The first time I rode a bicycle from Kyoto to Osaka, a year and a half ago ("Cycling Along the River from Kyoto To Osaka Castle"), the 55-kilometer (34-mile) route we were lead on followed roads and paths that traced the eastern bank of the Katsura River and then the southern bank of the Yodo River. For the most part it's a fine route, on nice paths closed to motor vehicles.

The initial paths out of Kyoto are the least developed part of the trip, so I came up with a less muddy, less bumpy exit from Kyoto, but otherwise [...]

今回の写真は二年前の大雪の時の写真です。

Kyoto recently had a fairly big snow, but I didn't get out for photos, so I thought I'd post some additional photos from a pair of big-snow days that Kyoto had two years ago. First there was "Kyoto’s Biggest Snow in 58 Years" and its followup, about the big snow that started on New Year's day (2015). Then, two days later, there was an even bigger snow that garnered "Kyoto At Night During a Heavy Snow" posted in three parts (parts one, two, and three).

I had a long and interesting bicycle ride down to Osaka last weekend that I've been wanting to write about, and I thought I might finally get around to it yesterday, but I went on a ride instead. Today, I'll just share some pictures from yesterday's shorter (76km/48mi) ride (view at Strava).

First I visited a bump of a hill covered in bamboo and bamboo farming, with quaint roads running here and there through it.

I didn't know what to expect when I got to the bamboo-grove hill ("mountain" is too much for this), but the road I happen to [...]

So 2016 is over, making it my first full year of cycling, having been bitten by the cycling bug in the spring of 2015. Like last year's summary of my 2015 cycling, this post looks back on my 2016 cycling with my geeky-data eyes.

I titled the post with the word "Reflections" so that I can sprinkle these kinds of photos throughout:

So, in 2016 my cycling year was eight months long, and during those eight months, I rode to some extent or another on 102 days, totaling 8,459km (5,256mi). On average that's about 83km (52mi) each time, twice a [...]

After long rides on Wednesday and Thursday, and a very hard workout at the gym on Friday, my legs have been extremely sore, so today I went on an easy "recovery ride" in the city, just to get my muscles moving a bit.

It was nice... I go the "KOM" (best registered time) on the highly-sought-after "Jolly Hat" segment.

Doing an image search for "Strava art" yields many impressive results. Some are sort of "fake", like this famous "cyclist" drawing and this famous "bear" drawing, but many are real and amazing. (I put "fake" in quotes because they are indeed [...]