Bright sunny day, my plan was to follow a Strava dirt road route going over the ridge to Otsu on Lake Biwa. Perfect, I thought, and not too long. Things started off well, found a path which looked reasonable but then quickly deteriorated into jumble of fallen trees along a creek bed. The GPS was correct but it looked like the path had been washed out. Maybe this was someone’s idea of a joke?
I spent about an hour in the forest, lugging my bike over fallen trees and clambering up the sides of the creek gully, trying to find some semblance of a path. What if I run into the Kyoto bear? Finally, I gave up and, a bit muddy, came back out to the road and decided to take the conventional route.
This turned out to be an enormously long hill up over the ridge on the way up to Mount Hiei, or Hieizan. Problem was, I hadn’t worn my cycling shoes because I thought it was going to be a dirt trail with some walking.
Reaching the top, there was a very new and large subdivision with western style houses, looking a bit surreal surrounded by forested hills all around.
Great downward ride down to the lake but there was no way I was going to ride back up the same way.
It looked like I could get back to Kyoto by skirting the ridge to the south, and indeed the walking route showing on Google maps was very pleasant.
In fact, such a pleasant ride I didn’t really follow the map closely and just kept riding.
Big mistake. The path ended up on a busy road heading uphill. I’d had enough of hills, so kept riding down into the valley, but finally realized I was heading too far south. No way around except to head uphill again.
The expressway didn’t allow bikes, so I kept following a road which did allow bikes and entered a tunnel. Second big mistake. It was a terrifying ride on a narrow shoulder through the tunnel with cars, trucks and buses whizzing by.
Back in familiar streets, I stopped for a pizza and a beer at a riverside cafe and rode back to Shugakuin neighbourhood at nightfall. Not a great start to my riding plans, but the beer tasted mighty good.
Stonecutter chips away in time
On the road to Mount Hiei
Fast cars, weary legs
