One Last Ride on the RAMAX before Departure for Cascade 1400

We decided to head out on take the route of a recent 600km brevet that went out of town to the NW, then along the edge of the mountains in Saitama, and eventually through Takasaki, Maebashi, Shibukawa, and eventually into Niigata and down to Echigo Yuzawa.  If the weather held, we might get to a connecting route to Nagano -- Iiyama, then Nagano-shi, or even further, before heading back the following day, as both of us had commitments on Sunday afternoon.

Saitama rest stop

The Akagi Ice Factory -- where Gari-Gari-kun ice treats are made. 

Finally, Takasaki!

We made decent if not spectacular time (averaging 23.5kph moving speed for the day), grabbed an early lunch at Takasaki, then headed along as the road slowly, slowly turns up and eventually begins a grindingly long climb. 

Between Shibukawa and Numata

On the lower stretches of the Route 17 climb - water everywhere!

After a few raindrops leaving Tokyo, the weather stayed essentially dry until we got to the real climb toward Mikuni Pass (between Gunma and Niigata, not one of the other "Mikuni" Passes in Japan). At Akaya Lake, we could see that the weather was closing in and thunderstorms were approaching.

Looking back down the hill from Lake Akaya, our U-turn location

Coming soon - thunderstorm!

We headed back down the hill .. and up another nasty short hill ... to Jomo Kogen Station where we could hop a shinkansen home.  Jerome made it before the rain started.  I had trailed him on the last climb, and at the top paused to get out my phone and check that I would take the most direct route to the station. ... The heavens opened up when I was about 750m from the station, and the cooling rain felt wonderful.

We did not quite make it to Echigo Yuzawa ... we were easily within an hour of the tunnel that leads to Niigata and a fast descent past Naeba and to Yuzawa. But would have been a wild, wet, and dark descent in the thunderstorm if we had tried. And we certainly did not get to Iiyama. But it was a decent 200km day ride, my first trip up Route 17 from Shibukawa toward Mikuni in quite a few years.

Finally a dynamo light on the RAMAX -- the last ingredient for long rides.
The fork is not drilled for a rim brake so I attached the light at the back of the fork and used the attachment hardware creatively. Seems to work.

There is little clearance between the light hardware and the tire. Would not work with any larger tire. Eventually I will need to find a better solution.