Thank you both for the company! Brilliant weather though we have now definitely entered the season where one feels overdressed on a climb and underdressed on a descent.
I had plenty of these yesterday - ended up doing all the passes as planned, i.e. six major ones in total: Otarumi (with Sergei), Hinazuru, Dosaka (with Sergei and Mike), Gando, Wada and Iriyama. Here is the GPS track:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/55660186
The steeper of the two climbs from Doshimichi to Gando Toge turned out to be indeed very steep (basically non-stop 12 to 16 percent), but the concrete road is solid and the scenery nice, so I was up in no time. I descended the other side relatively slowly. Even though not so steep, there are plenty of plants growing into the road, sand and stones on the road and even oncoming traffic (Gando Toge is completely open to cars - I encountered five of them).
It was a pleasure climbing the west side of Wada in bright sunlight and autumn colours. I took the north approach (i.e. not east) down to the entrance to the climb to Iriyama Toge. Also this rindo is totally passable, though some care with stones, leaves and moss is required. The Iriyama rindo was also closed to traffic, though surprisingly I encountered three cyclists coming down. All without helmet. Actually during the day, I had seen a surprising number of helmet-less cyclists - was there some news that helmets have become obsolete, even on remote mountain descends?? There were plenty of quite big stones on the climb up - certainly a risk for those going down. The other side was a lot cleaner, so I would definitely recommend taking Iriyama Toge from the south side as I did this time (for the first time).
As I got onto the Tamagawa, I overtook one of these riders who go quite slowly, but when you pass them, their pride tells them they have to show that they can at least follow you. I was actually in no mood to do more racing, but this totally pink guy (pink bicycle and pink team kit) was a bit too annoying. I chose to navigate various obstacles and bad stretches of path simply at sufficiently fast speed, yet without pushing up my heart rate much, and after a short while he gave up.
This contrasts with another fast rider (maybe around 60) I encountered a week ago. We took turns very nicely without ever talking, cruising at just over 40km/h along the Tamagawa until our ways parted. That was fun!
