D1 towards Matsumoto

Route: Kazunumabudokyo to Lake Suwa
Bicycle: 110 km
Train: 130 km
Average Speed: 17.3 km/h
Total Ascent: 1470 m
Weather: sunny and fresh, with a feisty headwind all day, 17 C

It’s a long weekend in Japan and I added an other 2 PTO days making it a super long weekend. 

Before it gets too cold, I decided to come to Nagano Prefecture. This time, not so much around Nagano city, but in the valley of Matsumoto instead. Today I got up before 5 o’clock in the morning, in order to take a train to Takao around 5:30, and then from there another train to Yamanashi Prefecture. I started my ride at Kazunumabudokyo, a train station, just at the entrance of the valley of Kofu, from where one has a very nice view over the entire valley and the vineyards.

I had been here last year in the summer, with a group from Meetup by train, where we visited together some vineyards, actually, not really a vineyard, but a field of grapes, where one could pluck ones own grapes and eat them there. Before that I had absolutely no idea that the region around Kofu is famous in Japan for its wine.

Initially, it was all downhill, until reaching Ryuo from where, unfortunately it is all uphill and a lot of uphill, as you can see from the Strava, nearly 1400 m of elevation. And that’s because although on Google maps all this looks like one big valley, it actually isn’t and one has to cycle up to the lower slopes of Yatsugadake, literally a mountain with 8 peaks, and definitely a majestic one.

I’m still amazed by the amount of mountains everywhere, and took way too many pictures of mountains, which truth to be told, as pictures don’t look so impressive. 

As impressive as these mountains may be, none that overbearing like Fujisan. Even from deep and Yamanashi prefecture, at Fujimi, you can see clearly in the distance Mount Fuji topping every single mountain around it, and standing in solitude.

All that climbing, albeit gradually, was a lot of climbing and I came up to an elevation of over 1000 m but one is still being surrounded by mountains and it feels like cycling actually in the valley. It also wasn’t only all the climbing there was also a fierce headwind the entire day. So I have clearly gained my relax time now in the onsen of my Ryokan here in Matsumoto.

Originally, my plan was to cycle all the way to Matsumoto, which is about 130 km and sounded kind of doable when I was planning the long weekend. But also, I got a pretty early start, I was not able to finish the right, so instead, I changed my endpoint to Lake Suwa, which has a nice cycling lane around most of the lake, and even from there when can see Mount Fuji in the distance. Admittedly, in real life, it looked bigger and way more visible, than on this photo.

SW2023 D4 Kinugawaonsen - Nikko

Route: Kinugawaonsen - Nikko
Bicycle: 33 km

Train: 160 km
Average speed: 11,5 km/h
Total ascent: 537 m
Riding time: 2:50 h
Weather: Sun, some clouds, still too hot and humid, 26C (per Wahoo)

For the last day of this rather short Silver Week (only the Monday was a public holiday... but I took the Tuesday as well), I had originally planned to cycle from Kinugawa onsen up to lake Chuzenji, the lake above Nikko and then down through the mountains to Kanuma and take a train from there back to Tokyo. However my stomach wasn't happy with me and it was still sooooo hot and humid... that I changed my plan and did sightseeing in Nikko instead. 

The main shrine, Toshogu was incredibly busy with school classes. I arrived there around 10:00 and there was one class after an other. Probably all from the same school. Maybe it was just bad timing. But I do remember a visit a few years ago to Nikko where this same shrine was also totally overwhelmed by Japanese tourist groups. I know this is an important Shrine for its history, but with so many groups it is hard to enjoy it. 

Strangely it got much quieter up to the burial of the Tokugawa shogun and on the way down I took this very quaint picture of the roofs of all the shrine buildings shining in their golden splendor through the forest. 

Nearly all tourists are gathered at this one spot and although the Nikko Futarasan jinja is only a few meters walking away, over there everything was very quiet. 

It even had a deity for patisserie chefs (the god is holding the branch of a specific citrus tree). 

I had lunch closeby in an other soba place (a lot of soba and udon these past few days) and then returned to my bicycle. 

