What's new

Tsukuba climbing in Feb: yay or nay?

Andy in Tokyo

Maximum Pace
Dec 16, 2012
605
824
Chaps,

I was extremely busy *cough* at work today and somehow found myself playing with Strava's route builder. With the mountains to the west of Tokyo looking pretty tricky at this time of year, I was wondering if anyone had tried doing Mt Tsukuba instead.

I was thinking about doing a shortish 60k recon mission, starting and finishing at Tsukuba station (route here), probably not this weekend but maybe on 22-23rd Feb.

Is it doable, or do the roads tend to be on the icy side, rammed with cars on weekends, etc? Any info would be much appreciated!
 
One of the old fellas I ride with on occasion said Tsukuba tends not to get snowed on at all and is doable all year. He's been riding the area since I was a gleam in my pappy's eye and tends to know what he's on about.
Only been that way once myself and it was mid week in the summer. I'd be interested in going, too, but my weekends are not mine anymore.
 
Depending on weather leading up to it would determine if its a yah or nah. It is fairly popular for all sorts of motorists and thus you need to be on the edge of the road. I would say it would be safer to look at options in Chiba.
 
Thanks everyone for the info. Doesn't sound quite as promising as I'd hoped. Just did a YouTube search for 筑波スカイライン and it's full of Impreza WRX's hurtling round corners at full pelt. I get enough idiots on my commute. Can't be chewed with them on weekends as well!
 
Yep, thats the vibe, I cycled there last year and quite enjoyed it and there are some ascents that are quieter than others. But one road has all the motorbikes dragging knees and the other main one gets a lot of speedy drivers. Not fun when you can hear a motorbike coming up the mountain behind you at 12000RPM. (Not fun for the motorbike guy either coming around a corner to find a cyclist dawdling up the road on their racing line!)
 
We wanted to go last year for the ume-blossom season, which should be around the end of February, but we never got to it. There is a ume forest on the west side of the ridge, just google for 筑波山梅林. We may be up for it on February 22, I'll be out of town for the following two weekends. In that case we'll probably ride out like this.

If you avoid the main road on the ridgeline, it is a quite fun and beautiful area to ride in.
 
@Aron B Nice route! I'd be interested in doing that. Might not be able to do the whole thing, but would at least join the route somewhere near the first climb.
 
Back
Top Bottom