Our training for the loop around Lake Biwa is progressing at a nice pace. We finished last week with a total exceeding 150 kilometres, including a very enjoyable 89km ride on Saturday.
This ride took under five hours (but more than 3000 calories), and was a very useful to test our stamina under the summer heat.
As you know if you have been following the project from the start, we already had some longer outings. The longest to date was 121 kilometres, but this was on May 14th, and the temperature was a lot more comfortable back then.
As our loop is now scheduled for late July, it is important that we get used to cycling for several hours with temperatures well above 30 degrees.
Here are some details about the path we took. We left from our apartment close to Osaka University (Suita campus), and cycled towards Toyokawa station. There, we turned right onto route 171 (which goes from Nishinomiya to Kyoto). We followed this route until Oyamazaki, where we turned right to cross the river and to turn left onto route 13. After cycling past Fushimimomoyama station, we followed route 7 and later routes 36 and 35, until we reached the old Tokaido (route 1), that used to be the main link between Kyoto and Edo (former Tokyo). There, we had a fairly steep climb until just after Otani station, where we reached the ruins of what used to be the Osakayama resting station on the Tokaido. After a short break, we turned around and cycled back home.
Overall, this gives the route and elevation profile shown below, (and provided by the very useful Running Ahead website that I use to keep track of my training, along with the equally nice Dailymile).
To give you a taste of what this looked like, here is a brief video. Feel free to share it with your friends and colleagues, to help spread the word about our project. This would be much appreciated.
Let me know in the comments what you think of this type of video summary of our adventures. If enough people are interested, I might do the same thing for future rides and for the loop around the lake.
The overall objective for this week is to ride about 150km again, probably with another long ride during the week-end. Updates will of course be available on this blog, as well as on our Facebook page and on Twitter.
This ride took under five hours (but more than 3000 calories), and was a very useful to test our stamina under the summer heat.
As you know if you have been following the project from the start, we already had some longer outings. The longest to date was 121 kilometres, but this was on May 14th, and the temperature was a lot more comfortable back then.
As our loop is now scheduled for late July, it is important that we get used to cycling for several hours with temperatures well above 30 degrees.
Here are some details about the path we took. We left from our apartment close to Osaka University (Suita campus), and cycled towards Toyokawa station. There, we turned right onto route 171 (which goes from Nishinomiya to Kyoto). We followed this route until Oyamazaki, where we turned right to cross the river and to turn left onto route 13. After cycling past Fushimimomoyama station, we followed route 7 and later routes 36 and 35, until we reached the old Tokaido (route 1), that used to be the main link between Kyoto and Edo (former Tokyo). There, we had a fairly steep climb until just after Otani station, where we reached the ruins of what used to be the Osakayama resting station on the Tokaido. After a short break, we turned around and cycled back home.
Overall, this gives the route and elevation profile shown below, (and provided by the very useful Running Ahead website that I use to keep track of my training, along with the equally nice Dailymile).
To give you a taste of what this looked like, here is a brief video. Feel free to share it with your friends and colleagues, to help spread the word about our project. This would be much appreciated.
Let me know in the comments what you think of this type of video summary of our adventures. If enough people are interested, I might do the same thing for future rides and for the loop around the lake.
The overall objective for this week is to ride about 150km again, probably with another long ride during the week-end. Updates will of course be available on this blog, as well as on our Facebook page and on Twitter.
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