It's the rainy season in Japan, which means that when it's not hot and humid, it's hot and humid and wet. Earlier in the week Gorm and I had a wet ride in the mountains north of Kyoto that turned into a bit of an adventure.

We started off by cycling up to Hanase Pass, which is a litmus test of a climb that always strikes fear into my heart. It was my 21st time up, the first having been my crazy first ride a year ago February.

For Gorm, who is just visiting from Norway, it was his [...]

I recently did a 260km (160 mile) bike ride from my home in Kyoto over to the city of Nagoya, and back (view at Strava). It took all day.

この間のサイクリングは京都から名古屋までの往復しました、距離は260キロでした。長い一日でした。

A line of mountains separates the two areas, so I had to go over them each way, but other than that bit of mountain riding, the rest of the ride -- the majority of the whole ride -- was just slogging through city or suburbia that might have provided interesting diversions if I had the time to stop and enjoy them, but as a "point A to point B" ride, [...]

I went out on a leisurely photo-expedition drive the other day with Paul Barr and Anastasiya Bulkavets, whom Paul and I met a couple of years ago in a story I've been meaning to tell, during this outing when she happen to recognize Damien and his red hat from having seen them on my blog. We all occasionally get together since.

I've lived in this area for more than a decade and have driven in the mountains many times over the years, but until I started cycling through them last year, I didn't really have a sense for locations and [...]

Smiling Norwegian Gorm has returned to Kyoto for a month-long visit after a year's absence, and a few of us whole-heartily welcomed him with a short ("half-hearted" one could say) ride.

Manseki couldn't join us for the ride, but he saw us off and we'd return to join him for coffee later.

Our plan was to do a clockwise Kyoto Heart Loop, which starts out on a route that I first did a year ago, that time Gorm having lead the way.

This time we all knew the route. We took it easy, as Gorm was still suffering jetlag, Kumiko [...]

この間、金光万石さんと一緒に六甲山を登りました、神戸空港から924mの山頂まで。 乗ったルートは距離は長かったので、坂はだいあいマイルドでした。楽しかった。 (ポートアイランドと神戸空港のサイクリングはつまらなかったけれども。) 一番キツイ道は16号線から山頂までの300mの丸形滑り止め道。15%の凸凹坂ですが、行って良かった。山頂からの景色は本当に良かったです。

On Thursday I made my biggest single bicycle climb so far, at least mathematically, by riding from sea level in Kobe Japan, to 924m (3,030') near the summit of Mt. Rokko some 25km (16mi) distant.

Despite its mathematical ranking, the route I took was apparently the easiest route, and wasn't at all challenging. It was just fun. Overall, the day saw 78km (48mi) with 1,800m (6,000') of vertical climb. (Activity at Strava)

But the fun belies how totally stressed and apprehensive I was in the week leading up to it. Mt. Rokko is hundreds of meters [...]