not long before I came across the boys... I wonder why he didn't stop to help them. Even if they were not standing looking at a map, I'd at least touch base with kids so young in such a place.

Anyway, Andy and I made our slow way up to the pass and all the way down the other side. Andy didn't have time for a longer ride, so we parted ways and he retraced his steps.

I was dead tired, but from being out of shape and not from the cold, so I wanted to continue along, slowly, to see where the day would take me.

It first took me north to Nomi Pass, where I met a construction worker at the top. He told me to take care with my descent, because there would be some big construction equipment moving up. He wasn't kidding.

Emerging from the mountains to the edge of a small village, you're greeted with a quintessential old farmhouse that just naturally begs to be photographed:

The same house covered in snow was seen in this photo from my first big ride in February, and in the spring when recreating that first ride three months later.

The front of the house looks like a field of weeds...

... so it's hard to believe it's the same house that was fronted with a lovely sea of flowers when I went by two months ago.

Normally the roof is finished and painted, like this one.

On the long and pleasant Route 783 up to the start of Onyu Pass, there's a turnoff that I'd been wanting to check out....

When peeking in, it dives up the mountain in an inviting way:

The road is not marked on Google Maps (and it's on OpenStreetMap.org only because I added it), but looked inviting on Google Earth. But with the aforementioned dead tiredness, I paused for a while and took a nap, using a log by the side of the road as a pillow...

After about half an hour, I took off up the unknown road. It turns out to be about 1.4km (0.9mi) long, rising at an average grade of 10.6%, ending unceremoniously into the face of the mountain:

To be clear, this is not a road that had been sealed off by a rockfall... the road construction just stopped here.

Also, unlike the Bridge to Nowhere that I posted about nine years ago, it doesn't appear that this is an ongoing project that I just happen to have caught in this useless state.

The road does not appear to have any reason to exist... there's no dam or cell tower it's allowing access to, and it's not supporting forestry or farming or anything else I could see. It's just a beautiful road painstakingly cut into a very steep mountain, never to be used. I can only imagine what the construction workers thought as they painted the highly-reflective white lines right up to the blunt rockface.

The best I can guess is that the road was intended to be continued over the mountain to join up with where Route 783 has looped back down, cutting off a 14km-segment of Route 783 for those just wanting to move east. If that's the case, the project seems to have been abandoned.

Anyway, it makes for a nice 150m climb. The road surface is nice for all but a short section where it's become warped and buckled, though it's littered with rocks here and there. On the climb I'd concentrated on just not giving up, but for the ride down I pulled out the camera.

I ended up making a segment for the climb on Strava. Unsurprisingly, I'm the only one who's done this section of road before....

Back on the country lane heading north, this is a typical scene when coming across the occasional house:

I had the pleasure to chat with Neil Holt, whom I came across as he rode south...

Coincidentally, I was with Neil the last time I'd been on this road. It was nice to have a little chat. He told me about a back road that I would end up taking later on my ride.

After our chat, I continued north, plodding up to the 839m elevation of Onyu Pass, where someone who had arrived by car kindly took my photo for me...

The view to the south, where I'd come from, leads this post.

The two other times I'd made the climb up here, I paused often while descending to take photos, but this time I just went directly down at a pretty fast clip. It was fun.

I thought that there was no commerce for many miles, so I was surprised to find a cafe in the middle of nowhere. It turns out that they're open only on weekends and holidays, from 9am to 3pm...

They didn't have any food, just coffee, but the proprietor took pity on my hunger and gave me a bunch of chocolate and cookies...

Feeling a bit refreshed, and filling my water bottles at an outside fountain near the cafe, I headed east toward Route 367, about 20 kilometers away. It was my first time to head that way, previously always returning due south the way I'd come. I didn't know what to expect, but hoped it'd be faster and less hilly than the route I knew. I was really tired and daylight was limited.

