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Big Wednesday

I like the twist in Magino - tried it out with Mike the other day.

Have fun! I will be exploring Rokko-san and the area behind.

Cheers, Ludwig
 
Nice route, but I need to work on Wed in the afternoon. So I will have to keep it short and fast. Hopefully, see you next time, Andy!
 
Hope the weather is as good as it is today.

Ludwig, the loop in Magino is the genius of Mapmyride following roads, not intentional, but if its so nice it could be used.

Serguei, you could get the train back from Otsuki?

Keren, bring something warm for the descent!

No idea what we'll find on the north side of Otoge after the recent rains, but I'll be sure to take my camera.
 
Otoge north open for business

First, thanks Keren for joining the ride, it would have been lonely without you!

We had a great journey today in perfect weather conditions, starting bang on 8.15am from Ome station. We had to start somewhere, and as taking the train all the way to Okutama seems like a waste of good cycling time, we stuck with Ome.

Plenty of traffic this morning heading all the way to Okutamako, and its the first time both Keren and I had cycled towards Oktamako and up the series of tunnels.
Not such a big deal in the end as we were soon at the lake, Id rather avoid all uphill tunnels when possible, but I wanted to avoid including another big climb like Tomin or Tsurutoge in the route to Matsuhime.

Great progress was made, up and over Matsuhime and enjoyed great views of Fuji, and across to Otoge. Didnt look too bad from here, but then we have to descend from 1240m to 700m by the lake first. The weather station displayed 9 degrees at the top, but in the glorious sunshine we were not even close to being chilly on the descent.

So the start of the feared Otoge north began - crossing the no entry barriers at the tunnel, it did feel like we were entering a forbidden zone. The leaves piled high, debris strewn across the road. But this was no more than could be expected in autumn after a typhoon and heavy rain, on any road which has no traffic.

Bears, landslides, potholes and unsealed roads were feared at every corner - except we never found any! It seems all the road work is complete, the climb is massive but there were no points at all on the road where we even considered not riding.

The road surface itself is great, yes there is much debris, but its all avoidable. I admit I did hit 2 stones which had all the potential to rip my tyres apart, but I safely sailed onwards and upwards. I would say Jimba onsen is in far worse condition than this road.

Then the descent south was fantastic, super fast with great views of Fuji san amidst the autumn colours. Huge difference to our training ride in April Steve, when we were up in the clouds!

Keren baled at Otsuki, but had a decent excuse that he was off to the running track for the regular Wednesday session. Thanks again for making it this far Keren!
I had the taste of caffeinated power gel by this point, so I made the most of the fantastic weather and continued my route home via 35 and the Onekai.

Only regret is that we didnt time the ascent of Otoge North, then we could have been on the TCC hall of fame, if only for a short while.
 
Great day out

Thanks for leading a great ride Andy on a perfect Autumnal day. Spectacular fall foliage. I can now strike Otoge off my "rides to do list". But it was a tough ride to do with a bad hangover. Snoozed well on the train back.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/55362010

And I wussed out of running, I got home at 18:00 and could not drag myself back out of the house.

K
 
The GPS-based speed readings are notoriously unreliable. I also find the elevation display on the connect site very unreliable. The readings on the device itself usually make sense, but the site displays very different figures, usually much higher. Maybe nice for the feel-good factor, but not quite accurate.
 
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