It was still relatively early in the day, but I was clearly not in form to continue cycling so instead I had found an onsen on google maps. It was quite close (by bicycle) from the shrines, but in a very quiet area. So quiet, that the onsen doesn't have a reception desk. But rather a vending machine for the tickets and a small box in which to drop the ticket before entering the bath. It has a tub inside and a rotenburo with views of a garden. I had the entire onsen to myself for most of the time. Very relaxing indeed. 

The ride today was quite short, only about 28 km, but it seemed more exhausting that I would have expected for such a short ride, even with the heat... however looking at Strava shows over 500 m of elevation, which were accumulated in less than 20 km of cycling (the initial part was downhill). So that's pretty steep (for me at least), however it wasn't anywhere so steep that it actually felt steep or that I needed to push the bike. 

SW2023 D3 Aizuwakamatsu - Kinugawaonsen

Route: Aizuwakamatsu - Kinugawaonsen
Bicycle: 101 km
Average speed: 17,6 km/h
Total ascent: 1,192 m
Riding time: 5:44 h
Weather: Sun, some clouds and a few drops of rain, still quite hot and humid, 26C (per Wahoo)

After the ride yesterday, cut short by the heat, I was a little bit worried about today’s rather long and mountainous ride. However, I had planned the ride to be along a train line that also connects Aizuwakamatsu to Kinugawa onsen. Those trains aren’t very frequent, so yesterday evening I wrote down on a small piece of paper, the possible connections that could save me from the heat, exhaustion, or other impediments to continue all the way to my goal. But finally, I made it all the way! The ride was partially on a secondary roads, slowly sloping up towards the border between Fukushima and Tochigi Prefecture through a landscape bordered on all sides by mountains as far as your could look. 

I hadn’t really realized before, just how mountainous Japan really is. I know this sounds crazy. I’ve been living here, for more than 4 years. I’ve been traveling a lot, but still it surprises me just how many mountains there are. 

Pouring water over me at regular intervals helped to keep my body temperature in an okay range. Also, instead of thinking of it as of 100 km ride I was more looking at smaller targets: the next convenience store, lunch, the next major town. 

Some of the roads were very small countryside roads while others were more busy, none of them really too busy but if you know how empty the street could be every truck seems to be one too many. There was also a fair number of tunnels both up and down hill, but it was all okay.

On the way down to Kinugawaonsen, I did run into this group of monkeys. It seemed an entire family, maybe 20 or so, even including a mother monkey with a small baby. 

The hotel in Kinugawaonsen (Itoen) however was quite bad. I mean, it was cheap... and had a rotenburo, but clearly nothing had been renovated in that hotel since 20 - 30 years, so essentially since it was build during the bubble years. It is a real pity, there are so many onsens towns that have been utterly destroyed by huge hotels that are now either completely abandoned or are in a severe state of disrepair / not well maintained. And these towns are very ugly. But still enough people go there to enjoy a day away, the onsen and dinner. Although in that hotel dinner was the worse of the worst. But yeah, I survived this as well and I had a very huge (but ugly and slightly unclean) room. 

SW 2023 D2 - Around Aizuwakamatsu

Route: Around Aizuwakamatsu
Bicycle: 41 km

Average speed: 13.3 km/h
Total ascent: 341 m
Riding time: 3:03 h
Weather: Sunny, humid and definitely too hot for me, 31C

In principle I wanted to ride up to Ouchi Juku, an old post town on the way from Aizuwakamatsu to Edo, but it was way too hot for me. I had incorporated two other (minor) sightseeing spots into the  tour today... and at least I managed to visit those. 

The first stop of the day was a shrine I had found on google maps that looked interesting, and was on the way to Ouchi Juku... and more importantly today, in an area with old, tall, shade-providing trees. 

And right today there was a very small temple festival ongoing. With elderly men dancing, singing and playing the flute, and a very young boy (the grandson of the flute player) playing the drum with great enthusiasm, experience and energy. 

