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Wiki Rivers with cycle paths

microcord

Maximum Pace
Aug 28, 2012
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Thank you for setting this up, and I thank the contributors for adding to it.

I'm grateful to @Half-Fast Mike for elaborating on the river routes and linking to an informative map for Tamagawa.

Um, well, I have to admit that I'm also slightly annoyed with HFM for thereby rendering (almost?) totally redundant a text version of the same which I'd been drafting in free moments over the last couple of days. Damn. Though he and I don't disagree by much, and his map is much easier to follow than my 20th-century-style series of names and links.

Wikipedia itself allows (and more often than not actually has) a talk/discussion page for each article. Once their "archives" are added, some of these have a lot more bulk than the articles themselves, and show more heat than light. However, the great majority of articles are about uncontroversial subjects, and their talk pages have constructive questions and comments, and are amicable and lead to improvements.

I wonder if it would be possible to add (or provide for) a talk page for each wiki page that's here. So to continue with the river routes example, I'd ask Mike (or anyone else) whether the green section along the right bank was advisable. (I've taken it several times, and each time didn't enjoy the experience -- following Half-Fast Ira, I instead take the side streets here.) Responses could be "no, you must have had unusually bad luck", or "if you can be bothered to make a new map that shows the slightly more complex route, then go ahead", or whatever.

If talk pages don't seem to be a good idea (and maybe they do invite talk for the sake of talk), or if they simply aren't possible, then could/should one start (constructive!) discussions in this area of the forum?
 
Discussion pages; working on this now, as it happens. Will complete later today and roll out the feature.
That will be great. Thank you.

In response to @microcord's comment
I'd ask Mike (or anyone else) whether the green section along the right bank was advisable. (I've taken it several times, and each time didn't enjoy the experience -- following Half-Fast Ira, I instead take the side streets here.) Responses could be "no, you must have had unusually bad luck", or "if you can be bothered to make a new map that shows the slightly more complex route, then go ahead", or whatever.
I thought for a while about this. If I have to choose one route, it makes sense to choose the one that I actually use, even though there alternatives. In this case the alternatives are Ira's 'dicking around the back streets' route or crossing over to the left bank earlier at Tamasuidobashi. I don't like the former because it's slow. I don't like the latter because it takes in all the new bastard Fuchu bastard speed bumps and the horrible traffic-in-your-face section between the bike path and the bridge. In contrast, I have no problem with the 2 km of road and usually tuck myself behind a concrete mixer to draft at 40 - 45 km/h.

But that's my personal preference. As self-appointed Cartographer-General I do feel a nagging sense of duty to point out alternate routes where they exist. RideWithGPS and the other online mapping tools are not really ideal for this, as they typically only allow a single route to be plotted.

However it seems that with a "Basic" ($50/year) package it is possible to make and group similar/related/alternate routes together as an event. I might have to put my money where my mouth is on this one.

As for text adventures or cue sheets... As recently as 2006 I was asked to follow the following. It reminded me very much of 1970s Parish Council Treasure Hunt directions. Aaargh! Traumatic memories of three kids on the back seat of a Morris Minor Traveller. Somewhere I also have a 'virtual photo diary' describing vistas from the same trip - apparently no-one wanted to carry a camera.

Naoetsu to Yunose Onsen, Nagano Pref.

Naoetsu station to Hiway 292 headed SSE to Iiyama

(or leave 292 at Kitaarai and climb over Seikida toge (1100 m) on Hiway 95 and then go down to Iiyama)

Cross the Chikuma River and use a secondary road parallel (more or less) to an old railroad right of way (tracks missing?)

Come back to 292 and follow it

(At or near Arai 292 crosses 403. Our route leaves 292 and follows 403)


follow 403 to Obuse machi,

(but it seems possible to keep to secondary roads to Shinshunagano and to follow the road by the railroad tracks (Nagano Dentetsu) to Kamitakai gun and Obuse machi)


Continue on 403 around Nagano to Yashiro

Follow 18 out of Yashiro

(Just after Yashiro it looks possible to cross the Chikuma River on Heiwa Bashi or the next bridge south of it to secondary roads on the left bank )


Pass through an old post town whose name I forgot

Rejoin 18. Follow it to the outskirts of Ueda.

Turn right off 18 and follow local streets down to the Chikuma.

Follow cycling paths on the right bank of the Chikuma

Cross the Chikuma and pick up the road on the other bank (left bank)

Do not cross the river, stay right and high until Komoro Ohashi.


