Today we did a simple little “Hanase Support” ride, where a few of us with experience making the climb to Hanase Pass helped out those who have never done it. Lianca and Stephanie made the climb for the first time, being encouraged by Manseki, Antti, and me.

The southern climb to Hanase Pass is Kyoto's premier climb, averaging 8.6% for 5.8 km (3.6 miles) of unrelenting grade. Through sheer ignorance I happened to choose it for my first-ever real bike outing, in the snow and ice of early February last year, when it took 48 minutes to finish. I've climbed it 27 times since, with my best now 28:59, done a month ago.

(Antti has done the climb 33 times, including 18 times one day last August when he Everested it!)

On today's trip, Antti accompanied Stephanie, and I rode with Lianca...

Stephanie is a former world-class triathlete, but is not used to big climbs nor descents, and would prefer to do neither. Nevertheless, she tackled both today, doing the climb up in 37:29 (11th overall for women). She really doesn't care for descents, so took her time and descended at about the same speed I climb. 🙂

But it's a pretty descent, so nice to take slow, I guess.

It was chilly (2C/36F) at the pass, so after descending we stopped for hot coffee and to defrost our toes. Then on the way to our next destination we stopped by the entrance to the Joshokoji Temple (常照皇寺)...

The temple is nice to visit, and has appeared on my blog many times, including this part of a ride report, and a post about its entrance path. We'll have to repeat this ride during the spring cherry-blossom season.

(I visited the temple the other day by car with my nice camera, but I've yet to look at the photos.)

Then we made our way to the Ochiba “Fallen Leaf” Shrine, which was not yet peak when I visited five days ago. Today it had a full carpet...

We stopped by the ever-wonderful middle-of-the-mountains restaurant that first appeared on my blog six years ago in Kyoto Mountain Restaurant “Yama no Ie Hasegawa” (meaning “Mountain House Hasegawa”, where “Hasegawa” is a family name), and many times since, as the “nearby photos” link under the photo will attest to.

For me today's ride was 85km (53 mi), so unfortunately it doesn't contribute to my Eddington Number, which currently sits at 56, but it was relaxing and fun. Great day.

Continued here...

This post is a longer version of Friday's “Checking On the Carpet of Yellow at the Ochiba Shrine”, in which I posted two quick photos from a ride that day to check out the colors at the Iwato Ochiba Shrine (岩戸落葉神社) in the mountains northwest of Kyoto. I started writing this followup post the next day, but have been so busy since I'm only finishing it today.

I normally like long rides, I guess to amortize the once-per-ride overhead of dealing with everything (the before and after of clothes, bike, electronics, data, and self), but I didn't get started until after noon, so I just thought to pop up to see how the Ochiba Shrine was doing fall-foliage wise.

Along the way up the first climb into the mountains, where there's little traffic, I was surprised to find Manseki coming the other way. He had just visited the same shrine with his wife.

I then continued on toward the shrine, and went a bit past to check out a little garden I know to be nearby...

This last one isn't quite as good as this comparable shot from last year that I posted a few months ago.

The point is the yellow in the center background. It's washed out in the sunlight in this photo, and I guess the scale is hard to grasp, but the yellow ginkgo trees are towering. They're from where the “Fallen-Leaf Shrine” gets its name.

I noticed for the first time that the green hedge next to the shrine was partially yellow, right below where some of the ginkgo branches had dipped down to touch it. It's as if the yellow was contagious to the shrub:

It turns out that the yellow section of hedge is actually a different kind of plant (the leaves look like some kind of mini maple to me, but I dunno whether such a thing even exists)...

Anyway, I thought it was interesting.

I took the opportunity to ride a dead-end road that starts near the shrine, diving up into the mountain to a small village, but otherwise leading nowhere.

It was a pleasant ride on a wonderful day, and I stopped often for photos.

I also tried a few little offshoots that were likely forestry or dam-construction roads.

After exploring all the nooks and crannies the dead-end road beyond the shrine had to offer, I headed home via the Takao area of Kyoto, which has some very nice temples, the most famous of which is Jingoji, which appeared on my blog here, and Kosanji (often incorrectly referred to as “Kozanji”), which appeared here. Anyway, even the drive through on National Route 162 is pretty, and that's all I saw this time through...

Finally I did the a little side climb to a hilltop cemetery. It's short — just half a mile (600m) — but it averages 15% and the final 110m is 23~25%.

On the way home I stopped by a hotel where a friend had a photo exhibition opening...

I felt a bit odd showing up in cycling gear, but it was fine and so where the photos.

In the end my “short little ride” turned out to be 77km (48mi), which isn't short, but not quite up to recent par. The median of the last 30 days I've ridden (more than 25km) is 101km.

I took a short ride out to check out the status of Ochiba Shrine. It's still a few days... maybe three, maybe five... from peak. It seems early this year. When I first posted about it five years ago, it was from a Dec 2 visit.

Yet, the next year I visited on Nov 14, and it was about the same as it was today (Nov 18). Maybe it takes time, because the same year I posted one of my first wigglegrams from the shrine, with full-carpet photos taken on Nov 25.

Even more surprising to me is that last year, photos from Nov 10 (on an article posted Nov 26; don't be fooled by the article date) show a pretty full carpet. So I don't really know what's “normal” for this shrine. They do have a special evening light-up event tomorrow (Nov 19), so perhaps that indicates the traditional peak?

Anyway, I'll certainly have to check in again next week.

I returned through the Takao area of north-west Kyoto, which hosts two famous temples (the Kosanji Temple / 高山寺, and the Jingoji Temple / 神護寺), visited in prior posts such as this, this and this, among others.

It was too late to visit them on this trip, and I probably wouldn't with th bike anyway (I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving the bicycle as I ventured in), but I did snap a photo from the road:

It turns out that it's of a temple that I didn't realize was separate from the others, called the Saimyoji Temple. I'll have to check it out some day.

To be continued...

Today is the nine-year anniversary of my plugins for Adobe Lightroom. It was on November 16, 2007 that I released my first ones, export plugins for Zenfolio and for SmugMug.

Now, nine years later, after many having been added and a few having been retired, I have about 45 plugins available.

Today I released a few minor updates, including a new “Publish At...” feature of my Bag-o-Goodies plugin. It lets you schedule a publish operation for later in the evening.

I lost track of the count of updates I made prior to Lightroom 2, but since then, considering only the plugins currently available, I've made 4,189 updates (counting today's).