Travelogue

October 4, 2010

September 25-26th Biwa Ko ride (Part 1) and a Crash

Filed under: Biwa Ko — admin @ 9:13 PM

Day 1 – September 25th

Plan was to camp on Biwako on Saturday and then ride whole day around BiwaKo area on Sunday followd by some 480Kms back to Tokyo.

Late afternoon start on Tomei as it was raining in the morning plus we had work to finish at office.

Clouds opening up on Tomei

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The rides

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Customary Hamaka Ko shot

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Quite uneventful ride on Tomei to Biwako. By the time we pitched in the tents it was 9:00 PM already. Right infront of Biwko, we had a

fanstatic dinner.

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 Day 2 – September 26th

Sunrise at Biwa ko right in front of the tent. 

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 Packup and ready to go by 6:45 AM

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Nice route along Biwako. The fellow rider.

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 We toured a bit in the nice sleepy countryside

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 Crossing the small town, there were lots of the old wooden houses

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 Note the reflection

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A japanese village with all old straw roofs

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 Me

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 Weather was indeed very nice on Sunday

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 Little chat with the locals. They were quite happy to talk to us and explained what they were doing, how to make straw roofs etc. All in japanese offcourse of which I could understand little.. :)

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Our breakfast point – that rock :)

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 From here we continued touring and eventually hit route 477 which was not the best road to ride. On one of the corners my fellow rider lost the front. Long story short we went hispital to get him banded, called help and got the biek picked uo to be sent to a YSP in Kyoto.

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 Thats where it happen, brake on the gravel…

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 My friend was in pain but handled his first crash very well :) Got a lift in the truck to bike shop.

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 Last pick of the day while I was riding to the bike shop.

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Friend is recovering well. Bike is still in Kyoto and we got to go back to Biwako/kyoto to pick it up – hence Part 1 in the title :)

September 14, 2010

August 28th, 2010 Urabandai, Gold Line and Lake line

Filed under: Urabandai — admin @ 2:51 PM

Early start at 4:00 AM, easy ride on mostly empty Tohoku expressway. A countryside pic immediately after getting down the expressway at Fukushima nishi

 

 

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Valley shot from the skylineP1000907_800x600

Bandai San from distanceP1000915_800x600

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A classic depiction of why you ride :) P1000921_800x600

 

More shots en route to Bandai san (quite a lot, i just couldnt stop taking pictures here)P1000926_800x600

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Beautiful pics but it was starting to get hot alreadyP1000929_800x600

 

 

The still smoking hillsP1000931_800x600

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And the volcanic footprintsP1000939_800x600

The contrast within few 10’s of metres is strikingP1000942_800x600

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Bandai San craterP1000949_800x600

Few pics from top of Bandai SanP1000956_800x600

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Contuniung on the second skyline, another shot from view pointP1000965_800x600

Couple of shots from the lake line.

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Finally the Lake AKimoto

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Past noon the temperature was already past 35 degree C. I just quit and went back home after this. Afternoon ride through expressway

in the summear heat was nothing short of horrible. Lots of stop’s drinks .. back home at 4:00 PM, 12 hrs, 717 kms

September 12, 2010

Okutama half day ride – September 11, 2010

Filed under: Okutama — admin @ 1:15 PM

Early start at 4:30 AM in the morning. Chuo up to Hachijoji and then 411,18,33 to Lake Okutama

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Fuji from route 411P1000993_800x600

Lots of grape shops to Uenohara, did some shopping here!

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The FZ at Lake Okutama

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And the rubber side at the end of the ride..

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May 16, 2010

Wayakayama 3 day trip – March 20th-22nd 2010

Filed under: Wakayama — admin @ 8:22 PM

Day 1 – March 20th

It was still cold so had to start a bit late compared to my usual time. Started at about 3:30 AM in the morning.

Start of the day coffee at Ebina. The FZ is black to blue now

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The soft penniers work fine but difficult to manage then a waterproof bag tied on the tail.

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Ise Waangan doro in to Wakayama and then on route 169 down south. 169 runs next to the river all the way.

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Up high in the mountains

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Finally reached Ikehara dam around 4:00 PM.

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View down from the dam. Under the Sakura trees is where we will camp!

