今年の一月（八ヶ月前）、万石さんと万石さんの知り合い樋口さんとサイクリングをしました。 やっと記事をアップします。遠いの山田舎の息障寺まで行きました。

I'm finally getting around to post about a great day of cycling last January (8 months ago), with Manseki and an acquaintance of his, Higuchi-san, to a far-flung temple I knew of in the middle of nowhere.

We met up in front of the Ishiyama Temple in Otsu.

It's a lovely, photogenic temple that I first visited four years ago, and now ride by fairly often.

It's perhaps difficult to see in the photo above, but just flanking either side of the entrance are huge bamboo New Year displays, the one on the right in the process of being dismantled. The main part of each display are three thick sections of bamboo, cut at a sharp angle...

The mascot was there to meet a bus load of tourists who pulled up soon after this shot.

This front gate is next to the cafe we stopped by on one of my first long cycle rides the previous year. The owner is an avid cyclist, and through the owner, one of the waitresses got into cycling and today was our riding partner:

I've come across Higuchi-san in the mountains while cycling a couple of times, the first time noted here. This would be my first ride with her.

The pause above was 45km into the ride, just before the first big climb, the lovely but unpopular (because it's so far from populated areas, I suppose) Iwaosan Western Climb.

It was cold enough in the mountains for ice to form on the roads, so any patch that looked wet was suspect. Occasionally the ice was obvious, where it formed on large puddles and broke as we rode through...

From the “main” road (if it can be called that), the temple is a further 820m @ 9.2%.

Few folks have done this by bicycle; Mrs. Higuchi and I got the QOM/KOM.

This is the temple that appeared on my blog five years previous (has it been that long?!), in “Short Family Visit to the Middle-of-Nowhere Sokushouji Temple”, whose opening shot is taken from this parking log.

There's much to explore at this small temple, and one climb a huge flight of stairs to a wonderful viewpoint, but on this trip we just looked around at the base.

We thought we'd try to take some “action” shots on the way down, but I'm still pretty bad at this kind of photography. I had Mrs. Higuchi ride up past me on the steepest hairpin, but you get no sense of the steepness nor the effort in the result....

We also tried some downhill shots. Manseki has a good sense for action shots, having done his share of photo shoots as a professional skier.

I tried to mimic his technique.

We came across a road that looked quite inviting on the satellite view, but it turns out to be a private road up to an equestrian farm. (Manseki is apparently an accomplished rider, and knew of the property, but had never been there.)

We also came across a cafe that he had been to before, one in the middle of nowhere that routinely has hours-long lines form to get in, apparently. Luckily, we happened across it when almost no one was there.

All in all, it was a great time. I'd like to try the first half of the route again when it's warmer. Maybe I'll put that at the top of my list once my injured calf heals.