D4 - A cold and windy day on Lake Biwa

Route: Kyoto - Tokaido - Biwako - Maibara 
Bicycle: 94 km
Train: 420 km
Total Ascent: 518 m
Average Speed: 17,7 km/h
Riding Time: 5:18h
Weather: coooold and veryyy windyyy, cloudy, some snowflakes, 0 C

While I write this I am sitting in what should be a warm Shinkansen train, but I am still kind of cold and not looking forward to get off the train and into the cold again. But this can’t be helped. 

Originally my plan was to cycle along the old Tokaido road, the main route that connected Kyoto and Edo during the shogunate. To start from the right place, I first cycled up to Sanjo Ohashi, took a quick picture before heading out of the city and up to Otsu.

Once over the hills in Otsu I continued to follow the old Tokaido. I had planned the route based on a route I had found a few years ago on Strava and with the help of komoot and google maps. On the ground it wouldn’t be possible to follow it. It is indicated in some parts, but not good enough to be able to follow it through. I wanted to take a picture of such an indication, but always thought “I’ll do it later…” and never did. 

Somehow riding the old Tokaido did not live up to my expectations. Either it was relatively small neighborhood streets with frequent crossings or large streets with a lot of traffic. This combined with the cold and the fact that I would have ventured away from the Shinkansen line, finally turned the tide and made me return to Biwako and the known cycle path along it. 

Today it was very windy and for the most part it was either headwind or side/headwind and this in the cold. Per the thermometer on the wahoo it was about 1 C, but it felt way colder. Cold enough that I was actually kind of cold while riding, and still am. And no onsen awaits me at home tonight, but at least hot bath tub! 

Apparently all the other potential cyclists got the note and stayed home today. I think I saw 1 or 2 cyclists beyond Kyoto. And this in a place like Biwako, where there is normally quite a steady stream of cyclists. 

Even at THE tree there weren’t any people today taking pictures with their car/motorbike/bicycle 

Maps for Tokaido - 旧街道東海道サイクリング

As I am writing this, I am actually on the modern version of the Tokaido... on the Tokaido Shinkansen, somewhere between Nagoya and Kyoto. But this post is about the old Tokaido, the traditional road network for travelling from Kyoto to Edo (Tokyo)

Always on the hunt for new suggestions of nice cycling adventures these days I stumbled over these maps for riding along the old Tokaido from Kyoto to Tokyo. It seems that the cycling is mainly (or at least quite often) on small streets rather than the big ones.

The routes are available here on Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/43713242 from CSC 管理人

On this blog page (in Japanese) there are also some pictures and further descriptions. But it's a bit of a tedious blog page with a lot of clicking: https://www.strada.jp/events/kyukaidou_201908/

If you have Strava Summit you can download the maps directly from Strava. If not, like me... the following short cut seems to work:

• Open the route
• Click on the "。。。" symbol 
• Click on "create route" 
• This opens the route in the planner
• Save 
• And wow... there it is in my planned routes in Strava. And for those I can actually download the GPX file and then import on Garmin (or potentially just open it with the Strava app on the garmin)

Excited of having discovered this feature I went ahead and downloaded me the entire route. 

Seeing how it is numbered, it would seem that the idea is to make it in 3 days! But not for me. I guess a nice week would be perfect. 

Very much looking forward to do this ride once upon a time!