18 March 2008

Tour de Kyushu [Day 2] : Fukuoka - Nagasaki

my second day was one way ... up ! climbing , climbing and more climbing ! what would be a dream for any hobby cyclist was a pain for me ... a) i am not in shape and b) i was carrying additional weight was made a huge difference ! i chose to go avoid the main roads which meant i had to take huge diversions - which turned out to be a good idea as the road i was going on were totally deserted ... a dream for any cyclist. fukuoka was a pain to get out ... but the further i got away to better it was getting ... i did roughly 20 km of pure climbing before I got to Takeo Onsen ... i took my lunch break here [about 1,5 hours later than anticipated] ... the sign there read 79 km left to nagasaki, while my clock read 2pm, which meant i had to hurry up in order to make it.






i was doing well going along the main road floating with the traffic until i made a decision to turn left after i passed Ureshino Onsen, to take a much quiter road through the mountains to get away from the traffic [along road 6] ... this turned out to be another "crazy" climb which didnt seem to end [it stretched for 10 km ] .. however there was literally no traffic and the landscape looked amazing .. finally i got to the top and i found out why there had been no traffic .. the road was all closed and i was mad (!!!) as it would mean i had to go back .. in my desperation i skipped the road barrier and tried to get past the road construction work which was all about building a connecting bridge ... it looked completed but wasnt ... however the was an old road bypassing it (lucky me) .. i got back on my bike to head down to Oomura, when it started to rain ... damn ! it was only another 30 km to Nagasaki and enough time left to reach it before sunset ... however the rain was too strong and i was soaked in no time, which caused me to head for the next train station.. my tachometer read 141km when i finally got off. tomorrow will be a day without cycling as its supposed to rain all day .. i will use the time to do sightseeing in Nagasaki.

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