This post is a longer version of Friday's “Checking On the Carpet of Yellow at the Ochiba Shrine”, in which I posted two quick photos from a ride that day to check out the colors at the Iwato Ochiba Shrine (岩戸落葉神社) in the mountains northwest of Kyoto. I started writing this followup post the next day, but have been so busy since I'm only finishing it today.

I normally like long rides, I guess to amortize the once-per-ride overhead of dealing with everything (the before and after of clothes, bike, electronics, data, and self), but I didn't get started until after noon, so I just thought to pop up to see how the Ochiba Shrine was doing fall-foliage wise.

Along the way up the first climb into the mountains, where there's little traffic, I was surprised to find Manseki coming the other way. He had just visited the same shrine with his wife.

I then continued on toward the shrine, and went a bit past to check out a little garden I know to be nearby...

This last one isn't quite as good as this comparable shot from last year that I posted a few months ago.

The point is the yellow in the center background. It's washed out in the sunlight in this photo, and I guess the scale is hard to grasp, but the yellow ginkgo trees are towering. They're from where the “Fallen-Leaf Shrine” gets its name.

I noticed for the first time that the green hedge next to the shrine was partially yellow, right below where some of the ginkgo branches had dipped down to touch it. It's as if the yellow was contagious to the shrub:

It turns out that the yellow section of hedge is actually a different kind of plant (the leaves look like some kind of mini maple to me, but I dunno whether such a thing even exists)...

Anyway, I thought it was interesting.

I took the opportunity to ride a dead-end road that starts near the shrine, diving up into the mountain to a small village, but otherwise leading nowhere.

It was a pleasant ride on a wonderful day, and I stopped often for photos.

I also tried a few little offshoots that were likely forestry or dam-construction roads.

After exploring all the nooks and crannies the dead-end road beyond the shrine had to offer, I headed home via the Takao area of Kyoto, which has some very nice temples, the most famous of which is Jingoji, which appeared on my blog here, and Kosanji (often incorrectly referred to as “Kozanji”), which appeared here. Anyway, even the drive through on National Route 162 is pretty, and that's all I saw this time through...

Finally I did the a little side climb to a hilltop cemetery. It's short — just half a mile (600m) — but it averages 15% and the final 110m is 23~25%.

On the way home I stopped by a hotel where a friend had a photo exhibition opening...

I felt a bit odd showing up in cycling gear, but it was fine and so where the photos.

In the end my “short little ride” turned out to be 77km (48mi), which isn't short, but not quite up to recent par. The median of the last 30 days I've ridden (more than 25km) is 101km.