October ‘Playground of the Gods’ Self-Guided Trip

Farewell at the airport

Riding on the second day

We hosted Stephen, Wendy, Alisa and Keisuke from San Fransisco recently.  All residing in San Fran but from different parts of the world; England, Taiwan, Russia and Japan. All keen cyclists back home, a few commute to work by bicycle and go on longer rides, including some century rides on the weekends.

They were a little unlucky with the weather as there were a few days of rain, but that didn’t dampen their spirits. There was also plenty of snow on the peaks  of the Daisetsuzan National Park, in particular Asahidake where they rented long rubber boots to walk the circuit below the volcano.  It snowed on their 5th night as well when they were staying in the southern end of the park, the hot spring outdoors while it was snowing was a highlight apparently. We thought we might need to drive them to a lower elevation, but  the road soon dried in the morning.

This is their first time on a bicycle self guided tour and had a great time. They said they would like to make this their mode of travel from now on.

Cape of Divine Power, Oct 09

Team Singapore, Jakarta

lonely road

Pool

Young volcano

Dinner

Kaiseki dinner

Nice ride!

Lake Toya

Hotel hot spring

Claudia

Evan, Teddy, Derek

Big climb

Recently hosted a largely Singaporian contingent of riders who live in all parts of Asia, including H.K and Shanghai; Evan, Claudia, Teddy and Derek.  One of the members is from Jakarta; Masha. It was interesting to hear  how cycling is in the big cities of Asia.  Masha has to wear a mask while riding in Jakarta due to the pollution and apparently the roads become congested with traffic as early as 6am.  Singapore is mainly flat and drivers do not sound so friendly to cyclists. Derek rides in his apartment in H.K on the roller.

Anyway, it was a group of super keen riders and it was their first time cycling abroad and for some, on quiet country roads. We had a favorable spell of weather for the riding days with mostly sunshine and cloud and temperatures in the mid teens. Perfect temperatures, although sometimes would get a little cool in the shade.

The tour started at Lake Shikotsu and then headed to Lake Toya, before finishing at Niseko.  Everyone enjoyed the hills, including the mountain climb on the last day. Rides were around 80km in distance.

I have realised that Singaporians love to eat, and so we made the rounds of some of the local restaurants in Niseko and Lake Toya such as yaki-niku, yaki-tori, sushi and traditional drinking establishments called Izukaya.

Everyone brought with them their own personal bikes. Pinarello seemed to be the bike of choice, although there were 2 Wiliars, one of which was the bike ridden by the world champion last year.

The scenery got the thumbs up and Teddy even said that it was more picturesque than the south of France. More pictures on the facebook page;

132507599749?ref=mf

Cape of Divine Power Course Check

Mt Youtei

Caldera lake

Sunset

Youtei in distance

Rice Fields

Road

Back road

Falls in fall

handle-bar cam

Mountain vegetable ramen

The last three days I have been riding part of the ‘Cape of Divine Power’  cape_of_devine.html route as we have some clients arriving from Singapore and Hong Kong in mid October. They are avid cyclists and so were looking for more than the average 70 kilometer distance each day, so I rode some of the extensions which will make their rides longer.

There is very much a volcano theme as part of this tour.  We stay on two nights on the banks of Hokkaido’s 2 caldera lakes and ride around some of the live volcanoes of the region.  The hot springs are everywhere and the hotels all have hot springs which are nice after a long riding day.

Family Journey

Margaret, Bob, Emily, Haley

Recently we hosted Bob, Margaret, Haley and Emily on a self- guided trip, the ‘Playground of the Gods’ tour. This picture was taken on their last riding day where they descend from the highest road point in Hokkaido down to the town of Biei which is about a 1,000 meter vertical descent. The trip was timed well with the Autumn colors happening in the higher elevations of the Daisetsuzan National Park.

This was their first cycle tour journey and according to the family won’t be their last.

Testing the Trail

Together with a local friend and a bike shop owner from Sapporo we trialed some of the trails which had recently been cleaned up.  My buddy Kenji is a Sapporo local who used to ride trail bikes before switching to downhill mtb.  He races whenever he can and often places in the top 10 in Hokkaido. Takafuji san owns Road Kids and often brings groups of his shop customers to the Furano area and who I guide. I have seen him descend things which I previously wouldn’t have thought to be ride-able, but he changes my perspective. So I was in pretty formidable company for the day.

