Zendo rides: These roads are crazy steep!
Alison and I are at a Zendo/Zen Temple for a week. It’s in a remote location in the mountains near Nagano, an area known as the “Japan Alps”. Most days I’m doing a loop or out & back ride.
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All the mountain roads have mirrors at the switchbacks
The roads are small and insanely steep. My first ride was an out & back up the road near the Zen-do to where the pavement ended.
A rare sight: young people harvesting rice.
In the first two miles I gained 1100 feet. I was out of the saddle with everything I had and my speed was about 2-3 mph. Just nuts. At the turnaround point I rode 7.8 miles and gained 3100’. About the same gain to Santa Fe Ski, only in half the distance!
Its almost impossible to accurately capture a road grade in a photo.
One other climb was about 2 hours with grades consistently between 9 and 19%. The total ride was 5,000 ft of gain, going up for only 11 miles. At one point my GPS said 30%, which I’m not convinced is true, but the grade was like nothing I’ve ever cycled. It was all I could do to keep moving forward.
Oh, and the best part: the road was beautiful pavement, small, went on another 6 miles past my turnaround point, and I saw 2 cars. The downhill was blazing fast.
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robert j. mang cycling/travel 