The show of sake under the 交通安全 (Road safety) sign was a bit surprising. But I guess also sake needs to be transported safely. I stayed at this shrine and its surrounding small forrest for quite some time, before going for a soba lunch in a very small, very village, restaurant, which crucially had air conditioning. By this time I had decided to give up on Ouchi juku (still too hot and now also too late) and was actually contemplating to return directly to Aizuwakamatsu... but then continued to the second attraction of the day. A temple up on a hill overlooking the fertile plains around Aizu Wakamatsu. 

Plains knowns for their fruit cultivations. On the way to the temple I passed a fruit processing plant that also sold directly to customers (quite typical in Japan) and got a peach. I had left it to the saleslady to select the right peach for me. She choose a rather hard one (hard like an apple), which however was very tasty. While I was standing outside eating it, an other employee (or maybe the owner) came, and gave me an other huge peach that had some small damage (so probably they couldn't sell it) that was softer and more juicy... but I found the harder one more delicous. 

The temple did remind me a bit of Kiyomizudera in Kyoto... only that this one only gets a few visitors a day, has a much nicer view and even a small cave behind the temple. 

Cycling back to Aizu Wakamatsu I could see that it was raining in the distance and it seems that in Wakamatsu itself it had rained very heavily... but I only got the rainbow: 

SW2023 D1 Koriyama - Aizuwakamatsu

Route: Koriyama - Lake Inawashiro - Aizuwakamatsu 
Bicycle: 82 km
Average speed: 15,4 km/h
Total ascent: 873 m
Riding time: 5:20 h
Weather: Sun, some clouds and still very hot and humid (Wahoo says 27C, but definitely was more)

I planned this trip a few weeks ago when I hoped that by mid September the temperature would be a bit cooler. And while it is definitely cooler than at the peak of the heat in August it is still very hot. But finally cyclable. 

My bike also was in repairs over the summer so it’s the first longer ride in a long time. 

I started yesterday after work and went already (by Shinkansen) to Koriyama, so that I could get an “early” start today. Finally it wasn’t that early, but still early enough to do everything I had planned for today. 

Koriyama is one of those very ugly Japanese cities with a lot of new (and not so new anymore) buildings that don’t create one city together but just a bunch of ugly buildings interrupted by a lot of car parks around the station. 

I cycled out of the city and up and up a relatively quiet road. Which at one point looked frighteningly steep, but actually wasn’t that steep and perfectly cyclable. 

Once up the rest was downhill / flat just with a little bit of up and down at some points along the lake. I went straight down to the lake in the expectation to find (a lot) of restaurants, but that wasn’t the case. It was mainly ample camping areas around the lake. Mostly fir people doing “day camping”. (Not sure if that’s a thing outside of Japan, but here it is quite widespread. People go to some nature location, build up a huge tent of just a shade, bring thousands of things with them: foldable chairs, tables, BBQ sets, has cookers, food, cutlery… the list seems endless and the cars full with stuff. Often it seems that even the cars are specific for transporting all this camping equipment. So while I didn’t find a restaurant by just going to the beach, google maps came to my rescue and found a place really close by. 

From there I continued my ride on the west side of the lake sometimes was really nice views over the lake and the mountains behind it. This lake is the fourth largest in Japan, I’ve already done the full circle off the first, second and third largest lake, but not of this one. I did a little bit under half of the lake, because my goal was a Aizuwakamatsu for today.

Along the way, I also saw these small white flowers, which kind of look like a white version of rape. However, I learned on the next day that they are soba, buckwheat. 

After a very nice and gentle descend from the lake, down to Aizuwakamatsu, yes, the lake is above the city. I made a stop at Sazae temple to see its special pagoda, which is constructed as a double helix. You can actually visit inside and go up and down in one sweep. 

I knew that the castle was going to close at 5:00 and last entrance was at 4:00, so I thought I was a little bit late, but actually, it was not very far and generally downhill from the temple to the castle, so I made it in absolutely good time, no hurry and could visit the castle as well today. As so many castles, also, this one was reconstructed only after the second world war. It got original destroyed sometime in the 19th century, but not during any war but apparently rather as a planned demolition of the castle. There were even pictures how it looked like before the demolition, and it didn’t look like it was ready for demolition, but that’s what they did. Only to rebuild it, this time in concrete, about 100 years later. But they did a reasonably nice job, and specially from the outside it is very scenic.

