I've fallen a bit behind with posting century rides and pictures. Meanwhile I'm up to 27 consecutive months of "one century ride a month". I wrote the following report on Monday, Oct 13, 2014:
===
On Sunday I rode 198 km ride with 2095 m of climbing in the Chichibu area (including ride from the station after train return to Tokyo). It was my fourth ride there but my first one alone to the Ogurazawa (小倉沢) ruins in the mountains of Saitama, better known in English as Nichitsu ghost town.
Here's a picture of one of the workers' dormitories from
my first ride in November 2012:
Here's what I found yesterday:
With damaged roofs and broken or open windows, all these structures will gradually rot and collapse.
I had already set off for this ride on Saturday, only having to turn around an hour from home with a broken RD cable. After fixing it, I rescheduled the ride for the next day and almost got Mike to join me. Maybe it was better that he couldn't make it. I doubt he would have been into descending the rindo (forest road) the other side of the tunnel above the ghost town in the dark in fog and drizzle, which is what I ended up doing. And my phone kept powering down before I got to the ruins, which I guess wouldn't have made any difference after an accident because I was out of cell phone reception anyway.
Anyway, I got up at 04:30 to leave at 05:30 for a 06:00 meetup with Mike, but then got his email that he couldn't make it. So I set off on my own on a fairly loaded bike (2 water bottles, train bag, wind breaker, winter jacket, nylon rain pants, ski gloves, dried figs and mangoes, 2nd spare tube, spare camera batteries). I actually used almost everything I carried, except for the winter gloves, spare tubes and tools.
Train spotters were out in full force at one railway bridge over the Tamagawa:
I was slower than usual on the way to Oume, where I had some coffee at a convenience store.
Tamagawasui shrine:
The Hamura water works supplies much of Tokyo with drinking water taken from the Tamagawa:
Outlander PHEV being recharged at a Mitsubishi dealer:
I followed Pete's recommended Oume-to-Chichibu route via Yamabushi toge.
At a temple near Naguri:
I arrived in Chichibu a little after noon and took a break at a convenience store. I headed on around 12:40. Out in the countryside the autumn leaves were only just starting.
(continued below)