Considering that my last blog post was more than five months ago, I guess it's safe to say that for the most part I'm taking a break from blogging. But having recently came across photos from a last-year outing to temples in Shiga, Japan, I thought I'd post a few.

I haven't done a whole lot of riding since last fall, and in particular over the last month or so have been beset on and off by a persistent throat infection, so I probably bit off more than I could chew with a 300km ride with Gorm, but while he's in town I want to take the opportunity for such epic adventures.

The ostensible goal of the ride was to visit a mountain area of Gifu Prefecture known as “Machu Picchu of Gifu”, due to a view of it that calls to mind the famous Machu Picchu of Peru.

(I can't remember “Machu Picchu”, so it's somehow morphed to “Pikachu” in my head.)

The simplest route would get us there and back in less than 250km (150mi), but we had other plans.

We popped over the mountains to Lake Biwa (the largest lake in Japan, introduced four years ago in “Bicycle Ride Around Japan’s Largest Lake”), and kept a steady pace along the lake for the 60km to the mountains at its north.

This shrine gate was first featured on my blog more than 10 years ago, in “Main Gate of the Shirohige Shrine” and also as the subject of the example photos in “Overexposure and Underexposure, and the Compensation Thereof”. It's a bit special to me now as a cyclist because it was the destination for my first 100+km ride four years ago, as seen here, which Gorm also joined on.

Today, we barely slowed down as we passed, along the way to Gorm's first 300+km ride. (My longest ride is 408km / 254mi double loop around the lake; today's ride would become my second-longest).

In researching areas for the route — research that took much longer than the ride itself — I found what looked to be a lovely climb (4km /2.4mi at 7%) that for some reason had only a handful of registered attempts on Strava. Indeed, it was lovely.

Without trying hard or even knowing how long the climb was, Gorm missed the KOM by just five seconds. We still had a very long day ahead, so it was prudent to pace ourselves, but it makes one want to return to give it an earnest effort.

We descended into yet another fertile valley...

Part of the day's agenda was to visit the Kusaoka Shrine (草岡神社), the shrine owned by the family of a friend. I had been here two weeks earlier to photograph a wedding, so had promised to stop by on my bicycle some time.

After a short visit, we took a detour to Yogo Lake, which looked just lovely in my research. It did not disappoint. A loop around it took about 11 minutes.

We actually went around it twice. The first time, not knowing just how lovely it would be, we gave it somewhatg of an earnest effort, and ended up with the #6-best effort on the loop segment (though bumped down considerably when a group of five guys did a team effort yesterday). We could have gone quite a bit faster if we didn't have another 200km of ride in front of us.

It was so lovely, though, that we decided to do it again for enjoyment and photos.

I'd noticed a restaurant near the end of the loop, so we stopped in there for lunch.

We stopped for almost an hour, which was way way too long, but it was certainly enjoyable.

Now we had a short 25km and a couple of small climbs to get to the start of the big climb of the day...

The main climb of the day was the eastern approach to Kunimi Pass. “Kunimi” (国見) in this case means “Kingdom View”, and indeed we were treated with sweeping views that a photo like this does no justice:

After almost an hour of slow, hot (but visually stunning) slog, we arrived at the top:

This was followed by more than 10 minutes of lovely descent, plummeting down the other side of the mountain.

Just before we were to rejoin civilization at a main road, we were suddenly stopped by an elderdly construction worker blocking the road, saying that the road was closed and that we would have to go back. This was an extremely unappealing proposition for us, as it would me that we would have to make an hour's climb back to the top, retracing our steps for hours in the opposite direction.

Bicycles and pedestrians can often get by road damage that cars can't, so I wanted to investigate the nature of the closure. The old man was adamant, though, that “it had been decided” that no one should pass. I was persistent, and eventually could peek around a curve in the road to see that the road was completely open; it was closed due to a worry that some unstable rocks might fall onto it.

