{"id":2901,"date":"2021-06-16T20:55:02","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T11:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2021-06-16\/2901"},"modified":"2021-06-16T20:55:02","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T11:55:02","slug":"konpira-checking-out-one-of-the-most-difficult-climbs-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2021-06-16\/2901","title":{"rendered":"Konpira: Checking Out One of the Most Difficult Climbs in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

I recently heard about a very hard climb — over 3km\/2mi at an average<\/i> of almost 16% — not too far away.\nMany cyclists could not climb for 50m at 15%, much less do it for 3,000m. It's just ridiculously<\/span> steep. This climb sounded\nto rival one the most difficult climbs in Japan, Kuragari West<\/a>, which clocks in\nat 2.3km\/1.7mi @ 17.3%.<\/p>\n\n

Of course, I had to go check it out. It was quite<\/span> the adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n

The start of the climb was about 30km north of Kyoto, along the shore of Lake Biwa. To save energy<\/span> for the hard climb, I took the<\/span> easiest route I could<\/span> think of to get there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>3200 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nPretty Views Along the Way<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>2300 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>2900 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nBicycle Path<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

The path was much bumpier than the road. I would<\/span> have preferred the road.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>2000 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nGetting Near the Start of the Climb<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

Modern Garmin cycling computers have a “<\/span>Climber Pro”<\/span> feature that notices where climbs are in a route,<\/span> and highlights them like this. In this case<\/span>, the mild lead up to (what I considered<\/span> to be) the climb is included here, increasing the length to 4.9km and reducing the average grade to “<\/span>only”<\/span> 12%.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>3400 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nI'm Going Somewhere Up There<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>1900 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nThe Road Up Starts Here<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

Even though the road starts here, and starts going up right away, I found<\/span> out later that the considered start of the climb is 350m farther on, at this shrine gate:<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>140 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nStart of the Climb<\/span>\nat an elevation of 126m\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

The reason it starts here, rather than 350m back at the turnoff, I was told<\/span>, is that 1)<\/b> this is where it starts to get\nsteep, rising at more than 10%, and 2)<\/b> it's where the village ends, meaning that starting here avoids speeding cyclists annoying the elderly in the\nvillage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>640 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nStraight Up at 13%<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

Within minutes, you're going straight up at 13%, which is not that<\/i> bad.... until you realize that this is just the mild warmup for the kilometers of much worse to come.<\/p>\n\n

One nice thing I noticed is that for much of the start of the climb, clean water is positively rushing<\/i> down the gutter\nnext to the road. It looked<\/span> very clean and inviting. I'm sure that<\/span> this is drinkable, so that means that you don't really need to\nbring a lot<\/span> of water with you, even during the hottest days of summer.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>490 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nDrinkable Water<\/span>\nrushing down at breakneck speed\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

The road surface is very good here. I had been<\/span> told by one person that the road pavement was good until just before the end, and by another person that it was so bad that it was one of the most dangerous roads to cycle on in the area. So far, it looked really good.<\/p>\n\n

The quality of the pavement is very important for steep climbs on a road<\/span> bike, because there are two real dangers that can\nhappen if the rear wheel loses traction. One is that<\/span> as you're pushing down hard on the pedal trying to overcome gravity and lift\nyou and the bike up the mountain, suddenly there is no resistance and you can find yourself flying over the handlebars, or (for\nmen) have a particularly<\/span> unpleasant impact injury.<\/p>\n\n

The other is that if the wheel slips, you lose forward momentum, and unless you can very quickly unclip your shoes from the pedals, you will fall over. I have not<\/span> done this.... recently.<\/p>\n\n

Things that can cause the rear wheel to lose traction on a steep<\/span> climb: wet pavement, rough pavement, moss on the road (on a steep<\/span> road, moss is death), sand\/rocks\/pebbles on the road, potholes, branches, leaves. Or, more commonly, many combinations thereof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nLooks Steep<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

Garmin cycling computers have long had an “<\/span>Elevation”<\/span> screen that\nshows either the elevation it thinks you've done so far, or, if you're following a course<\/span> that has\nelevation data, a forward<\/span>-looking graph of the elevation and where you are now, as seen above.<\/p>\n\n