Inside is a museum, all in Japanese, about the history of the region, the samurais, the wars that were fought and lost around Aizu, and the helmets of the samurais, which must have inspired the designer of Darth Vader. 

From the castle it was a short ride to my guest house, where I will be staying for two nights. With all the heat, I was obviously drenched in sweat, but found very a nice onsen / sento close to Wakamatsu station, which had an incredible number of different pools, some of them outside some inside, with different waters and all this at the very cheap price of only ¥450. And I was early enough to finally get an Akasuri (Korean body exfoliation), which I had hoped to do a few months ago back when I was cycling around Fuji lake, but didn’t manage to get an appointment. 

Nippara Cave

Route: Ome - Nippara - Haijima
Bicycle: 69 km
Train: 105 km
Average Speed: 16.8 km/h
Total Ascent: 832 m
Riding Time: 4:05 h
Weather: Sun and clouds, warm, but an early start helped, 26 C

Probably my last ride before the summer heat does grip Tokyo and the rest of Japan (probably with the exception of Hokkaido... but no plans to go there anytime soon). Today I did manage to get up early take a train before 6:30 am and start already at 8:30 am in Ome. A few weeks ago I had cycled from home to Ome... but today, that was only an option for cycling back... not for cycling out, as it is going to become too hot. Thanks to the early start I was already in the shadows of the forest when it started to become hotter. I took it easy (as always), cycled up to Ome first, had a break there for some onigiri, and then onwards to Nippara. A dead end road along a mountain valley full of green, a wild flowing river ... 

... and at the end surprisingly a village.

Above the village is a lime stone cave which claimed to have some stalactites and stalagmites, well... it has some not very impressive stalactites but it is still a great cave and so coooooool (but just about okay).

All this without ever leaving Tokyo! 

On my way up I had noticed a small restaurant with fishing pond besides the street which seemed to have a nice terrace overlooking the river, so instead of having lunch at the cave I road down and had a surprisingly good (but small) pasta dish here while watching the paying fishermen not fishing any fish. 

On the way back I had considered riding all the way back to home along Tamagawa... and while it was getting cooler.. it was still pretty hot, so decided to give up on that idea, and take a train back from Haijima. But instead of going home, went to a famous bicycle shop, in principle only to get a new saddle (as my old one had broken a few weekends before when I feel while standing with the bike)... but turned out there were other things also to fix... so finally I handed in my bike for the next 4 weeks for a general overhaul. Was about time after about 25,000 km!

Too hot outside... so an onsen it was

Route: Hashimoto - half way up to Miyagase - Machida - home

Bicycle: 66 km

Train: 35 km

Average Speed: 14.5 km/h

Total Ascent: 748 m

Riding Time: 4:31 h

Weather: Sunny and too hot, 27 C

This weekend I tried a ride in the mountains  (original plan was to ride up to Miyagase dam and then maybe further up from there)... but we started quite late and it was already quite hot when we were still climbing up, so on a dragging climb we (I, to be precise) decided to turn back and take a different route again back to down the mountains, to lunch and a very relaxing onsen. Actually a very nice super sento in your typical built up ugly Tokyo suburbia... but this was a super sento with a twist: Very dark waters and one of the rotenburos at only 35 C, which was a perfectly coolish temperature to linger in the water for a long long time, getting out of it only occasionally to heat up again a little bit in the next pool over (which was probably at around 40 C). 

The region around Miyagase dam is probably the easiest place in the mountains accessible from my home. A short ride to Medaimae or Sasazuka station and then a direct train to Hashimoto and in less than an hour I am at the starting point and from Hashimoto up into the mountains it isn't too far either. 

After the long and relaxing soak in the onsen it had gotten a bit cooler and so it was possible to ride a bicycle again... and instead of just slowly riding to the next (and closeby) train station, I decided to ride back home. It didn't look too far on a map (about 30ish kilometers)... but it turned out that the landscape (you can't call it countryside because it is essentially all built up until Tokyo) around Machida is pretty lumpy. A lot of up and downs. Not the best ride I ever did... But hey, I made it back home. 

