robert j. mang cycling/travel

I said that more than once to myself in the last two days.  Sure I could’ve plotted a route that stayed in the river valleys or even along the coast, but that would’ve been boring. Each day I go up into the mountains and back down again to spend the night, then up in the mountains again.

But there were times- like when my route took me on this teeny little connector road that was actually longer than I thought and really steep and very remote – that I wondered if something with my navigation had gone wrong. But no, it got me to where I want to go!

I stopped to take a picture of the 10% grade sign, and then these guys came along. The road stayed at 8 to 10% grade for just over 10 miles. It was a beautiful smooth wonderful road the whole climb.

And then the next day I came to this intersection. I had been climbing for about 10 miles and now I had another 8k to go to the summit!  The road looked like it was basically wide enough for one car, which it was, but there weren’t any. 

There are ricefields everywhere

 All of the people working the fields are old, I’ve never seen one young person. It appears that they harvest the rice and then burn the remains.

One advantage of taking the quieter roads, besides the climbs is that you get to see beautiful spots like this. 

~ by Robert on October 2, 2014.

Posted in Cycling Japan, Japan, Travels
Tags: cycling, Cycling Japan, touring