Paul Barr, in town this week, and I made a visit yesterday to the Tenjuan Temple (天授庵) within the Nanzen Temple complex. It was my second visit inside, my first visit here having been three years ago. Earlier this year, though, I did feature the main gate of this shrine covered in snow.

Anyway, the fall colors this year in Kyoto seem a bit subdued, but it wasn't crowded yesterday and overall was really pleasant. We ended up sitting and enjoying more than taking photos.

友達ポールさんは来日して、一緒に天授庵行って、もみじを撮影しました。今年は色は薄い方ですが、雰囲気はなかなか良かった。よく落ち着いて、リラックス出来ました。

With the dark shadows under the overhang, and bright sunlight in the background, the [...]

This xkcd comic came out today with perfect timing:

Last month I was contacted by GearBest and asked whether I'd like to do a review of a product from their cycling gear or LED lights categories; I'd get to keep the product in exchange for an unbiased review. Probably they'd seen my headphone review done under similar circumstances. I get this kind of message every so often and don't usually accept, but a bicycle light piqued my interest.

I chose to try out a small, $50 head-mounted light that I thought might be useful for nighttime riding:

The flashlight easily [...]

I had a nice ride the other day with Andy Clark and Michael Edwards.

While meeting up in the morning, Nigel Randell happened to stop by on his way to work...

And we were approached by an American tourist passing by who saw our nice bikes and just wanted to say "hi"...

It turns out that he works for Strava, the running/riding community site where your activities can be mapped and compared to your prior efforts and to others. In the nine months since I started cycling, I've been absolutely shocked at how motivating Strava has been for me; upon [...]

Only a month and a half late, I'm finally getting around to posting about Stage Two of Bridget and Sarah's Tour de Kyoto. These two visitors from Australia were introduced in Bridget and Sarah’s Tour-de-Kyoto, Part 1 and Part 2.

The morning had revealed that Sarah's tire did not survive the previous day's puncture-festival, but Manseki kindly loaned her a wheel, so she could ride for the day.

These pictures at the entrance to the Kurama Temple were on our way to the first big climb of the day, Kyoto's big "Hanase Pass", which rises 500m over 5.8km for an [...]

I took a long bicycle ride into the mountains north of Kyoto on Saturday. It was my first long outing since recovering from what I thought was a mild but persistent cold, but turned out to be a respiratory-tract infection. Once I got antibiotics, I felt better almost right away.

Since I was mostly out of commission for three weeks, I knew I was out of shape and wouldn't be particularly fast, but at the same time, I was on my new bike, which seems to let me go faster for the same effort, so in the end I didn't [...]