I eventually came to a turnoff that Neil had told me about. Two days prior he'd seen that a friend had “discovered” an old back road that Neil had not known about. It sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a try.

Both roads have feeble “road closed” signs. The one to the right was not on my map, so I took the one to the left. Looking later on Google Earth, the one to the right appears to be similar to the road-to-nowhere one I rode earlier in the day. I'll have to check it out next time I'm in the area.

The road ended up being a pretty standard deep-country mountain road, mostly clear but with sections of moss and muck that would make it really unappealing for bicycles when wet.

The western approach that I took ended up being 3.4km with an average grade of 7%. Not too challenging. I made a segment for it on Strava, and I'm the only one to have ridden it so far. The friend who had ridden two days prior had come from the other direction, and so far he's the only one to have ridden that segment. I guess the road is not very popular compared to its alternative. I've never taken the alternative so I can't compare, but on a dry day this traffic-less road seems nice.

A trail-running path cuts across the pass, reminding me that I'm a wimp to use wheels...

For my part, hours away from home with not that much daylight left, I headed down.

I went much faster than I should have, often hitting rocks that I didn't see among the leaves. I was sort of surprised that I didn't get a puncture, until I got a puncture.

It was my first time to change a tire when it wasn't pouring rain with the wheel covered in grime. It was lovely, and when I was done my hands were still clean.

Now on the substantially-larger Route 367, I had a straight-forward ride home. I was tired and drained and just wanted to be home, but I stopped at the first cafe I came to just to get some calories. I'd brought plenty, but had long since eaten it all.

I was really in a rush, so consulted with them on what would be the fastest to prepare, and ordered a “mixed sandwich”. But then I noticed cake behind the counter, and ordered that as well, knowing it'd be fast. Here's how it arrived:

It came garnished with a grape, which I popped into my mouth the moment I put the camera down. It was the most delicious food ever created by man or nature. Two bites later, the cake was gone.

After this I headed straight home on Route 367. As I discussed in a recent post, Route 367 has a bunch of tunnels that are safer to avoid, but at this point I valued speed pretty highly... I just wanted to be home. I have a very bright tail light, so I don't actually feel the tunnels are all that dangerous, so I took them all.

The closed and broken road that one tunnel bypasses, that I wrote about the other day, would have been much easier today because the water level was down. I had a nice view of it from the bridge between tunnels.

Much of the long trip home is uphill, but it's worth it for the fast downhill sections, which I love. On one section (discussed here) my on-bike speed indicator said that I reached 78kph (48mph), so that was a new record for me. I've got to thank Andy Clark for that... on the descent together from Hanase that morning, he offered comments on some of my un-aerodynamic ways he'd noticed. Using his advice, I was able to break 70kph on four different sections of road on the way home.

So, that was that. By the time I got home, I was the most tired I'd been after a bike ride since returning home after my first big ride in February.

I uploaded my data to Strava, and immediately saw which of the competing factors (out-of-shape slowness vs. new bike speed) was most impactful. All the yellow marks at the left edge told me that the bike is really fast, even if I'm slow:

The yellow icons shaped like crowns mean that I'm the fastest male to have done the segment, but in these cases it's because I'm the only male to have done the segment, so they don't mean anything. But the other icons, with “PR” (Personal Record) in them, mean that I did it faster this time than any time before. The two near the top that have no mark are when I had stopped along the way. I was tired the whole time, and felt very slow, so these results just show how correct everyone was who said a new bike would be fast.

On my personal benchmark hill climb, the climb to Hanase Pass, despite having stopped to help the kids for a couple of minutes, I still beat my personal best by more than two minutes. I wouldn't have broken 30 minutes even if I hadn't stopped, but I think that'll be my personal goal for the near term. According to Strava, folks have done it in 20 minutes, which is just unfathomable to me.

So that was my Saturday. Now it's Tuesday and I'm mostly recovered, I hope. Gotta' get back into form....