Mountain Bike Bill, The Dirt on the Dirt

Tag: Yumihari

Pre-Typhoon Ride in Sasebo

Earlier this week, work has taken me back to Sasebo in the southern part of Japan.  I’ll be here for about a month and change.  I had debated about shipping/bringing one of my own bikes over here for the duration but between the cost and hassle, I decided to take my chances with getting a rental.    I’m thinking I maybe should have went with shipping one of my own bikes over as the pickings were slim at the rental place.

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The steed for this trip is a total Throw “Way The Hell” Back rig complete with canti-brakes.   Brakes is a bit of an optimistic term in this case, slowers is more appropriate.  On the plus side, I’ll soon have hands that can grip like a bear trap and I should not be accused of skidding up the trails around here.

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The weather guessers were calling for a typhoon to come through the area the following day so getting a ride in before that was a priority.   The outdoor adventure center were I rented the bike is more centered on scuba and deep sea fishing than biking so I had to spend quite a bit of time get the bike setup and tuned before heading off for the late afternoon ride.   I’m fairly certain that the clipless pedal I put on the bike doubles its value.

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When I started out from my hotel room, a nearby thermometer read 90 degrees with the humidity being around 85%.  I was sweating and I was barely moving.   The climb up Mount Yumihari is on narrow paved roads.  The plan was to take the pavement up and a couple of different trails down and then back into town.

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The climb is fairly steep and it was good workout.   I have done this climb numerous times so I knew what to expect which helped with the climb but I was still getting worked. Once I got to the top I realized that all the pre-ride tinkering had eaten up my daylight margin.   I was pretty certain that taking the trails back down would end up being a night ride.   A night ride I was not really prepared for.  So I went with plan B and enjoyed the views from the top for a leisurely bit before taking the roads back down the mountain.  This should help with the jet lag.   This is not my first time MTBing in Sasebo so you can find other Sasebo related blog posts here.

Yumihari Sunset

I finished up work yesterday with a couple of hours of daylight left so I decided to make get in some two-wheeled excercise by way of climbing Mount Yumihari.  It was cloudy misty rainy a couple of days ago when I first when up to the top so the prospects of taking in a sunny day’s sunset seemed pretty interesting. 

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 I made okay time up the mountain and had some nice light left in the day.   Here is looking to the east at the center of the city.

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 To the west is the 99 Islands National Park.   

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The sun about to set.    I forgot to bring along the dinky little light that came with my rent-a-wreck so I opted to not take one of the trails back down the mountain and instead took the skinny mountain road back down into town.    Not long after I was enjoying some mighty tasty sushi for dinner that cost just a small fraction of what I would pay for that kind of quality back in the states.   Not a bad way to spend a few hours after work.

Opening Spin on Mount Yumihari

I have a work project in Sasebo Japan for the next few weeks.   I arrived on Thursday night and was able to get my hands on a grade A piece-o-crap rental MTB complete with a 7-speed drivetrain, reflectors and a swanky kickstand.  Unfortunately my luggage (that contained my bike stuff) did not arrive until Saturday.   So despite the threat of a typhoon tracking through the region so I decided to get out while I could.   So after ditching the kickstand and throwing on my pedals the bike was at its portly climbing weight and I was off up the mountain.   Here are a few of the limited pictures I took while out and about on and around Mount Yumihari. 

The view from the lookout on Ymihari.

In Japan the word for “locally sourced organics” is “food”

Two years ago this statue was hidden back in the woods and looked a little neglected.   The area around this has been cut back and it is now easily visible from the road.  It has also been painted to really show it off.  It was nice to see that this has been pulled “out” of the woods.   

Mount Eboshi in the distance before I head down off of Yumihari.   I’ll be up onto of that mountain in the near future.

“Taiiku no hi” Ride

 This past  Monday was Columbus day in the United States, but I’m not in the States.  Lucky for me Monday was also the Japanese Holiday of  “Taiiku no hi” which is “Health-Sports Day”.   What better way to celebrate that than a bike ride. 

Fall is happening here.   The summer heat is gone and the cooler temps of fall have taken over. There are no huge splash of colors just yet but you can tell that mother nature is dusting off her brushes and shaking the paint cans.