One used to be able to adjust both the vertical and horizontal scale of the graph, but for inexplicable reasons, in the current\nstate-of-the-art Edge 530 model that I have,<\/span> they don't allow the vertical scale to be adjusted. That makes small hills\nessentially disappear (look flat), an horrible monster hills like the one I'm climbing now look merely “<\/span>steep”<\/span>. Sigh. The “<\/span>Elevation”<\/span> screen is not even mentioned in the manual.\nSigh. Garmin units are really horrible, but they're still better than anything else out there. Sigh.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>120 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 40 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nThe “<\/span>Climber Pro”<\/span> Screen<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7+ + iPhone 7 Plus front camera 2.87mm f\/2.2 at an effective 32mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f<\/span>\/2.2, ISO 25 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nTotally Soaked in Sweat<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

All the photos from now on are a bit hazy, because my phone was in my jersey pocket, and my jersey was completely soaked. I didn't have anything to clean the lens with.<\/p>\n\n

It was my intention to take this climb very slowly, and to stop on occasion so as to not overdo it this first try. Frankly, I\ndon't<\/span> know whether I could<\/span> do this whole climb without stopping with the road-bike gearing that I had.<\/span> It'd be much<\/span> easier with\nmountain-bike gearing. In any case<\/span>, I took the<\/span> opportunity to take photos, or, more honestly, I took the<\/span> occasion of taking photos\nto stop and rest. <\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>25 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 40 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nStill Not Too Bad<\/span>\nbut with the crazy steepness, one had to pick a line<\/span> carefully\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>20 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 40 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nMore Challenging<\/span>\nonly one thin strip of clean road\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>500 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nEntrance to the Konpira Shrine<\/span>\n\u91d1\u6bd4\u7f85\u795e\u793e\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

At one point I came around a corner to find what looks to be the entrance to the Konpira Shrine. Or, what we see is all that there is of the shrine? (I could<\/span> see nothing up the mountain behind it.) I dunno.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>530 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nThis is All I Could<\/span> See<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>560 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nRidiculously Steep<\/span>\nright at the shrine\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

As you can see in the photo above, the road surface is great, but as the road goes up after passing the shrine, it gets very<\/i> steep (approaching 20%),\nand suddenly has a lot<\/span> of moss:<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>30 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 32 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nForced Stop<\/span>\nat 20%\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

This was the first time (but not the last time) that I had<\/span> to stop suddenly because the road, and my situation on it, was not safe. As became<\/span> more and more common, the center of the road was a thick<\/span> strip of gunk, with strips of vaguely-clean area left by car tires. I was in<\/span> the left-side strip on a painfully<\/span>-steep section of road, when suddenly that left-side strip was covered in slippery moss. The gunk in<\/span> the center was too much for me to try to cross over to the right side (remember, this is extremely<\/i> steep), so I quickly<\/span>\nstopped before a slipping<\/span> wheel and gravity did it for me. I then moved<\/span> over to the right side, and snapped this photo.<\/p>\n\n

I wasn't able to start pedaling again. Believe me, I tried,<\/span> but it was just too steep and slippery. I didn't<\/span> want to walk (I have<\/span> some pride), so I just<\/span> inched forward by pushing down on one pedal repeatedly. This was perhaps the steepest section of road.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>30 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 25 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nGetting A Little<\/span> Better<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

A couple of minutes later, I came across a spring<\/span> by the side of the road:<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>15 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 40 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>15 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 40 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nThat Pipe is It<\/span>\nKonpira Shrine Pure-Water Spring\n\u91d1\u6bd4\u7f85\u795e\u793e\u540d\u6c34\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>17 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 40 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nDescription<\/span>\nwhich I can't read\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

I was so tired by this point that I didn't<\/span> actually read the sign that I took<\/span> a photo<\/span> of, so I didn't<\/span> realize that this was the<\/i> spring. I knew that<\/span> there was a spring<\/span> on this route, but Google Maps had it at the very top where the road ended (another 1.2km distant, 175m up). It turns<\/span> out that\nGoogle Maps was wrong, and I've since fixed it<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

