Well we've been on a number of rides since the last entry, but we haven't taken so many pictures on them to do a proper entry about any one ride. Instead, I will just post what pictures we have taken recently and comment on them.
Here is Kao at the Shichirigahama beach. This was the destination of our ride one day when we did take pictures.
We went from Fujisawa towards Kamakura and turned South where the Shonan monorail crosses. The map direction begins there. Then the road will go up to Kamakura-yama (Kamakura-hill) which is quite a steep hill to climb. It was the first time we were there so I was too preoccupied with finding the way to take pictures. After the climb, it was all downhill to the Shichirigahama area.
Here I'm riding through the nice path (with no cars) that leads to the ocean front.
You can see the ocean where the road starts to go downhill.
I've crossed the Enoden train tracks and is just a street away from the ocean front.
Kao was taking all the pictures until now, but then I took the picture of her which is at the top.
Shichirigahama isn't all that far from where we live and we just wanted a short casual ride, but the Kamakura-yama was more hilly than we expected.
Another day, we went to the Tsujido beach to take pictures of ourselves. Here's Kao on her bike.
It's been long overdue, but we'd been meaning to make a "We've moved" card for sometime and so we needed material for that.
If you look at this picture closely you might find it a bit strange. That's because it's actually made up of two separate shots. I photoshoped it to make it look like we are standing next to each other.
Here's me on my bike. Kao likes taking pictures of me, but I don't think I'm as photogenic as her.
And a couple of more shots by Kao of surfers riding bikes along the beach. This is a quite typical scenery along this beach. I would say that more than half of the people riding bikes in the area are usually carrying surfboards.
I spent my junior high and high school years in Southern California where surfing was very popular and I tried it as well, but I really was no good at it so I have no desire to try it again, but I think it's quite a romantic sport and I like being around it while riding along the beach.
Japan has had one of the hottest Summers in recent history, but it's finally beginning to cool down a bit. It's quite an adventure to ride the bike under the blazing sun, but it should become a bit easier now. We should be able to go on longer rides without having to worry about heat stroke or sunburn.
Last Friday, we rode to Oiso. I've probably mentioned Oiso briefly here and I had ridden there a few times by myself, but this was the first time we rode there together. I wasn't sure if Kao would be able to ride all the way there or not, but we took it easy and it wasn't a problem. For the purpose of this entry, we'll start at the Tsujido station which is a major train station near our place. From the station we headed South towards the ocean and then took the Shonan Shindo (Shonan New Way) and went towards the ocean. The picture above is the bridge that crosses from the Shonan Shindo to the Hamasuka beach.
From there, we rode along the beachfront for most of Chigasaki.
That's the "C" monument of Chigasaki Southern Beach.
From there we crossed the Sagami River into Hiratsuka and rode along cars on the Highway 134 all the way to Oiso.
This is the Oiso beach. It is supposedly Japan's first public beach. It's actually a tiny bit of Oiso waterfront, but the rest of the coast is hard to access because of the highway and the beach isn't sand.
This beach is definitely not as hip as around Enoshima as you can see these old style "Umi no Ie", but I really like the rural atmosphere of Oiso.
After the beach, we rode into town.
It's mostly quiet and residential.
We stopped at a Curry restaurant called Chairo (color brown) and had lunch. Curry and vegetable plate was very good. After that we rode the Taiheiyou Jitensha-do (Pacific Ocean Cycling Road) which runs along the coast, but right next to the Highway 1 which blocks most of the view of the beach and the ocean. I don't know why they didn't build it on the other side of the highway.
Oiso for the most part though is easy to ride though.
I snapped this picture while waiting at a signal. This may not look like much of a bike lane, but this is actually pretty good. Usually the white line is much closer to the sidewalk and so you have very little space to ride. A lot of the times, you end up riding in these gutter things which are much less smooth and has drains every 10 meters or so. Here. you have a bit more asphalt and the gutter is nice and smooth and it's fairly seamless in between. It may not be the perfect bike lane, but I felt a lot more comfortable there than on most streets with car traffic here. There is quite a bit of bike traffic, both sporting cyclists and locals riding around town, so cars seem to be used to them as well.
We rode back after that, riding along the beach when we got back to Chigasaki. Kao faired much better than I thought although she didn't drink enough water and was a bit dehydrated and had a headache after. I bug her to drink enough water, but I didn't check how much she was drinking. I'll have to get on her case even more next time.
Last week, we took the local cycling road called "Fujisawa Yamato Jitensha-do" (Jitensha-do means cycling road) from Fujisawa where we live to Yamato which is about 15Km to the North. The cycling road runs along the Sakai River. We have been riding along the Hikichi River quite often as it is quite near where we live and it too has a cycling road, but it's in bits and pieces with lots of gravel in between. I hadn't heard about the Fujisawa Yamato route until I found it on a Japanese cycling blog. It seemed like quite a nice and long route, so we decided to give it a try.
Some parts of it was overgrown with plants and that made the path narrower, but for the most part, it was quite nice to ride. I didn't take the best photos as I was just enjoying the ride, but I think it's the best cycling road I've been on in Japan as of yet. It's maybe almost as good as the Springwater trail in Portland. It was quite refreshing as most places I'd been riding are very nice, but still most streets lack any kind of real consideration for bicycles.