Ride out to Fuji & Rain around Kawaguchiko

Day 1

Route: Hashimoto - Doshi road - Yamanakako

Bicycle: 81 km

Train: 35 km

Average Speed: 14.7 km/h

Total Ascent: 1436 m

Riding Time: 5:31 h

Weather: Sun and clouds, no rain, 20 C

I had booked a simple hotel on the shores of Yamanakako about a week ago. Cancellable until 2 days before so I was checking the weather forecast on a daily basis. It was kind of unclear but seemed okay enough, so today in the morning with a relatively early train I went out to Hashimoto and from there into the mountains again. Along a road that featured in the Tokyo Olympic 2 years ago. 

It is a nice mountain road, with not too much traffic but enough vending machines and several small villages along the road to cycle up slowly but steadily. It is actually also a nice incline and would probably even make for a nice descent (which I did not try on Day 2 though). The descent down to Yamanakako on the other side was relatively short, as that lake is quite high. I arrived very early at my hotel, so I had more than enough time to do ride once around the lake and enjoying the views of Mt. Fuji floating above the clouds. 

Back at the lake some more Olympics inspired photos before heading to an onsen closeby, washing, relaxing and having dinner before checking into my room. The hotel owner was very nice and let my bicycle park inside. 

Day 2

Route: Yamanakako - Kawaguchiko loop

Bicycle: 47 km

Train: 100 km

Average Speed: 17.6 km

Total Ascent: 200 m

Riding Time: 2:33 h

Weather: Rain, rain and more rain, 14 C

My original plan for today was to attempt to ride up to the 5th station of Mt. Fuji... but there was no Fuji today:

It had been replaced by incessant rain for the entire day. Anyway from where I was staying there were only 2 ways back home and both involved riding a bicycle at least for some time. Method #1, back over the mountains and downhill to Hashimoto. Method #2 over to Kawaguchiko and a train back from there. Riding downhill for a long time in the rain, is not my definition of fun nor does it feel specially safe... plus it would probably have been freezing cold. So option #2 it was. And actually cycling in the flat (or at least not a lot of downhill) in the rain isn't that bad, as long as you don't stop. The rain jacket does keep the upper body dry to a certain extend, but the pants get completely soaked and obviously are seeping upwards into the jersey. But as long as you are riding and it is not too cold outside, it is not that unpleasant as this picture might make it seem. Stopping however for a lunch or any other longer break wasn't really a good plan. Sitting mostly wet in a restaurant is neither good for the restaurant nor for me. 

So I just cycled around Yamanakako, then over to Kawakuchiko and as I was in good enough spirits made a loop around the Kawaguchi Lake, but did not venture further to the other 3 lakes. 

At this likely famous photo spot I run into bus loads of foreign (freezingly cold and miserable looking) tourists who had booked a day trip "to see Mt. Fuji"... and all they saw was their money gone, their clothes wet and the inside of a gift shop. But not a single glimpse of Mt. Fuji. I guess those tourists were feeling even more for me, out there on a bicycle in the rain... but I can go back to Mt. Fuji nearly any weekend, and I have seen Mt. Fuji from all its 5 lakes in glorious weather last year. And know that I will have so many more opportunities to see it, that I didn't mind. And as said, as long as you don't stop too long, cycling in the flat in the rain, isn't that bad. 

However bad enough to really want to go to an onsen, wash, dry and hopefully find a dry spot in the afternoon to catch the train back. And so I did. I had found a super sento close to Fujikyu Highland amusement park and cycled there. In onsens normally you take of your shoes at the entrance and leave them in a locker. But my feet (still cycling in sandals) where so dirty that that didn't seem like a viable option. So the front staff gave me a small towel to whip down my feet ... which I handed back totally soiled... but now with reasonably clean feet to walk around. 

Washing in that onsen felt wonderful. All that road grime to get off, and then soak in the water. I spent several hours there between bathing and having lunch, before it seemed that there was a window of opportunity in the rain to head down to the closeby station and get on a train back to Tokyo. 