According to what I've learned since, the pipe goes about 80m up to the source of the spring. The spring<\/span> produces the same\namount of water regardless of what's happening in the weather: the water that comes out of the spring is said to have been in the\nmountain for 100 years, and that if it never rained again, the spring would still flow for 100 years.<\/p>\n\n

In any case, I was happy to get some more water, and I discarded<\/span> the remaining convenience-store bottled water that I had<\/span> in\npreference for this. It was very<\/span> tasty.<\/p>\n\n

And then I continued on.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>30 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 25 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nNot Good<\/span>\non one of the steepest sections\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>30 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 25 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nI Walked<\/span> This Little Section<\/span>\nI didn't want to get a puncture on the rocks\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7+ back camera at an effective 57mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>1000 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nNice View<\/span>\nthe one and only sweeping view on the whole climb\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>15 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 40 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nNope<\/span>\nI think I walked past this section, too\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

Past the spring, the road got increasingly bad in every respect. When the road is so bad that you have to dismount to walk past\ndanger zones, it's not really fun. Again, it'd be fine on a mountain<\/span> bike, I\nimagine,<\/span> but I had<\/span> to stop many times to work my way around dangerous sections.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>30 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 32 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nA Suddenly<\/span>-Nice Section<\/span>\nthe moss is not so fun, but it can be mostly avoided\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>200 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nBiggest Dam<\/span>\nof the many dams up and down the road-side river, this was the largest\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

Nearing the end, the road gave up all pretense of being paved.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>30 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 40 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nConcrete<\/span>\nit looks like a bunch of cars drove through freshly-poured concrete\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

The ruts here were very deep, and I walked<\/span> over this whole section. And remember, it's still ridiculously<\/i> steep.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>30 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 40 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nThis is the “<\/span>Road”<\/span><\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>30 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 32 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nEntrance to a Hiking<\/span> Trail<\/span>\nthe rope in the upper right is to help people pull themselves up\n( I wish I could capture the sense of steepness in photos )\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

According to one Strava segment, it took me 54 minutes to get here from the bottom. The fastest<\/span> recorded time is 27 minutes, by\na guy<\/span> in 2013 back when the road was presumably in a better<\/span> state. Given the current state of the road, I don't<\/span> know that I could<\/span>\nhave done it in 27 minutes on my scooter. A mountain<\/span> bike or a dirt<\/span> bike would be better.<\/p>\n\n

I tend to enjoy challenging myself on extremely-steep climbs, but even if the road surface had been pristine, I don't<\/span> think I could<\/span>\nhave done this one without stopping. The combination<\/span> of me and the bike is well over 100kg (about 6kg being winter flab that I'm\ntrying to lose), so I'm almost 2x the weight of real climbers. It's just too<\/span> difficult for me now.<\/p>\n\n

But the road was not pristine, and that takes all the fun out of it. In this case<\/span>, the quality deteriorated more and more over\ntime, so a clear,<\/span> safe, apparent “<\/span>let's consider this<\/i> to be the end”<\/span> location didn't present itself. This bothered me because I\nhad<\/span> been planning to make a surveyed<\/span> segment for this climb. <\/p>\n\n

Strava segments are normally made by users after they've ridden a ride,<\/span> and that user's GPS data becomes The Master Data for\nthe segment. Unfortunately, that data can be horrible, because consumer GPS units can be wildly inaccurate, especially in the\nmountains. Heck, I've seen a short<\/span> segment on a totally<\/span> flat road in the city presented as a 28<\/span>% climb, because the user that made\nthe segment had stopped into a cafe<\/span> along the line, and the weather had changed while stopped, so when restarting their cycling\nunit, the barometric altimeter thought they had suddenly climbed a mountain,<\/span> even though they hadn't even moved.<\/p>\n\n

I talk about it in detail in “<\/span>Strava Segment Tutorial: Removing Suckage and Promoting Quality<\/a>”<\/span>,\nbut in short you often can't trust the map track, distance, and elevation data associated with a Strava segment,<\/span> and that's a bummer.<\/span> To counter<\/span> this, I make computer<\/span>-generated segments using highly accurate road and elevation data from the Japanese government.<\/p>\n\n