Cross the street and descend to Yonosu Onsen

About 150 km


Yunose Onsen to Saitama

Cross the old suspension bridge across the Chiguma River in front of the ryokan. Rejoin 18

Follow 18 and tertiary roads to Miyota


Head South and East on tertiary and quaternary roads and pick up a small river. follow its left bank past golf courses. Do not cross the bridge over the river but turn right uphill just before the bridge.

Follow quaternary roads through fields to a secondary road. Turn right and follow it to the southern outskirts of Karuizawa.

Turn right and head for Usui Toge (934 m)

turn right before the pass and follow the right alternative to the Usui Karuizawa interchange

Take the secondary road on the left just before the entrance to the express way.

Descend the hill and take the tertiary road to the right just before the road down the hill deadends on a secondary road at a T intersection.


After a ways, the tertiary road rejoins the secondary road

Right on the secondary road and follow it to the express way.


Cross under the express way and pick up a secondary road on the right side of the expressway leading away from the expressway and up hill.

Descend the far side of the hill (don't take the road coming in from the left part way up)

At the four way intersection at the bottom, turn left.
 
I prefer Cycling to Orienteering, therefore quite happy to rely on HFC Mike's 'vetted' routes. It would be very cool if one of the online mapping SAAS had a more 'Wikilike' treatment where editors could hack up routes and you could choose accordingly, different spurs, sidetracks, detours, etc. Great work on this, Mike! Getting in and out of Tokyo Metro is the cornerstone of Cycling in Tokyo.
 
But that's my personal preference. As self-appointed Cartographer-General I do feel a nagging sense of duty to point out alternate routes where they exist. RideWithGPS and the other online mapping tools are not really ideal for this, as they typically only allow a single route to be plotted.
However it seems that with a "Basic" ($50/year) package it is possible to make and group similar/related/alternate routes together as an event. I might have to put my money where my mouth is on this one.
I am still working on this, but I seem to have created an "Event" called Tamagawa Cycling Road on which I can group various versions and alternate sections.

http://ridewithgps.com/events/Tamagawa-Cycling-Road

So I'll add them. Let me know if you like it.
 
I was going to nag about this and that little stretch of the route, but the variants added to the route have preempted me.

In particular, I do prefer the back streets to the main road between the mouth of Nikaryō-hongawa (二ヶ領本川) and Tamagawara-bashi (多摩川原橋). The back streets have their own minor charms (e.g. some bloke seems to have parked two of his cars on a two-story steel contraption thirty-plus years ago and thereafter forgotten them). But this is now marked as an alternative route, so fine.

There doesn't seem to be agreement on where this path starts and ends. The current definition accords with the longest one I've ever read. I don't object to it at all, but (with no more justification) I tend to think of the ride as going from the torii here to the bronze statue of the Tamagawa brothers. (Japan loves its civic pride and somewhat pompous notices; it's always puzzled me that whoever's responsible for these paths seems so uninterested in announcing where they begin and end. In particular, the upstream end of the Arakawa path: "I've ridden along this thing for 50+ km; don't I get an o-tsukaresan signpost? Nothing?")

I've made a few tweaks anyway. If/where I screwed up, feel free to revert me.
 
@Half-Fast Mike , does the Arakawa cycling wotsit really lead upstream to Kokuei Musashi-kyuryo-shinrin-koen (plus macrons)? While going upstream and close to the end, I don't remember seeing any instructions to turn left away from the river, and thought that the wotsit instead ended right here, next to a big intersection with route 407 (turn right and cross the river to get to Tonegawa). Anyway this is the anticlimactic ending that I was referring to in the message immediately above.

(I can easily believe that this park is a far better place to meet up before or after the ride than is the intersection.)
 
@microcord it's my belief that the trail ends at the park even though the last 5 km are really on roads.

This site seems to agree

http://www.bike-plus.com/pleasure/course/road_of_arakawa.html

Certainly the park is a nice destination, having 17 km of cycle paths inside. Then if you leave by the right exit there's a cycle trail all the way to Shinrinkoen station and a train back home.
 
I know from personal expirence that it leads up to Kumagaya at least (used to use it every work day) and have ridden it from Gyoda (home) to the bay in Tokyo without leaving the river side.
 
I know from personal expirence that it leads up to Kumagaya at least (used to use it every work day) and have ridden it from Gyoda (home) to the bay in Tokyo without leaving the river side.