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My first tent!

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The Ikeahawa sports ground also has a onesn and restaraunt. Nothing better then an open air onsen at the end of the day followed by a relaxed dinner. The night itself was not that pleasent. I managed to fix me tent fimrly before it started raining. It rained heavily during the night and it was very windy. I was worried my tent will be blown away and couldnt sleep well but fortunately the tent stayed intact.

Day 2 – March 21st

Fortunately the rain stopped by AM. Early morning view around and from the dam

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Started on route XXX towards the nachidaki/skyline.

Nice mountain scenary along the road

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The Daro george

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The pathway to Nachi waterfall

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Not sure who they are but she was kind enough to let people take a shot

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The Nachi waterfall

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Next we continued a bit on the Nachi skyline which is not a toll road anymore. Its one way and not mantained at all so we quite from the first view point on the skyline.

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Next we headed on route XXX towards XXX. Route XXX towards XXX was some nice sea views

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The rocky coast of XXX

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The spiral bridge in to XXX

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Some views from XXXZaki

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Started towards Cape XXX following mapple maps around 12;00 noon and staooped very little. While the scenary was beautiful, the roads were empty and pure pleasure to ride. The new BT016’s got broken in pretty well. Some shots from rest of the day

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Stayed in the same camp ground second night too. Same onsen and same food :)

Day 3 – March 22nd

Packed up and ready to go

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Heading back towards Ise Wangan – the Dam

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Interesting waterfall. Water drops and just disappears under the soil bed

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and appears as underground stream on the other side of the bridge

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Some more shots in the way

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Got on to Ise Waangan soon after the last shot and headed back home. Pretty painful ride as we have to lane split all the way from Gotemba to Tokyo.

GPS Stats

72

75

October 12, 2009

Sado – September 2009

Filed under: Sado — admin @ 4:16 PM

Day 1 – September 13th

Weather reports said it will rain overnight en route to Sado but weather should be fine starting morning in Sado so instead of cancelling my Sado trip for 6th time, I decided to take chance and go. Long story short, it rained very hard whole night, was very windy and I had to slow down/stop a lot. Nonetheless I reached the pier to board the first ferry to Sado in time.

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Early morning Niigta from the ferry

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The Osado mountain range from ferry, weather didnt improved as promised by the weather report…

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it kept on raining in Sado so I decided to skip skyline and headed towards Sado Gold Mine

Someone was living in this house…:)

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A few shots in Sado gold mine showing old time working conditions

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Headed towards Japan sea next. Weather became a bit better. Rice fields everywhere

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On the coastel route weather was very bad, very windy and waves breaking on the road

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Continued anyway

You can get ride in these small circular boats called Taraibu, mostly 70+year old women operating them!

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Weather finally improved.

The Sado post office building

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Some pics of the old Sado village, these are not preserved houses but people still live in these

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Weather improved so I decided to take a full run on coastel rourte to Cape Hajikizaki

Some pics enroute

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Stopped at small shrine in the woods

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Cape Hajikizaki

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Made a fill loop on north side and came back to Ryotsu. Checked in a ryokan and went to bed straightaway.

Day 2 – September 14th

Early AM start and went to Dondenyama ib the Osado mountain range. Nice scenary around. Dondenyama

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Sankyaku wan

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Conituned towards Cape Senbonohanaa and took the coastel route down towards Mourazaki. Beautiful day. Then went on to Osado skyline. Some pics from the skyline

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Took a sushi lunch at kaiten sushi place. For the price i paid, it was much better that what you get in tokyo.

Started exploring random routes after this and found Sado meusum narrating history of Sado by using robots. Pretty natural movements by these machines, was impressive

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Went to the only monument dedicated to gold mine workers in Mano only to found out that the care taker had gone for a 2 hr lunch….

