We had a nice social group ride to Onyu Pass, 75km (47 mi) of mountain roads north of Kyoto. The entire trip was about 150km (93 mi).

The first three hours would be just moving north, and would cover most of the length of National Route 367, thereby mostly mimicking the start of my recent "Stupid Cycling Tricks" ride.

I've cycled these hairpins eight times so far, but had never stopped for the view. Today was a relaxing ride, so I indulged. The big tower in the center is the subject of "Kyoto’s “I Fall” Tower" almost eight years ago.

Congratulations to Tetsuo Azuma for his restaurant acá1° having been awarded a Michelin star, the only Spanish restaurant in Kyoto to have earned the honor. For comparison, Osaka, which has double the population, has none. Tokyo, which has about 10 times the population, has three.

After working and apprenticing in Japan, New York, and Spain, he opened his own restaurant in November 2013. I was his first customer.

We've seen Tetsuo on my blog before, a year before opening his restaurant, in "Father/Son Photo Shoot: Tetsuo and Issei".

The thin-sliced ham calls to mind the tasty Spanish ham and beer [...]

(Only iPhone photos today, sorry)

The other day I went for a ride with Ionut and his friend Suzuki-san (view on Strava). We started with the two-part climb up to th Ushio Kannon Temple in the Yamashina area of Kyoto.

The first part is 2.1 km (1.3 miles) at 8%, which isn't so bad unless the road is wet, in which case it's suicide. In the most-steep areas entire width of the road is inexplicably painted red (perhaps to warn you to the steepness?) but the paint makes for a ridiculously slippery surface when wet.

Here's a photo from a [...]

A couple of weeks ago we had a nice social ride out to Miyama Japan. It was my third and most-relaxing visit, after the initial shock of a tough ride a year ago that was my longest ride at the time, and again via a mountains route not long after with Gorm.

This time we took a less-mountains route to get there, though for some it would be their longest ride by a factor of two.

It's while inspecting our route on the map for this ride that I came up with the silly idea of riding the entire length [...]

After a wonderful ride with friends beyond Kyoto's Mt. Atago the other day, I returned the next day for 110km (68mi) of solo exploration in the same general area.

Early on in the ride I passed through Arashiyama in western Kyoto, with its famous bridge. We've seen it before on my blog in rain and in sun and crowned by a rainbow. Today was fairly bland, but a big bird was doing a batman pose, so that was something.

There's a path along the river southwest of the bridge that leads up to a temple with a great view that [...]