June 8
Tendo Onsen - Hiraizumi
The hotels all blur together after a while, but I do recall that I wasn't all that keen to leave last night's ryokan. Very comfy room and I had a great sleep on the futon on the floor. But, alas, time to move on. Today was billed as a ride of 140 km and 2388 m of climbing. Ugh..... Thankfully there was an option, which all but 5 hearty souls chose. Sam had arranged for a bus to take us the first 38 km and reduce the day to 102 km.
The first picture is the view out of the window this morning. Nice view, but it looks like another cloudy day in paradise.
Actually the forecast at this end isn't awful but 100% chance of rain all day at our destination. Guess we're going to get wet.......... Here's our luxury liner.
The plan was to drop us at the bottom of the biggest climb of the day. Really, could the bus not just go a few more miles up the hill??? Once we were on the road, though, it was obvious that we wouldn't have wanted to miss this section. Yes, a challenging climb, but the views started to open up about 6 km into it, and even with the clouds it was magnificent.
Then about a 25 km downhill run - wonderful! Along much of this stretch they had these SOS phones about every km. Quite the infrastructure. Makes you wonder just how many people get stranded and have to call for help. The poles along the sides of the roads, especially on bridges, makes me think they get a lot of snow here.
As usual, they have lots of personnel out on any construction sites. In addition to live bodies (who adjusted traffic flow on the fly to let us pass quickly), they had these signs with flashing images of flag-people (not shown very well in these photos). In another instance today there were a number of workers out with their whipper-snippers cutting back foliage. And there was another worker with them who would blow a whistle as we approached so that the whipper-snipping would cease as we rode by. I felt like royalty!
Saw this interesting picture at one of our turns. Apparently drinking and riding is frowned upon.
After the long stretch of downhill, we had some riding on the flats for a bit. We've been doing so much up and downhill riding for so long that I've almost forgotten what it's like to ride on the flats. Rice paddies, of course, and these interesting structures that look like they could be unfurled. Snow fences? Although - at quite a low elevation.....
I took a pic of this little rice paddy above to show how every little bit of land is used to the max. During the ride it has been interesting to see some of the labour that goes into maintaining the small gardens everywhere. Many people tending their small gardens with hand tools and good old manual labour. And speaking of old........ most of the people we have seen in the fields are older. I'm assuming the young folks have migrated to the cities. Many of the small towns seem to be run-down and perhaps struggling to survive. We've been on the road long enough, as well, to see the growth of the rice plants in the rice paddies - from planting a few weeks ago to larger plants now.
A few more punchy climbs and we were at lunch. About 42 km for us, and about 80 km for those who rode from the hotel. Those were mostly the stronger riders, so everyone got to lunch about the same time.
It had just started to spit around lunchtime. All the electronics were put away and waterproofed, but we got in about another 20 km before it started to come down in earnest. Thank goodness the temperature didn't get too cool - it hovered around the mid-teens all day. So, with intermittent hills for the rest of the day I didn't need to put on a jacket. Just got wet from the rain and warmed up by working my way up all the hills. To be honest, I didn't see much of the ride after the rain started. Between raindrops on my glasses and trying to negotiate around puddles on the road, potentially slippery roads on the downhills, and being more aware of traffic and visibility issues, I wasn't doing a lot of sightseeing. But, I did spot a 7-Eleven and stopped in for a delicious packaged chocolate eclair. I'm really going to have to clean up my diet when I get home. I've consumed so much snack food from the mighty three - 7-Eleven, Family Mart and Lawson Station. As we get in to "wild Japan", though, we have seen fewer of these convenience stores and seemingly more and more vending machines dispensing all manner of drink. Google/AI tells me there is one vending machine per 23 people in Japan; the highest density of vending machines globally. By comparison Canada has one vending machine per 30-40 people. Where they are in Japan is unique, though. So many out in the middle of nowhere. Sylvie posted this picture yesterday of machines she found with a cute little table and chairs beside them.
Our hotel is amazing! More on that tomorrow.
Stats for the Day:
Garmin: 102.1 km. 3675 feet up. 4078 feet down. Rain and heavy cloud cover probably missed some of the elevation.
RWGPS: 102.9 km. 1995 m up. 2072 m down.
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