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Bamboo fencing still seemed to be the favorite here

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Most places other then ryotsu were completed deserted even during the middle of the day

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Some more random touring

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The island is beautiful but carries a sad feeling. Almost all the youth seem to have moved out to bigger cities, in two days I saw an abanduance of 70/80+ people doing all kind of work but almost no teenagers or kids …

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The other thing in abanduance were eagles, found a lot all over the island

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Finally boarded the 4:00pm ferry and headed back to Tokyo

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Stealing a page from cmac`s book :) the FZ in Sado

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GPS track

516

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

518

October 10, 2009

Tottori Sakkyu and Amanohasidate (August 2009)

Filed under: Tottori Sakkyu and Amnohashidate — admin @ 5:15 PM

Day 1 – 7th August

Early morning start at 2:00 AM. Weather was fine in the begining my luck stayed same as always and it rained a fair but during the expressway ride.

Customary HamanaKo early morning view

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Went from Tomei to Chugoku expressway and then Yanago Expressway to Kofu exit. Cloudy. Headed towards Mt Daisan after Kofu exit.

It kept raining intermittently but otherwise, its beautiful countryside

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Nice roads but too wet to try anything….

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Daisen behind clouds

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Kept going around Daisen, Clouds gave way a bit upon ascent

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But soon I hit foggy roads and more clouds

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Getting tired of wet and foggy roads I decided to hit coastel route towards Tottori Sakyu. Nice day along the coast

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Finally reached Sakyu towards the end of the day. Got really surprised hot the desert was compared to rest of the trip so far

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The desert heat hit me pretty bad and within 15 mins I felt so exhausted that I had to discontinue riding further. Found a Kodomonokuni turned into hotel and headed straight there. Found this en route, couldnt figure what they could farm on sand …

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Completly exhausted by desert heat, i almost collapsed in the hotel room, drunk a few bottles of water and pocari to rehydrate myself and went to bed straightaway.

Day 2 – 8th August

6:00 AM desert was quite foggy and cold in contrast to last evening

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You can see this only in Japan! a bunch of volunteers appeared early AM and started collecting/cleaning gomi left by tourists!

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Not sure what this dude was trying to find….

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Checked out of hotel, loaded the bike, started the engine, sat on the bike and was making my start of the ride day prayer before heading out when I saw a white Kei car approacing. I continued with my pray and saw the guy passing me and then attempting to park in slot next to me in reverese gear. Th next thing I know – the car hits the rear of my bike and down it goes. I couldnt believe what happened. He must have seen me while passing me and knew I was there but still managed to hit me.

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I was fuming but out comes a nervous ojiisan who was almoast shaking. Kept on apologizing and I guess he must be on adrenaline crack coz he lifted my bike from ground by himself :)

Cops arrived at the scene and were quite nice fellows compared to the one`s in Tokyo

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Took a few pics of the cops, there car, with them and hit the road again. Frame sliders did good job again, apart from bent clutch lever and lost paint on tail, all was cool

Beautiful road recommendations by mapple! some pics en route to Amanohashidate

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Preserverd old time huts

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More scenary

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Finally reached Amanohashidate

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The customary between the legs upside down view

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Having covered both the places and roads I wanted to already, I decided to hit the road back home instead of staying another night in Tottori area.

Found a interesting sight on the way back. A bunch of farmers were operating a reasonbly big sized helicopter fitted with insecticde tank and injectors :) way to go :)

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Uneventful ride back home after that.

The FZ in Tottori !

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October 9, 2009

Gunma touring – Shirane San and Tanigwa Dake (October 4th, 2009)

Filed under: Gunma — admin @ 12:19 PM

Early start at 7:00 AM and a easy ride on Kanetsu expressway in the morning, reasonable traffic and no cops.

Took route 18 at the Usui Karuizawa exit for Shirane San. Asama San and a couple other shots en route

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Coming out of route 18, some pics en route to Shirane San

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Some pics of Shirane San and the Crater Lake

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Headed towards Tanigawa next. Took about a hour and half to reach there only to find out that route is closed all the way to Tanigawa. Saw a cable car which was going up and boarded that instead. Turned out to be a disappointment at 2000 yen! Tanigawa Dake is not even visible from the cable car stop.. Cable car stop is more for hikers to get on to the hiking path.

Some views from cable car station

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Tanigawa hidden behind mountain and clouds….

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Headed back home after this, again uneventful ride back home on Kanetsu

The FZ1 infront going up Shirane San, needs less than 300kms to reach 40,000 kms mark!

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GPS track

41

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

45

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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