Author Topic: Hokkaido, Japan  (Read 751 times)

RonS

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 216
Re: Hokkaido, Japan
« Reply #15 on: December 17, 2025, 12:26:16 AM »
  Well spotted, Ian. I believe I adjusted the eccentric on the evening after the photo you were probably looking at was taken.
 I am running a 38 x 17 combo right now, but before my daughter moved back to Canada from the UK I ordered a Thorn 43T chainring and 19T cog and had it sent to her to bring back. It's in my toolbox now and I'll probably throw it on before the next tour.

A few more photos from the ride.

1  One of the consequences of rural depopulation.The rail line between Sapporo and the southeast coast of Hokkaido closed down a few years ago.

2&3  Curse you, Komoot. This is my third cycle tour in Japan and I'm still waiting for a mapping program that doesn't send me on an adventure almost daily. After about 10 km riding in a beautiful valley with no traffic, my GPS instructed me to "turn left here". I thought “this does not look too promising” as it went past a farm, heading into the woods. A check of the map showed that the only other option was 10 km right  back where I had come from, so off I went. After about half a kilometre the dirt road turned into a dirt path and pitched upward. It still would've been rideable if not for the 70mm of rain that had fallen overnight, making it very soft. After a few hundred metres though the path pitched up again and basically looked like a dry stream bed. Luckily for me, it only lasted for maybe 500m then began to improve. My fun for the day.

4 Sunset from camp.
« Last Edit: December 17, 2025, 03:52:45 AM by RonS »

Andre Jute

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4224
Re: Hokkaido, Japan
« Reply #16 on: December 17, 2025, 05:36:39 PM »
4 Sunset from camp.

Japan, a land formed by volcanoes. Well done, Ron!

in4

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1906
Re: Hokkaido, Japan
« Reply #17 on: December 19, 2025, 01:16:24 PM »
Love the photos Ron. Thanks for sharing. Certainly inspires me for my next tour. 
Re abandoned/closed train lines. Although driven by immediate economic necessity seems quite sad to see them consigned to history.
There’s a comedy duo from yesteryear named Flanders & Swann, some may know them.
Amongst their most well known songs ( Armadillo, Have a Madeira M’Dear etc) is The Slow Train; a bit of a nostalgic ode to many branch line closures under the so called Beeching Report springs readily to mind. Anyway here it is. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/U6OHD2uCpfU?si=WP93Ga4SxbAbkzE7

RonS

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 216
Re: Hokkaido, Japan
« Reply #18 on: December 21, 2025, 08:09:55 PM »
Thanks for that Ian. Near the end of the video there is an old coal fired steam locomotive in front of what looks to me to be the cooling tower for a nuclear power plant. Would they have existed at the same time?

And that list of songs brought me back to my childhood. There was an American folk trio in the early 1960s called the Limeliters. I was but a pup then, but they were popular with my older siblings. One of the songs I remember was a rendition of Madeira, M’Dear.

Since we’re on the subject of abandoned rail lines, the pictures for today are from my last day on the road, along the Shiroishi cycling road, created from a rail line decommissioned in 1973, near Sapporo.  (I’ll jump back in time with more photos later) It’s a 20 km cycle and pedestrian path between the suburb of Kitahiroshima and the heart of Sapporo. One of the great things about it is that, despite going being in a city of nearly two million people, there are almost no road crossing. It goes over or under every major road, and I think I had only three stop signs, crossing minor streets. It's apparently very well used on the weekends and before and after school, but, on the drizzly midweek morning that I rode it I was almost by myself. It was cycling bliss.

Andre Jute

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4224
Re: Hokkaido, Japan
« Reply #19 on: December 22, 2025, 01:27:14 PM »
I love the tunnel art, especially in the Sapporo cycle path tunnel; so much superior to the brutalist Stakhanovite "art" in the Moscow underground train stations, which is of the same scale.

Who knows, the other decorated tunnel with the small square panels in Ron's set may be equally good or better, but their small individual scale is not conducive to judging on a photograph. You'd probably want to be in that particular tunnel for a few hours to take it all in.

A great pleasure touring vicariously with you, Ron.