I was willing to take the risk for the one second it would take to pass the area in question, and so told the guy that I was sorry that I'd be making trouble for him, but that I would accept my own responsibility and proceed. He kept saying “but it's been decided!”, but he can't physically stop me as he's not a police officer, so Gorm and I proceeded. Indeed we did not die during the one second it took to pass, and as we passed the guard on the other side, I yelled out farther apologizes.

I feel bad for the guy, just doing his job, but he was given a ridiculous job.

With renewed energy we proceeded toward the steep climb that leads to the “Machu Picchu” view. The initial climb to the village itself is a lovely 1.9km @ 9.2% through tea fields.

I was quite the stylish sight. 🙂 My tonsils seem to be extremely sensitive to temperature and pollution, so I have learned that wearing a mask makes things much better. Without it, I invariably come down with a cold the next day.

I was also wearing long sleeves and leggings (Under Armour Heatgear) so that I didn't have to deal with sun lotion.

Once one reaches the village after the steep climb, it seems that one can hike for 15 minutes to get to the “Machu Picchu” view back down to the village, but in my research I found a small road that looked to curve around from the top, so I thought I might be able to ride to the view. That adds an extra 1.5km at an even steeper 11.1%, until the road turns gravel:

I thought that we might get the nice view by continuing on the gravel for a while, but it didn't work out.... the best we got was to some big valley elsewhere:

At this point we'd done 170km (105mi) over almost 10 hours, and now it was time to head home. There was just one final mountain in the way...

The final climb is more than 12km (7½mi) of gradually-steepening back mountain road. The final kilometer averages 9%.

This road, too, was not without its challenges. Half an hour in, we come across a sudden unannounced road closure:

The soil under parts of the road was washed out, so it certainly wasn't safe for cars, but it was fine for bicycles keeping to one side.

Then I got my first flat tire in more than two years.

I used to get flat tires all the time, but that stopped when I switched to Continental Gatorback tires, and after that switch I went for 11,000 tire kilometers until I got a pinch flat two years ago on this ride. One gets a pinch flat when they don't have enough tire pressure for the conditions, and that's exactly what happened today. I probably should have checked the tire pressure before heading out on a 300km ride. Doh!

I've gone almost 23,000 tire kilometers since the previous flat. Not bad. That's two flats, due to my own stupid fault, in almost 21,000 tire miles. Not bad indeed.

What was bad was my spare tube. I used to always bring two spare tubes, but after 1½ years of no flats, I switched to carrying just a single spare, and it turns out that this single spare had a manufacturing defect. Doh!

Thankfully Gorm had two spares, so I didn't have to resort to patching a broken tube.

My tire pump then broke.

I'd not needed it for years for myself, but had used it plenty in helping others, so I'm not sure why it decided to die now, but had Gorm not been there, I would have been stranded. I used his pump to pump up his tube in my tire.

Now I was paranoid about another pinch flat, as it's difficult to get really high pressure with these small hand pumps. I took it slowly and carefully up, then down the other mostly-bumpy side.

We descended into the historic city of Sekigahara. I'd intended to stop by the site of The Battle of Sekigahara, which 420 years ago set Japan on the path to being a single political unit instead of a collection of warring kingdoms, but instead I stopped by a bike stop to fill my tire properly, and to buy another spare tube.

10km of rolling hills later, we stopped for dinner, but it turns out that we were both slightly nauseous, so we barely ate anything.

Once we left at about 6:30pm, we had about 92km of mostly-flat lakeside road between us and home, so we put the pedal to the metal.

Our average speed during the last few hours, mostly in the dark, was faster than during the first few hours. We wanted to get home.

Unfortunately, I got another flat with about an hour to go. It turns out that the tube I'd gotten from Gorm also had a manufacturing defect, and the rubber had slowly separated from the stem. I switched to the tube I'd bought, and we could finally head home.

I arrived at home at 11pm, 17½ hours after starting. It became my 2nd-longest ride, and the 4th-most amount of climb.

The Rugby World Cup will be held in Japan for the first time later this fall, an event of much pride and excitement for the Japanese rugby enthusiast. One of the biggest such enthusiasts is a friend who as a side job sometimes does play-by-play commentary for national television, but whose main job is as an alcoholic-beverage wholesaler here in Kyoto.