Yes, I'm loving my Surly.
We met our friend in Yamato and had a nice talk with her in a family restaurant (Japanese equivalent of Denny's) where you can order a "drink bar" and drink all the drinks (non alcholic) for like a dollar.
Then we made our way back to Fujisawa, but made a little detour to the Iida Dairy Farm.
It's the self-claimed smallest dairy farm in Japan and they sell ice cream and cheese cakes there. We had a nice gelato and met with the cows who live right in the back.
We got a little rained on, but by the time we were near Fujisawa, it cleared up. It was a very good ride.
I wish I had taken better pictures, but if you check out this page, you can see what it's like. The text is in Japanese, but if you are curious about other rides in the area, the site has reviewed quite a number of them, so you might want to check them if you're thinking of riding in this area.
Cherry blossoms are in full bloom now (or at least a few days ago) here in Portland. Maybe they are just another flower tree for most Americans, but cherry trees may be the most obsessed about flower trees in Japan. I don't know how they got to be so popular, but maybe it has something to do with their fleeting beauty and the timing of the blossoming coincides with the end/beginning of the academic year when lots of people are experiencing major changes in their lives. There is also the tradition of "Hanami" (literally translated as flower watching in which people gather in mass outdoor around cherry trees and watch the cherry blossoms. At least that's what it's supposed to be, but for the most part, it turns into a drinking party. I can't remember the last time I was in Japan this time of the year, but I have done my own Hanami here and there. This year's hanami happened this past mid week. I had some errands to run downtown and on my way back, I rode through the Waterfront park knowing that I will probably see cherry blossoms. I actually fully expected to see it and packed a thermos of coffee and sweets in my pannier bag.
Cherry blossoms were in full bloom and I enjoyed my Hanami with coffee instead of sake.
Today (Sunday) I rode to Mt. Tabor Park. It's a park located in South East Portland. I'm not sure if it's tall enough to be called a mountain, but it is a hill and it's covered with tall trees. It's definitely one of my favorite places in Portland and I have ridden there many times, but this was my first ride there since last year. It's not quite far or high enough for a serious training ride, but it is a nice destination and at least for me at this time of the year, it's plenty.
I am not one to dress in full cycling gear with no luggage even when I go for recreational rides. I like to dress in normal clothes and do normal things along the route. Today, there were 3 things I wanted to do during my ride; ride, buy grocery, and eat lunch. I think most people will do these things separately, but I'm too lazy to do separate outings, so I just do it all during my ride. The map above shows my route from Trader Joe's (where I shopped) to Mt Tabor Park.(the Bicycling layer couldn't be embedded. I hope they are working on that.) I got some lunch food there as well as some other food items. I kind of have mixed feelings about Trader Joe's. It's sort of fun to shop there and they seem to have pretty good quality stuff at reasonable prices, but a lot of their merchandise comes from very far places. I won't go into the whole "eat local" thing here, but the dried apricots I wanted to get was from Turkey, so I got prunes from California instead. (I like prunes too.)
Before the ride, I was looking at Google Map with the new "Bicycling" feature (isn't it so awesome?) and I found that there is a pedestrian/bike bridge over the freeway just South of Trader Joe's. I had no idea that was there and I would've ridden over the 39th Avenue overpass (where it's full of cars with no bike lane) if I didn't check out the map with the new feature, so thanks to Google, I had a much more "tranquilo" ride. There are so many ways you can go to the park from there. The Google directions will show you a much different, but way more complicated way, but I like my ride simple and without too many turns, so I think my way is much easier. My way takes you South to Belmont St and then East. You can also take Glisan or Burnside, but I found that, going that way, you will run into a series of short but very steep hills. On Belmont, it's not as steep, but it's a long and gradual climb all the way to the entrance of Mt Tabor Park. I'm actually not sure which part is harder, the climb to the park or the climb of Mt. Tabor. Anyway, it's best to take it easy or you will be cooked by the time you get to the park.
Once inside the park, you are surrounded with big tall trees and roads inside have less car traffic, so it's much more relaxing. I think when you are climbing under effort, it's definitely better to do it on roads with little or no car traffic. If you have cars going by you, I think it makes it more stressful as you need to concentrate to hold a straight line while you are already hard at work just trying to go forward. I think once I'm in better shape, I would "attack" the climb more, but today I just spun up to the top. I think the gradient there must not be as steep as the climb to Rocky Butte because there I couldn't even spin if I wanted to.
Time for lunch! Just a simple cheese sandwich, prunes and coffee.
I think most people that go on recreational or training rides go ride and then eat when they get home, but I like to bring food and have a little snack at my destination. It's like a little reward for having made it there or something. It started raining though as I was sitting there enjoying my coffee, so I got back on my bike and rode down half way where there is like a big picnic area with a roof and took shelter.
I took this picture there. I made a couple of modifications to this bike since I last showed this bike here. Can you guess what they are? I will write about that here soon.