Yeah, it does leave the river a bit (sometimes up to nearly a kilometer away on the Kumagaya side of the river, but that isn't considered the cycling road, it's just a path that conveniently follows the rive after the proper road veers left for Higashi Matsuyama Shinrin Kouen. But my memory of it is nearly 20 years old. If you cross the Arakawa with Route 66 and then you can take a small road up the river on your left. Google map and street view will show it. Start here with the small road to the left as you cross the very long bridge http://www.panoramio.com/photo/52685339
 
@Half-Fast Mike , well well, you're right and I'm wrong; not only do you have that web page; there's also this map from Saitama-ken (PDF, slow download). And Saitama-ken ought to know.

No, no opinions on where the path goes to at the other end. Yes I've been to Kasai-Rinkai-kouen, but only as an unthinking (but huffing and puffing) tagger-on to HF rides. Instead, I get on at Adachi-ku, and from there proceed to what I fondly if wrongly believed was the upstream extremity of the cycle path.

(And then cross the Arakawa, head north along route 341 for Tonegawa, and follow it almost all the way to Shibukawa. Slowly, of course. I've never yet explored Tonegawa downstream of Kumagaya; I'd like to try. Upstream, I have to say that after an excellent start and crossing first to the left bank and then back to the right, the Tonegawa path gets boring and stays boring until I emerge from Maebashi.)
 
@Chris Williams I would be interested to see a map of that.

Map ---- I just remember coming out of the house heading onto the cycle path/ path on top of the bank on the LH side going down stream and cycling though sports grounds, passed a golf course (I think) etc and ending up in Tokyo bay. If I am correct around 60 odd kms each way. I crossed over to the RH side some where and this took me all the way down
 
However it seems that with a "Basic" ($50/year) package it is possible to make and group similar/related/alternate routes together as an event. I might have to put my money where my mouth is on this one.

I have the RWGPS Basic package. Give me a shout if you want me to try something!
 
Today th' missus and I were going to go up the Tama together. We set off together but I got to Hamura (and Ōme) alone.

I had this wiki page on my mind, and so paid more attention than usual to the signage. Along the right bank, I didn't notice any sign that I was on any particular named route. Along the left bank I was reminded fairly frequently that I was on たま リバー50キロ (Tama ribā 50 kiro) = "Tama River 50km", that this runs from 羽村取水堰 (Hamura shusuiseki) = "Hamura intake weir" to 大師橋緑地 (Daishi-bashi ryokuchi) = "Daishi-bashi field", and that the distance between the two was 53 km. (Daishi-bashi field is here.)

In Hamura, just outside the loo close to the statue of brothers Tamagawa, is a large metal plate with a map of the whole thing. This shows that "Tama River 50km" follows the left bank for all of its 53km. There's a warning that some stretches go along regular roads and some are unmetalled. It keeps very close to the river; however, there's an occasional very small zigzag away from the river, and one very short stretch is actually in the river -- a helping hand for fatbike sales? Unmentioned in the map/explanation, I think, is any description of what "Tama River 50km" is or aspires to be. There's not even an invitation to walk along it.

Ja:Wikipedia takes us (via the Wayback machine) to the straight dope. This ... thing is for walking and running (both exotic katakana imports), strolling, etc. (Does the "etc" include cycling? Who knows.) It was named たま リバー50キロ (including space!) in July 2008 thanks to the popularity of this suggested name. (I might have suggested スティーヴン・コルベア・まま・ぱぱチャリ・遊歩道.)
 
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I know from personal expirence that it leads up to Kumagaya at least (used to use it every work day) and have ridden it from Gyoda (home) to the bay in Tokyo without leaving the river side.
Heading up the Arakawa, rather than ending in HFM's very lovely park, here is the alternative route that takes you to Kumagaya.
 
Riding up the northern end of Arakawa is like reading a "Choose your own adventure" You never know where you will end up. I'm yet to make it to any park….
 
Riding up the northern end of Arakawa is like reading a "Choose your own adventure" You never know where you will end up. I'm yet to make it to any park….

That's funny: to me, the northern end of Arakawa is pretty obvious. It's the middle where I'm stumped. (And a bit depressed, passing one damn golf course after another. All those herbicides!) I'm often worried that I'm on the wrong path (side?) and am about to find that a clear route just stops. (And this has happened. Moreover, once I actually discovered I'd been cycling along a longish island, and was about to reach its end.) I do like the ninety-degree turns among rice fields, though I've quite forgotten where the rice fields come.
 
I made it to that park once, but it was one of the dullest rides I've ever done. You'll need music or company (or mind-altering drugs) to make the journey an entertaining one.
 
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