The two spheres of his life combine to create a pair of commemorative saké (Japanese rice wine) products. I and some friends helped him with the English on the label.

Besides helping to make the English natural, we had some other ideas on the label. The Japanese bit shown above (which translates as “this is alcohol”) is required by law, but I suggested a more-helpful English version. 🙂

Damien's main contribution: making the barcode into a rugby ball.

It's a nifty design: the top part of the label separates to reveal a saké cup, while the rest of the label remains, allowing it to be a commemorative keepsake even after enjoying the contents.

At first it was available only in high-end department stores and Japan-Railway kiosk stores, but availability will likely expand as we get closer to tournament in the fall.

I mentioned this product to the owner of the 7-11 convenience store near me, and he was intrigued. He eventually not only started offering it for sale, but gave a huge amount of shelf space:

Later still, I found out that they devoted an additional shelf to it in the cooler. It seems to be selling well. At only 648 yen (~US$6) each, it's a pretty good value.

We eventually had a little release party for it...

The scene above is the entrance to a new large hotel nearing completion of construction. The workers putting the finishing touches on the interior have left their shoes at the entrance, and are presumably walking in socks or slippers. This mimics what one does at a Japanese home.

When the hotel opens, people will walk in this public area with shoes like any other business, but until the construction company turns it over to the owner, they treat it with great care, so that it's turned over in pristine condition.

I doubt that this would ever happen in America. When I last lived in America, asking a visitor (such as the cable installer) to take their shoes off inside the house would be met with the same face as if I had asked them to take their pants off.

I've been testing a new cycling computer, a Bryton Rider 450. I was shocked to find out some information about its satellite-positioning features that isn't covered in the manual, so I'm sharing that info here.

As a bit of background, folks often use the “GPS” as a generic term for “satellite positioning system”, but in reality, GPS is the specific satellite positioning system built and deployed (and offered as a gift to the world) by the United States of America. It used to be the only one, but now there are several. Russia has its unrelated GLONASS system, the European Union has its Galileo system. These all provide global coverage. Regional systems include China's Beidou system (which will eventually be global), and India's IRNSS system.

In addition, Japan has a small four-satellite augmentation to the United States's GPS system called “QZSS” (みちびき in Japanese).

The Bryton Rider 450 is advertised to work with all of these except IRNSS. This in theory would allow my use here in Japan to benefit from the three truly-global systems (GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo), and two regional systems (Beidou and QZSS), so hopefully it would be more accurate than other units I've used.

(In years past, I've posted a few articles about GPS accuracy, including here and here.)

So it was with dismay that I opened up the configuration menu on the unit to find only these options available:

• GPS + Beidou
• GPS + Glonass
• GPS + Gal + QZ

This seems... unimpressive and disappointing.

I wrote to the company asking about this, and was told what the options really mean:

Menu Option	GPS global	Galileo global	QZSS Japan	Beidou Asia Pacific	GLONASS global
GPS + Beidou	✓	✓	✓	✓
GPS + Glonass	✓	✓	✓		✓
GPS + Gal + QZ	✓	✓	✓

What the Menu Options Actually Mean

This means that the GPS, Galileo, and QZSS are always enabled, and that you can optionally enable the global GLONASS or currently-regional Beidou systems.

What horrible menu labels, obfuscating what they really mean. There's plenty of space on the screen, so there's no excuse for this stupidity.

In Japan, the company recommended “GPS + Beidou”. Wikipedia tells me that Baidou will eventually be more accurate globally than GLONASS (or GPS or Galileo, for that matter), and it perhaps already has better coverage for the Asia-Pacific region.

I'd like to do tests where I bring six units (two at each setting) on the same ride, to compare and contrast the results in different situations, but I'm not about to spring for five more units just for that. Oh well.

(The lead photo, which I hope gives the feeling of “precision” to go along with this article, is from something I hope to be able to write about later.)