Before I rode home, I decided to ride around the park. This is where they held the Mt. Tabor criterium which was part of the Mt. Hood Classic a couple of years ago. Last year, the race had finance issues and didn't include this stage, but I hope they will have it this year. I had a great time watching it 2 years ago. Here's a slideshow of pictures I took there.
So, there is this loop you can ride. For a good part of last year though, a part of it was under construction and you couldn't ride through, so I was curious if they had fixed it. I rode there and indeed they had finished whatever they were doing. I rode the loop once. There's always people riding there doing multiple loops, but I didn't want to overdo it this time. I think maybe once I'm in lighter clothing with less baggage (I think my pannier with the grocery weighed like 10 lbs), I might try doing laps. I can't imagine racing like 40 laps of it though. It's hard to imagine now that I was once fit enough to do similar kind of races albeit at the lower end of amateurs.
Anyway, it's a nice place to ride to. If it was a bit further from town and the climb more substantial, it would be even more a popular destination to ride to I think.
Me and Kao both have accounts at flickr. Mine is quite a mess with everything from daily snaps to artworks. Though I have taken classes in photography, I must admit that I am a poor photographer. Kao on the other hand is a much better photographer and so, I have often thought this blog can benefit more with her photography than mine. I've used her pictures in the past in my posts, but it was a bit of a hassle as I had to ask her to give me the html code each time. We noticed recently that now flickr has a "share this" feature for each picture, and with that I can grab the code myself without having to bother Kao about it.
Anyway, I thought I'd do a post with some of her recent pictures.
This is me on my Dahon riding along Tsurumi river.
Me again riding a mamachari on the path around Kitaura lake near Kao's parents house in Ibaraki prefecture.
A tin bike toy Kao found in a window in Nezu (old Tokyo neighborhood).
Me sitting and flipping through a bike magazine at the old Cycle Square Kitasando.
We stopped by F.I.G Bike after our visit to the Cycle Square. It not only has road bikes and fixies like so many other biks shops, but more utilitarian bikes and a whole section of causal bike clothing by brands like the Rin Project. The staff was very vocal about the merits of regular looking clothing that you can bike in.
Nice card on the wall!
Close-up of the entrance. The two bikes on the right, I think are a Globe and maybe a Velorbis. Not sure.
Also some of you readers who are fellow bloggers are also welcome to use our photos from our flickr pages; Mine and Kao's. You don't need to tell us beforehand, but drop us a line afterward if you can. I doubt that any of you will do so, but please don't use it in a negative way like being negative about bikes.
We may not have a lot of exciting things to write about in the near future as we have to deal with real life things and also it's not warm enough yet to really ride a lot, but we'll try and update regularly anyway.
Wow, as I started to write this, I checked to see when the last update was and it was like 3 weeks ago before the new year, in fact.
I am back in Portland now. Our house hunting in Japan so far hasn't met success. So now Kao will have to continue on that task without me and that might take a while, so I might still be in Portland for a bit longer.
We had a great new year's at Kao's parents' in Ibaraki.
We rode the mamachari to the nearby Kitaura Lake.
With a thermos full of hot tea!
On new year's day, we didn't ride the bikes, but we went to watch the first sunrise come up over the Pacific Ocean. It was super cold, but there were lots of people who had the same idea.
Kao at the same beach during the day.
Back in Kawaski, I saw these two bikes and hula hoops. So colorful and pretty!
We also visited the Cycle Square Kitasando which Kao wrote about here and Gary Fisher raved about on his visit. It was a temporary project by the Bicycling Popularization Association of Japan as a space which aimed to "popularize" bicycling. I had read and heard about it, but I wanted to check it out before it closed. (it closed on January 17th) They often had events like panel discussions and rides, but for the most part it's a cafe with expensive road bikes on display and all the latest bike magazines. There is corner where you can bring your bike in and use tools there and there is a "concierge" who you can go talk to about anything that is bicycle related. This is also the place where they held seminars about the Bicycle Citizenship Manifest. I still don't quite agree with that and also I found that the way Cycle Square Kitasando could have done things differently to appeal to a wider portion of the public.
When you first enter, there are these vintage bikes on display. (I think that's a vintage Pashley on the front) But the rest of the bikes on display in the space are all road bikes. I like looking at road bikes as much as anyone, but I think if they were aiming to get non-enthusiasts to become interested in riding bikes, they should really have had more variety of bikes. They had video monitors throughout the space and they were all showing videos of road racing too. I think road bikes and racing is definitely appealing, but there is so much more different kind of bicycling which they simply ignored. One thing that this space achieved though is that they got tons of media exposure. I think the Bicycling Popularization Association of Japan is mostly funded by Keirin and so this whole thing seemed very official, well organized, but a bit boring. That's a totally different approach from the grassroots stuff that happen here in Portland.
The food was pretty good although the portions were too small and over priced!
Lastly, this photo of a poster has been getting some attention on my flickr. It's a poster which tells you how (or how not) to bring your bike on the train.
You are supposed to disassemble your bike and put it in a bag or case so as not to get in the way of fellow train passengers. I think there are some trains in rural areas that allow bikes on board without disassembly, but for the most part these rules apply throughout Japan. It may be a while before multi-modal communting with bikes on trains become regular normal activity.
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