Last Ride of the year

Having everydone which possibly could have been done this year, I thought I spend the last morning of 2009 on the bike.

Because of a serioud lack of creativity, I chose to ride along Tsurumikawa to Onekan and continue to Yabitsu afterwards. Depending on the time, the general feeling and pure random, luck I considered also the options to ride up Hakone or ride back along the coast to Kamakura. Or commit suicide at the entry to Mikkuni Toge.

Of course I overslept in the morning - too much good food and good wine the night before must be held accountable but not me! The weather was OK, cold but sunny but there was a strong headwind an even with the HRM up to 160 I continued in the 20 -25 km/hr speed bracket along the Tsurimikawa. But it would come even worse: Once on the Onekan I got overtaken by two cyclists (none of them Deej from TCC). I felt miserable, a worthless piece of rotten human flesh, useless for any sportive activity and waiting to be thrown in the garbage bin for recycling. I guess nureachiba (濡れ落ち葉) is the Japanese word I am looking for; wet, fallen leaves that stick to the shoes of the diligent wife.

I took a turn on the tankroad and continued through Hashimoto to the North Tsukui Lake Road. Wonderful as always and completely quiet. It is like a road through a spellbound forest and the rather technical name does it no justice.

There are many things to see and many magic things that can happen there. There is the weekend house of the Colombian drug lord (or is it the house of Fujimori from Peru?) with the old Land Rover parked in front of it for a speedy escape. There is another house which is ornamented with old bicycle rims. Once riding there, I encountered a herd of monkeys just crossing the road in front of me. Today while riding, snowflakes gathered on the front of my Assos jacket. And once, I was riding with James and Ludwig, a mountain witch jumped out from the bushes, pointed her magic wand at my bicycle and said:

"Thou shall not speak badly about Single Speed Bicycles"

And with a small "plop" and a very small lighting, a cloud appeared and when it went away my Cervelo was magically converted to a single speed. Ask Ludwig or James, if you do not believe this story.

So instead of North Tuskui Lake Road, perhaps we can name this road "Magical Single Speed Monkey Forest"?

I then continued to Miyagase Lake, not looking at the Christmas tree but making the ascent up. I was a little bit worried after Jerome has told me that he slipped on ice there, but the road was free of snow and ice. I was also worried about the weather, there were some dark clouds and it had lightly started to snow at Tsukui. It reminded me of the first time when I went up Yabitsu with Juliane and we got soaked in the rain. The road was also very quiet, I encountered maybe ten cars on the way up and no cyclist at all. I made it to the pass in a little bit more than 53 minutes - not too shabby for this time of the season. Reconfirmed, that I am not useless at all, I took a photo in front of the "Quansi Nationalpark" which might become one day the centerfold for Silver Riders or something like this.I did all of this in one go from my house without any break in about 3:45 hours.

The weather continued to be good and I made my way down on the south side. There were good views from the observation points just as James and Ludwig have seen them on their last ride over Yabitsu. Fuji-san was also visible for the last time of the year.2009 has been a year of constant exploration of new roads, so I thought that I should also try something new on this last ride. So after the hairneedle curve and the observation tower I took the forest road down to Hadano. There is a gate on the top which is no real obstacle for a man and bis bike. Interestingly enough there is also a security camera mounted on a pole next to the gate.The road is rather steep but in very good shape and there is not too much debris on its surface. Going down isn't so much fun, but this might be a nice alternative to climb Yabitsu from the South side (which we rarely do anyway).

The rest was boring: Down to Hadano, Bento capital of the world and back by train to Yokohama. But a nice last ride for a good riding year and a good chance to reflect on the whole year while riding.