Narita with friends

Day 1

Route: Funabashi - Hanamigawa - Narita

Bicycle: 54 km

Train: 35 km

Average Speed: 15.6 km/h

Total Ascent: 200 m

Riding Time: 3:27 h

Weather: Surprisingly sunny and getting hot (although the measured temperature seems to say otherwise), 19 C

This weekend friends had organized a ride out to the Hilton Narita. The same friends with whom I went to the Odawara Hilton back in February and to the mountains of Tokyo last October. One of them works at the Hilton in Shinjuku so gets discounted rates for staying at other Hiltons and these two are the closest to Tokyo. 

This ride was organized as two of the group soon will relocate to Thailand and unbeknown to us before the ride had just got married the day before... so kind of this was their honeymoon ride. At least we were nice enough to give them a double room. 

The day before typhoon #2 had come bashing through Honshu, but it seemed that from the late morning the rain would have moved on and we could cycle. So we decided to meet for lunch at a famous Ramen place close to Funabashi station and only start the ride around 14:00. With our speed we made it to the hotel just in time for dinner. No washing before though. 

One of the team lives in Funabashi and did plan the ride. To a good part it was along Hanamigawa which I had ridden a few years back on suggestion of yet another Tokyo cycling friend. 

The intense rain from the previous 2 days, had inundated some parts of the cycling road, but still mostly rideable. Only one of the rest stops along the way was deeply inundated... 

... it is that little hut in the background. But the water was nicely cold in a warm day, so it was actually quite nice to wade out there. (Keep in mind the water height to compare how much the water receded already on Day 2 below). 

On one of the many rest stops we had, we took a picture of us as peanuts, famous local produce apparently. 

 And on we went... to our next photo opportunity.

Day 2

Route: Narita - Hanamigawa - Funabashi

Bicycle: 83 km

Train: 35 km

Average Speed: km/h

Total Ascent: 282 m

Riding Time: 5:38 h

Weather: Sunny, humid and warm tending to hot, but still okay, 23 C

On the second day we started early... well earliER... probably we only got started at around 10:00 am. Also today was a day full of rest stops and photo stops. For this group of friends the important thing when cycling together is the TOGETHER... not so much the cycling itself. And that is also fun. Sometimes to me it can seem a bit too slow... but then just enjoy the moment, the time out there, the time on the bike and the next rest stop. And obviously the time in the evening in the hotel. 

Japanese are quite used to travelling with friends and sharing rooms (which I don't mind either). And while this Hilton didn't have very big rooms, some other hotels and specially ryokans in Japan are geared towards groups sharing one big room. 

The first one was on a hill just outside of Narita airport plane spotting. A hill apparently buildt only for this purpose with many "professional" plane spotters that were listening in to the conversations of the tower on small radios plugged into their ears and who did seem to know every single plane where it came from, where it would fly. In a country of train spotters they must feel like an exotic breed. 

Through some quiet country lanes ...

... we went on to Narita-san, a big temple in Narita city. There were some big celebration that day for the founder of this specific buddhist sect. 

More country lanes did bring us back to Hanamigawa river and lunch closeby. By now it was quite hot... but still kind of bearable, but the lunch break was welcome. However 2 of the friends didn't feel well. One with sleep deprivation (it seems he sleeps only a few hours every day and has a hard time falling asleep at all) and the other with a bout of pollen allergy. But luckily we were in never too far from a train station, so dropped them of at a train station, helped them back up their bikes and after a while (and by now a bit cooler) continued back to the river and riding towards the Pacific. 

Also today still parts of the way were inundated... 

... but the water from the rest place had receded... and one could "sit" there again:

And on we continued versus the Pacific where we arrived shortly after sundown. And were still not in Funabashi, hadn't entered an onsen yet and hadn't had dinner yet either... 

So on it was to Funabashi, a supersento and dinner at the supersento before catching a late train back to Tokyo. It wasn't the last train... but I think I arrived home at around 1:00 am, after a good day out with friends.