Fujimi to Lake Kawaguchi
May 23, 2023
Today was our last ride before heading to Tokyo. On paper it looked easy with it being mostly downhill up to a point. It was a wonderful morning ride. Not much wind, a bit of sunshine and mild temperatures trending to the cool side. I got an early start hoping to have the road to myself and ease into the ride. I even had time to do a short video call with my wife, Chris and gave her some live views from the valley at the base of my descent. On my way down to the village I passed some sort of institution where there was a wall rack containing twenty or so unicycles. Either it was a Japanese clown collage, an institute of busker education or the kids of that village were buying their bikes on the installment plan, half now, half later.
The rest of the morning was a ride through the usual rice paddy agriculture that seems to be everywhere here in Japan with an extensive irrigation network that allows rice to be grown almost everywhere I have been so far.
After lunch, or second breakfast, as it was before 10:00 am, We hit the big challenge for the day, a 1,500 meter of climbing over a twenty kilometer distance. The climb started easy at two to three percent grade with occasional increases to seven or eight percent. Our route followed the path gouged by a mountain stream that zig-zagged its way slowly up the mountain. Small farming villages would pop up from time to time breaking up the ride through a heavily forested area. As we climbed further along the 1,500 meters of uphills, they became steeper, topping out at ten to eleven percent at the summit.
At the end of the climb there was a three kilometer long highway tunnel that fortunately was not busy. Tunnels themselves can be scary for cyclists and I know of at least one fatality on a group trip in Arizona that caused the Adventure Cycling Association to abandon that route. The group that was on this route three days before us reported that the tunnel did not have lights and that it was extremely busy. However, they were there on a Sunday and unless there was a power failure during their visit, the tunnel definitely had lights. Still, three kilometers is a long tunnel and I was lucky enough to have only one vehicle come up behind me and there was a convenient pull off just ahead that I was able to duck into.
Tonight we are lakeside at Lake Kawaguchi, a resort town with a nice hotel and a beautiful lake view. The only down side is the lack of a convenience store nearby for a snack. However, in a rare moment of foresight, I stopped at one about a kilometer before arriving at the hotel and picked up a snack and a beverage. Strange flavours here in Japan and I can testify the SPAM is not a great flavour for potato chips.
