Now that I'm out of action for a while, I'll try to make some headway in my blogging. This post is sort of a followup to last month's "Lovely Bicycle Ride Revisiting Uji Countryside Photographed Five Years Ago", because I returned to the area on my next ride to continue exploring.

The ride ended up being lovely, appearing on Strava as "Uji #3 - Wet & Slimy Satisfaction 宇治市の満足":

I hit as many mountain climbs as I could fit in, so the ride ended up with over 3000m (10,000') of climb, but I was just enjoying to explore, so taking [...]

I guess this gets chalked up in the "it sucks getting old" column. Last night while playing some light "livingroom soccer" with Anthony, during a minor little sideways move I heard a loud pop and sensed what felt like a slap to my left calf. Then pain.

息子と一緒に室内サッカーを遊ぶ途中にふくらはぎが肉離れを起こしました。あんまり激し運動の時ではないので、一寸不思議。年齢の事かな？嫌です。 しばらく自転車無し。

It seems that the soleus ripped. It's a big muscle in the calf next to the bone, under the bigger muscle that gives the calf its shape. It's sort of useful for tangential physical activities like "standing", "walking", and "bicycle riding".

The sound was eerily light and airy, just like the [...]

I've recently started futzing with video on my bike rides, having posted a few on "Lovely Bicycle Ride Revisiting Uji Countryside Photographed Five Years Ago" the other day, including this fast descent down some twisty mountains and into the flats.

I had some trouble getting Garmin software (VIRB Edit, Garmin BaseCamp, and Garmin Connect) to work with my GPX files, or as Garmin has lately taken to re-brand in their own silly name, "G-Metrix" data files.

When trying to import GPX files, I'd get a terse, frustrating "Failed to read file" or "... is not a valid GPX file and [...]

I spent the most wonderful day on Friday cycling around the mountains beyond Uji City, near Kyoto.

I had gone to the area earlier in the week for what I called a "Kasatori Festival", doing the climb up Mt. Kasatori from all four directions. It's a tiny mountain that I visited on one of my first bike rides, at that time finishing just one of the short climbs utterly spent.

I'm in better shape now, though the ridiculously-steep Eastern approach climb killed me.

While futzing around with the ride data afterwards, I realized that this was the area I visited [...]

I'm back in Kyoto, after spending the better part of a month with my folks in Ohio. Mom continues to recover from her February stroke. I snapped a few photos out the window as we crossed The States on the Cleveland → San Francisco flight.

An hour later crusing along well above the clouds, I noticed another plane keeping pace with us in the far distance (just a tiny speck, dead center in this next photo).

Not quite the closeup view from eight years ago. 🙂

I arrived back home in Kyoto last Wednesday evening, and slept well the first [...]