The closest mountain to town is Yumihari.  I have been on most of the flanks of this mountain and have found some stuff to ride in all those areas.   The place suffers from little use and even less maintenance.    This place would be incredibly awesome if there were enough riders to keep this place debrushed.  I was focusing on the southern area today and was quite pleased with what I found and that it is seeing some use.   One such trails was an awesome benchcut along a ruggedly steep hill side.

I eventually found my way over to what I was looking for.  There is a large statue that you can see from town perched up along the ridgeline that I had been eyeing from work for a couple of weeks now.    This thing is huge.  At least 20 feet high and it sets top of 20 foot raised base.  This was a great spot for some snacks so I enjoyed them while taking in some of the views. 

There was an old couple there tending to the grounds.  Eventually the husband and I struck up a conversation which was a mixture of my bad Japanese, his bad English and a healthy dose of International Charades.   From the jest of the conversation, the man was 70 years old and his father made the sculpture.    He was very proud of his father’s work.  He was also proud of the fact his wife was much younger than him (only in her 50s).   The wife snickered at this and gave him a gentle slap on the arm.  While I did not catch what see said, the facial expressions translated to something along the lines of “You Dirty Old Fool”.  While he looked old, he was mighty healthy and was doing some significant work like cutting grass, trimming back branches, etc…   I hope to be that spry when I am his age.  You can tell they loved and cared for this place.    After a bit more broken chit-chat over a can of coffee he gave me, I was on my way.  After such a nice little life enriching experience I could have called it a day right then and have been quite happy.

Lucky for the me the old man had “Charaded” me some more information on trails, so settting off from the shrine, I did some more snooping around.

What the old man had pointed to was a really cool bit of trail where you descend down along a mostly steep ridgeline through a forest of mixed bamboo and hardwoods.   It was a pretty fun descent with some scary bits thrown in when things got rocky and really steep.  

After this I climbed back up the mountain and hit some one the loops I have done several times which put me back onto the side of the mountain I wanted to be on.   After another rather technical descent I popped out into another neighborhood.   From here I zipped along a series of narrow twisting sidewalks that descended the rest of the way down the mountain back into town.  I love when the navigation calls for anyway that is downhill to get “home”.    I might get another ride or two in before I leave Japan but if not this would be a downright cool closer ride.

More sights from around Sasebo

Okay for the last week or so I have been getting hammered at work.   I’m doing lots of writing but it is not about Mountain Biking.  Such is the nature of “work” sometimes.   I have managed to get out and find some new stuff and experience some more of the culture of Sasebo.   Here is a quick recap of the last week or so of my off-time in Sasebo.

There is plenty of terrian to play with here….finding the goods is tricky, but it is “coming along”.  Sometimes coming along means clearing old trails yourself.

When doing just that on one of the trails, I flipped over a rock and to my surprise this guy was there.  I’m a good 3 miles and 1,000 feet above sea level so I have no idea how “Mr Crabs” got up here.   I’m wondering if this guy has some “Finding Nemo” like story to tell.   One thing is for certain, he was quite a curmudgeon and was trying to get rid of me.   Thumbs up for full-fingered riding gloves!

I wonder how old Mr. Crabs would fair against this guy?  Lucky for Mr. Crabs this is a Japanese Rat Snake.

The food chain in action.  It is family dinner time at Charlotte’s house. 

I found a really old timber road up to the summit of Mt Syoukann.   So far this is the longest bit of climbable dirt I have found that did not include some hike-a-bike.

 

A real bonus was a pretty cool singletrack going down the other side of the Mt Syoukann that combined with the old road makes for a nice bit of riding.

Mount Eboshi is becoming a regular stomping ground for me but I’m still finding  bits of trails here and there to add to the riding inventory.

Mt Kaku is a bit bigger and west of Mt Eboshi.  It was a bit of work to get over to it and the final half a kilometer was a bit of beater hike-a-bike.    A snack and a little basking in the sun were well earned when I got to the summit. 

This trail coming off of Mt Kaku was a real treat.  This is a fairly new trail that shows some modern trail science applied to its design and construction.

You don’t have to get out on the trails to see cool stuff.  The city has lots of interesting stuff to see.  These Japanese carp are pretty fish and are plentiful in main river through town.

I came across some folks praticing a “Dragon Dance”.  It is some pretty intricate stuff they do.  There are 10 people working the dragon, conductor as well as about half a dozen kids playing various drums, gongs and bells to put it all together.

I watched them practice for about a half hour in the small park/court yard before strolling back to the hotel.

The sun is up and I have a day off….It is time to ride.