Bicycle: 124 km
Train: 400 km
Total ascent: 556
Weather: initially light rain, then dry with clouds and some sun, but cold, 3 C
A 4 day weekend and ticket to a royal garden in Kyoto did bring me today to Kyoto. Although I am by nature not an early bird, my alarm was ringing shortly after 5:30 this morning to catch a train from Shimokitazawa at 6:20 and a Shinkansen from Tokyo station at 7:33. My Shinkansen of the day was a peculiar Hikari. The only additional stop to a Nozomi was Odawara. Apart from that pretty much a Nozomi until it started to stop at every station after Nagoya. But I had to get out at the first station beyond Nagoya. So overall a very easy ride. But I had to start early in order to have enough time on the bike.
When I arrived at Gifu Hashima it was gently raining, not too much to put me off from riding though. But I need to recognize that the first part, until about Sekigahara wasn’t a specially enjoyable ride. Just a ride through built up parts of a sprawling town.
But then I made it in the Nakasendo, there was even a sign post saying Kyoto to the right, Edo to the left. Did people really get lost?
From there the road wound a little bit uphill but actually not that much. The planners of the Nakasendo 中山道 didn’t really want to go on top of the mountains but THROUGH the mountains with minimum resistance. Now the highway, a state road, a small road, the local trains and the Shinkansen all take this same pass to come from Nagoya to Biwako.
Over the pass and down to Maibara and I was in known territory: Lake Biwa. Where I have already cycled several times. And also this time I took a picture of this big tree on the shore an my bike:
The last times I was here with the brompton and once even with the brompton and a skirt with the picture of the brompton at this tree:
After this stop I continued on my way to Kyoto. I was considering in leaving the bicycle at Otsu station and come here tomorrow and start from here (idea was to cycle over to Uji and the tea plantations), but the weather forecast didn’t seem too good, so I stuck to my original plan and went all the way to Kyoto. 120+ km, but mostly flat around the lake.
On the West side it was generally sunny (but cold), but the East side is a high mountain range that was covered in snow until quite low slopes lying in the shadow.
My planned route took me over the Biwako Ohashi, and then to Otsu on the other side of the lake. But probably I should have stayed on the Eastern side. I remember that cycling there was quite good. On the Western side it’s just on a road with a lot of traffic. At least it’s nice to be able to pass by so many cars stuck in traffic.
Over to Kyoto there us a steep hill. Last time I climbed it I was on my heavily loaded brompton and definitely pushed up the hill for the most part. Today with my light weight carbon road bike I managed to cycle up, albeit with a break.
Down to Yamashino, up again and down to Kyoto and in the beginning dark I arrived at my accommodation for the next few days. My suitcase had also already arrived by TaQBin. After checkin I went to the local supermarket to get dinner and breakfast and then a shower was on the plan. But instead I found (thanks to google sensei) this sento closeby which was somewhere between a normal neighborhood sento and a super sento with 4 pools inside and (!) a rotenburo!
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