I've made more than 2,400 such “<\/span>Surveyed”<\/span> segments so far, and I wanted<\/span> to make one for this climb, but I couldn't<\/span> figure out a good<\/span> place to\nhave the climb stop. If I were<\/span> considering only mountain bikes, I'd stop here<\/span> at the entrance to the hiking trail, but I also<\/span> want\nto consider road bikes. If only the<\/span> road surface was good the whole way. As it was<\/span>, I was bummed<\/span> and disillusioned about this climb.<\/p>\n\n

I left the bike and continued on foot for a bit<\/span> to see the big rockfall that I knew<\/span> to be just above...<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>180 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 25 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>600 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nHuge Rockfall<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

This huge rockfall is where the road nominally ends (though it actually ended some time before). I looked<\/span> around for the<\/i> spring, as I said,<\/span> not having realized that the one halfway up was it.<\/p>\n\n

I turned and headed down.<\/p>\n\n

When I got near the bottom, I explored some small side roads. On one, I saw this<\/span> lovely bicycle just sitting in the forest, with no other sign of human presence around except for me and the road:<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>120 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 32 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nOdd<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

Later, I found a little road that went up to a small<\/span> mountain community of a few<\/span> dozen houses, including one Really Weird haunted-looking.... structure:<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7+ back camera at an effective 57mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>540 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7+ back camera at an effective 57mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>200 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n

At first glance I thought it was a big<\/span> concrete building in the process of being demolished, but as I got<\/span> closer, I realized<\/span> that the\nrough nature of some of the structure was clearly on purpose, and that perhaps it was in the process of being built. But it looked<\/span> abandoned. It reminded<\/span> me of a grotesque<\/span> and low-budget version of the Winchester Mystery House<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Later, I asked a local resident about it. Apparently, some guy had just been building there over the years, at his whim (much\nlike the Winchester Mystery House), but he had died so it's just been sitting. I asked<\/span> how long ago, and he couldn't say except\nthat it was before his time. I got the<\/span> impression that it had been setting vacant for many decades.<\/p>\n\n

Then it was time for lunch. In preparing for the ride, I'd found<\/span> a pizza<\/span> place that looked promising, so I headed<\/span> there.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 7+ back camera at an effective 57mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>90 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 32 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nFANTASISTA Pizza<\/span>\nGoogle-Map link<\/a>\nrestaurant home page<\/a>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>120 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 25 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nEntrance<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 7 Plus f\/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>210 sec, f<\/span>\/1.8, ISO 20 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nCute<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Judging from the restaurant's home page<\/a>, I expected<\/span> that the owner would be quite the character. He did not<\/span> disappoint. Super interesting to chat with. He's an avid<\/span> cyclist, motorcyclist, windsurfer, and go-kart racer.<\/p>\n\n

He filled me in on a lot of info about the climb (which he guesses he's done more than a hundred<\/span> times), the spring, Strava\nsegments, the kind of people who ride there, etc. He says that<\/span> most road cyclists stop at the spring,\nwhat's called a “<\/span>half climb”<\/span>. That made a\nlot<\/span> of sense, since the road is mostly okay up to that point. The pre-existing Strava segment that goes all the way to the\nhiking-trail entrance has only 74 attempts registered, while the one to the spring has 476.<\/p>\n\n

I ended up making a surveyed segment to the spring, “<\/span>\u91d1\u6bd4\u7f85\u540d\u6c34\u3001<\/span>\u9ce5\u5c45<\/span>\u304b\u3089 \/ Konpira Pure Spring, from Tori Gate [\u8a08\u6e2c\/<\/span>Surveyed]<\/a><\/i>”<\/span>. Even though this is ostensibly the same exact route as the aformentioned “<\/span>half”<\/span> segment, it matches 490 efforts. The extra<\/span> matches are because the source track is closer to reality.<\/p>\n\n

Just to give an idea of the different quality of source tracks from which segments are made, here's an interactive demonstration for part of the climb up to the spring:<\/p>\n\n

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<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n