kawachinagano-koyasan-wakayama

this weeks ride involved a train journey down to kawachinagano on the nankai koya line. its then a climb up to takihata (see below) and over to hashimoto which sits at the base of a fairly nice climb of 20km's up to the very religious and holy koya san. actually today I veered off just before the town itself but continued on the 370 which in fact goes all the way from hashimoto to wakayama via the mountains (the easier route would be to take the valley floor and follow the river, but lots of traffic lights mean you can fail to get up a momentum/rythmn). looking at the geography of the area, I was ready for another set of perhaps short but tough little ascents after the main initial run up into the mountains.

so it was a little odd to descend and descend and flat and descend and then wakayama! easy, but I was kind of mentally preparing for a climb at each corner and held back on the juice a bit. probably not a bad thing as I'm still working up to decent fitness again. so anyway 3 hours and a rather nice gentle time of it with some traffic racing nearer the end. bike back in the bag, rice ball stuffed down the gullet and back home in an hour. great! only down side was slight sun burn to napper, thighs (with nasty tan line) and the area on my upper arms where my arm protectors kept slipping down!

btw. some old bitch didn't let me off the train before she climbed on today - even with my bike bag taking up most of the door way! unbe-bloody-lievble! I also saw another old sour faced obachan physically running on the train to get a single seat - presumably because she is incapable of functioning in the public environment. come on love - get an bloody car if you're that uptight!