We first climbed in to the volcanic area of Tokachidake in the Daisetsuzan National Park. The ground is steaming in some places and has a very moonscape type appearance, a lot different from the lush forest just below it. The climb is short but it adds some vertical and length to the trail. On the descent I realized that one brake didn’t seem to be working and when I got to the bottom we found that one of the brake pads had fallen off. Not a good start! How was I going to keep up with these guys?

It was on the back, so decided to swop a pad from the front.  Found the riding a bit skiddy, but was manageable. At various technical sections I was inclined to reluctantly walk as was not comfortable with just the one brake.

Anyway, we had a great time as you can see from the pictures.

New Trails

Fall colors

Roots

Once the snow melts off the ground here in in Hokkaido, the vegetation grows like crazy.  Some trails that I have had my eye on had not had any trail maintenance for about a year and were in desperate need of a brush cutter’s razor. I tried to walk through one of them in early summer and found that it was nearly impassable. A machete would have been handy.

The maintenance has finally been done and they are still fixing some parts of the track, including putting in some new stairs, hopefully not too many.  Quite rooty and techincal at the top, but then faster and easier down near the bottom.

The fall colors are really impressive presently.

Tokachidake Road Climb

Furano was totally blanketed in mist this morning and the temperature was a cold 8 degrees celsius at 6am.  Leg and arm warmers as well as a vest was mandatory and this seemed to be the right layering for the ride, at least until the sun burnt off the low cloud.

It was a nice warm up cruising in the center of the Furano valley surrounded by rice paddies, and then the climbing begins.  It is not so hard at first, but it gradually gets steeper and stepper with the final section maxing out at 14% grade. By this time I had peeled off the layers as you can imagine.The last 3 km I spent most of the time out of the seat.

The fall colors of the upper elevations of the national park had already changed and by the time I reached the top the clouds had burnt off which made for great views down to the valley.This is the highest road point of Hokkaido which is 1,380 meters.

The descent is a real joy as there were no cars on the road. I was expecting a nice cruise home, but then a southerly wind picked up and made the going tough.  Averaged 23km/hr for the ride, with a top speed of 56km/hr.

There were a lot of tiny field mice that had perished on the road, which was quite a coincidence as I had watched the Green Mile the night before where Mr Jingles the mouse plays a big part. I half expected John Coffey to jump out of the bushes and bring them back to life.

Part of this road is on our ‘Playground of the Gods’ tour; playground_of_gods.html

Tokachidake

14%?!

View from the top

Down

Trails in Shakotan

Sunset with some shou-chu

5am, Hokkaido’s west coast

I have been pouring over maps to find some good trails in the Shakotan area of Hokkaido which is on the west coast. After a great morning ride in the Sapporo region which was guided by some local riders I drove down the coast to do some exploring. Followed numerous tracks, trails and logging roads that all seemed to lead to either cemeteries, dead ends, or overgrown bushes. Tired and defeated I retired to the van for some shouchu while watching the sun go down.

Decided to catch the sunrise on the Cape the next morning. Not a soul around as the road is closed until around 9am, so had the place to myself. Rode to the end, and despite numerous steps was a worthwhile journey.

Then met up with Teppei and Martin and we decided on an assault of  Mt Shakotan which is the second highest mountain in the area. The ascent took us about 3 hours of which about a third was rideable and the descent about an hour with about 800 vertical meters and 6 kilometers. Quite a technical trail and both Martin and I kissed the dirt on our hard-tails. Teppei struggled up the mountain with a heavy all mountain bike, but was in his element on the downhill. We had such a good time that we have decided to make it an annual climb and ride.

This area is in our ‘Cape of Divine power’ trip; cape_of_devine.html

Tour de Hokkaido

Motorcade of support vehicles

The Pack follows

Can I have a set of rims?

The Front-runners

The ameteurs start

The Tour de Hokkaido made it’s way through Furano today.  The amateurs started beforehand with about 120 riders. The Hokkaido competitors seemed determined to win back the leaders jersey from the main island rider. Nearly 2 hours passed before the professionals came through together with their motorcade of support vehicles. They were gone in a flash.

Thanks Mr Suzuki

Locals are the best sources of information regarding the roads. I was looking for a slight alternative in Hokkaido’s West to one of our routes and went in to a soba restaurant to ask about the quietest roads.  The owner, Mr Suzuki took me on a 15 minute  drive to show me the best cycling roads, including a stretch that is in the Tour de Hokkaido.  It was even lunch time as well, but his wife gave him a leave pass.  Thanks again Mr Suzuki.