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TheAussieinJapan

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Apr 15, 2014
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Hi all,

Since posting last year about me bumming around along different riverside routes to find more gravel, greenery, water, less people and less cyclists hammering along Arakawa I've not explored as much as I expected, although managed a few fun rides. Getting away from the metropolis did wonders for my mental health last year, and gravel cycling I find I'm not worried about average speed, watts, (most) KOMs, so noticed a lot of things I might zip past on a normal ride. In May the smaller rivers were full of Japanese carp swimming upstream exacty like the carp banners!

We have a gravel discussion in the "Anyone ride gravel thread" but during a recent chat with a buddy with us trying to decide to go for a gravel ride somewhere I thought it might be a good spot to list up the favourite gravel rides, or if hard to find gravel at least a bit more of an adventure ride. I've become quite fond of taking roads through farm areas, also exploring along smaller rivers to see how easy it is to ride along, with some surprising results. Most are a mixture of dirt roads, dirt/grass/gravel along top of riverbank, a bit of bush bashing where they cut the grass to a calendar not the length of grass and rivers between Tokyo & Kawagoe. Here's a few of my rough routes as well as the spots I've visited or have on my radar.

Kurome river ride

https://www.strava.com/activities/6795588178

Shingashi River
Kurome River
Ochiai River
Binnuma River
Furo River (next spot to explore in length)
Iruma River
Yorii 100 caves area.

My inspiration has been "Adventure in my own backyard" and find some sense of adventure fairly close to home, fill in the gaps on my heat map and discover something unexpected. Of course I could bike bag out of the region as well and think a few specific spots would be good to list up as well. I've also a few places that are nice to swim as we head to the warmer months as well.

Bike packing with camping spots, adventure rides with a river swim, coffee brew up (or beers), whatever falls outside of the normal morning laps feel free to share here.
 
For gravel I like this route (from the spaceship)

Out to lake tama on kuromegawa, which has some nice gravel parts
Then out and back round the gravel on lake Sayama.
From there you can either go back the way you came, or do something else
 
Hi all,

Since posting last year about me bumming around along different riverside routes to find more gravel, greenery, water, less people and less cyclists hammering along Arakawa I've not explored as much as I expected, although managed a few fun rides. Getting away from the metropolis did wonders for my mental health last year, and gravel cycling I find I'm not worried about average speed, watts, (most) KOMs, so noticed a lot of things I might zip past on a normal ride. In May the smaller rivers were full of Japanese carp swimming upstream exacty like the carp banners!

We have a gravel discussion in the "Anyone ride gravel thread" but during a recent chat with a buddy with us trying to decide to go for a gravel ride somewhere I thought it might be a good spot to list up the favourite gravel rides, or if hard to find gravel at least a bit more of an adventure ride. I've become quite fond of taking roads through farm areas, also exploring along smaller rivers to see how easy it is to ride along, with some surprising results. Most are a mixture of dirt roads, dirt/grass/gravel along top of riverbank, a bit of bush bashing where they cut the grass to a calendar not the length of grass and rivers between Tokyo & Kawagoe. Here's a few of my rough routes as well as the spots I've visited or have on my radar.

Kurome river ride

https://www.strava.com/activities/6795588178

Shingashi River
Kurome River
Ochiai River
Binnuma River
Furo River (next spot to explore in length)
Iruma River
Yorii 100 caves area.

My inspiration has been "Adventure in my own backyard" and find some sense of adventure fairly close to home, fill in the gaps on my heat map and discover something unexpected. Of course I could bike bag out of the region as well and think a few specific spots would be good to list up as well. I've also a few places that are nice to swim as we head to the warmer months as well.

Bike packing with camping spots, adventure rides with a river swim, coffee brew up (or beers), whatever falls outside of the normal morning laps feel free to share here.

Do you have a gpx file for this or other gravel routes you like? I don't pay for strava and they've put most of their features behind a paywall now.
 
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