So, I made a third cycle ride in a row up to Onyu Pass the other day. The first trip on a Monday was a lazy social ride of 149km (93mi). Later that week I did a faster solo ride that topped out at 165km (103mi).

This third trip the Monday following the first ended up being 206km (128mi).

I had three goals for the ride. The first was to improve my time on the 58km (36mi) mountainous stretch from the Ichihara area of Kyoto to the top of Onyu Pass. This involves a mile of elevation gain (more precisely, 1,605m or 5,266') including the major climbs up Hanase Pass, Nomi Pass, and of course the final Onyu Pass.

It's not an uncommon route, I think, but the segment at Strava shows only 22 matching attempts. I guess one needs a high-quality GPS unit and some luck for the full 58km of mountains to actually match the segment track.

Moreover, the entire segment of three major climbs is not something one would normally try to do in one shot, but rather pause along the way between the major climbs.

I mention all this to explain why I had the KOM (the “King of the Mountain”... the fastest registered time) going into this. My time of three hours 17 minutes wasn't all that fast and included 16 minutes spent fixing a flat. Still, when I did it was better than #2 by more than half an hour.

Fast forward to this past Monday when I started this ride, someone had moved to within just four minutes of my KOM time. Barring another flat tire I knew I'd pull farther ahead, so I gave it a good go....

I thought I might PR (make a new personal record) on the first and biggest climb to Hanase Pass, but I actually missed it by a whopping 10%. I didn't make PRs on any of the climbs, but did well on the connecting segments and didn't make any rest stops (or any stops at all... the wheels on the bike never stopped turning for the entire segment). I finished in just under two hours 41 minutes, improving my previous time by 37 minutes.

Any number of my friends could beat this if they made any effort to do so, but at least now it's less of a low-hanging fruit.

Anyway, I retraced my steps back down from Onyu Pass for a while to where I could take the photo that leads this post. Last year on my blog I included a summer view from the same vantage point.

Goal #2 for the ride was to explore the northern descent from Onyu Pass. I'd climbed from the south seven times, but had always returned back down the south toward Kyoto. This time I wanted to head north, toward Obama and the sea.

The road turns to gravel at the pass, and I worried about trying such a steep descent on gravel with 25mm road-bike tires, but lately had been hearing that it was doable, so I gave it a shot.

I was surprised to find that though the descent starts with gravel, there are many paved sections, so it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.

It also appeared to suffer a lot of guardrail-crushing avalanches.

Since I had done the dash from Kyoto to Onyu Pass without stopping, I had only the one bottle of water with me, which I finished off while resting at the top. Lacking stores and vending machines in the middle of nowhere, I kept an eye out for a road-side stream I could fill up at, and finally found one 20 minutes into the descent (4½ hours into the ride).

I had scoped out the satellite photos for offshoot roads, but all were either gravel, or just sort of became nothing like this one.

Eventually I emerged from the mountains into the farms surrounding the city of Obama, and quickly made my way to the standard “I made it to Obama” photo spot...

This was my fourth time to ride to/through Obama from Kyoto. The first time was last July. The second time was this July. The third time was early last month, and this fourth time was last Monday.

On the way home I decided to take the road that goes over Gonami Pass, a road I took on the way to Obama on my first two trips there, but I'd not yet taken the opposite direction. I took my sweet time on it, stopping for photos and such, and generally just going slowly.

This is normally a spot to pause to rest and take photos (like this and this), but having spent a lazy hour making the climb to the top, I decided to not waste time and zip down. Got the KOM for the descent.

From there perhaps the most direct way home would have been over Sasari and Hanase Passes, but having recently climbed Sasari Pass thrice in one ride, and having recently climbed and descended Hanase Pass in the dark on two recent longer-than-expected rides (this and this), I decided to take the only other route available, through Miyama.

Another reason I didn't want to go the other direction is that it would have meant the last 20km or so would have been the same as the first 20km, resulting in the track on the map looking like this. (That's Neil Holt's ride two days before mine, resparking the idea to try the northern descent from Onyu, and giving me the idea to return via Gonami.) It's stupid to care what the track looks like on the map, but I prefer big loops instead of lollipop-shaped “loop on a stick” tracks.

Anyway, two hours later I'm descending into Kyoto from Kyomi Pass, and am surprised to see the lights of the city flickering behind a thin veil of trees for almost the entire descent. During the day, one can see the city only through one or two brief breaks in the trees.

By the time I'd rolled into the city I had about 200km (125mi) under my belt, and my legs were sore, so I stopped by Ken-chan's clinic for a wonderful (and wonderfully-painful) massage. It did wonders. While there, I developed a craving for chicken karaage, so headed off to a great hole-in-the-wall place I had been to years ago, after this wine-tasting event.

My legs felt great, but sadly, the restaurant had closed in the intervening years, so I returned to a place closer to home and ate two full portions. It was totally delicious.

My legs were killing me the next day.

So, that was three trips to Onyu Pass in a week. It looks like some friends are going next Monday, so I'll probably ride along with them.