Flipping through the back pages of the Positivo Espresso blog, I believe that we have now a quite impressive collection of roads and climbs in the greater Tokyo area and I wonder if it would be possible to publish them as a book. Clearly, Tokyo is not exactly first choice when it comes to the target selection for the next cycle holidays but still I feel that there are many people out who want to escape from the city on the bike and make day trips without too much hassle.
I thought about a structure with some general introduction to Japan, some information about Tokyo, cycling in Japan and general tips and hints, followed by a selection of routes we have taken in the past with maps or mapmyride links. The idea is to have them as connected modules, so you can add modules together and devise your own ride.
This is what I was doing when I rode out yesterday :
Module : Hashimoto Station - Tsukui Ko North road - Doshi Michi Entry at Mikabi
Module : Doshi Michi entry Mikabi - Doshi Route 76 Crossing at Aone
Module : Route 76 Aone - Route 35/76 Crossing
Module : Route 35 / 76 Crossing to Road 139
Module : Route 130 - Dosaka Pass - Doshi Michi
.... and so on.
Any idea how to tackle such a project and who would be interested in publishing this? Of course for me alone that would be too much of a task, any interest to join?
Actually, I have had a similar idea, though was thinking of doing this less by geographical area than by type of ride or type of scenery. So could be something like flat vs hilly vs mountain training, and/or long-distance vs day-return vs half-day, and/or deserted mountain roads and passes vs rural farming valleys vs classic roads vs city tours or similar.
ReplyDeleteAnd then the idea would be to use as much of what we already have and all my unpublished GPS trails into hitherto unknown territory and avoid much new research etc.
We could also have a small section on trips away from Tokyo: Izu for sure, Gunma, Ibaraki, Hokkaido, Kyushu and maybe lots more?