Bike trip

Well here is some more about the bike trip.

First thing, the route: Click Here For Map

We started at 6:30am in Shibuya, and spent the first hour and a half really just getting out of Tokyo. We stopped at a MacDonalds somewhere on the outskirts of the built-up areas, and had coffee and a muffin. Then on to the real riding.

The highlight (?) of the trip out to Takayama was the road 299. If you zoom in far enough on the map you will be able to see how windy it is. Great if you are on a light sporty bike. Unfortunately mine weighed a ton and was built for touring. Throwing it round corners was hard work, and there were many switchbacks along the way.

The scenery was spectacular. Given the time of year, the trees were a great range of reds, yellows, and oranges. As I said the other day I did not take the camera so I will have to get photos off the other guys.

The road gets up to around 2000 metres, so the temperature change was noticeable. At the top there is a lookout from which there is a great 360-degree view. Then going down the other side it was back to the switchbacks and tight turns. Going downhill on a heavy bike is harder than going up.

Around midday we decided that it was taking much longer to get there than planned, and so we choose to get to the motorway and take the jump north. This took about 45 minutes, and gained a lot of distance. Then it was back to smaller roads (but bigger than the 299). At this point the rain started. We were back to climbing up into the mountains towards Takayama. Lots of tunnels, colourful trees, and amazing hillsides and gorges. It would have been better if it was not raining and we could have stopped and looked.

We got to Takayama around 5pm, and then had to find the hotel. We thought it was next to the train station, but it wasn't. However there was a tourist information booth at the station, and they gave us directions for a 5-minute ride outside of time. The hotel was Associa - a great place with an onsen.

We checked in (scruffy in biking gear while a wedding party proceeded through the lobby), unpacked, and then went down to the onsen to warm up.

Dinner was a beef bbq restaurant back in town, which I enjoyed but the other guys thought was too fatty. In Japan, more fat marbled through the meat means better quality. Then back to the hotel by 9:30 ( the rest of the town had already shut down as far as we could see).

The next morning we decided to take it a bit easier, trying to use the motorway to skip the original 1.5 hours in Tokyo. That meant we could have breakfast (western style) at the hotel before leaving. We were back on the road by 8:15, in the rain. We got safely back down the mountains to the motorway, and decided that it would be horrible to try the 299 in the wet. So we agreed to take the motorway all the way back to Tokyo.

Racing down the motorway is much easier, even in the rain. We stopped at one of the motorway services aroun 11:30 for lunch. Tonkatsu with Miso soup. Yum. And an icecream. Then back onto the bikes (I swapped bikes with David, who was riding a Street Triple - 675 cc). We got back into Tokyo around 2pm, much faster than the trip outwards.

It was a bit of a shame that the weather was not great, but the trip itself was great. I just need to get full use of my hands back, after the strain of moving the bike around!