Biking around Motosuko

First, I love my Rig. I love it so much that this weekend I told Brian that I wanted to bring the Rig up to our downhill place instead of bringing my downhill bike. Luckily, he talked me out of it, and our friend Chris talked us into doing some SSing (singlespeeding) around Motosuko instead. How was it? In a word, awesome.

The three of us got a semi-late start on Saturday morning, but that was not a problem, as Motosuko is not nearly as far as our usual Nagano destination. We got there, traffic free, in about an hour and a half.

Motosuko is one of the Fuji Goko (Fuji Five Lakes - ko means lake). The other lakes are Shojiko, Saiko, Yamanakako and Kawaguchiko, with Kawaguchiko being the most popular of the five lakes. They are "volcanic lakes", formed over the years by Mt. Fuji's volcanic activity.

Fuji Goko:




Motosuko, being less well-known, hosted many windsurfers but few hikers, although the area is criss-crossed with great hiking trails, complete with ruggedly beautiful volcanic geology, which made for great riding.

The pink and the blue line below our the trails we rode:


The riding was so good - we spent about an hour and a half riding to and around Shojiko. After a brief rest at the trucks, we then hit the trail again, this time heading toward a small lake called Tanukiko. However, by 4:00, after climbing stairs and pedaling up hills, I thought there was no way I could pedal anymore; we turned around and headed back for base, which is a shame, really, as the trail was starting to look even more dreamy. I certainly need to improve my cross-country fitness - living in a valley, I can climb 10km straight up, but 31km (which is what we rode yesterday) of rolling hills nearly depleted my energy stores.

This is Chris posing with his K2 Big Train 800 - a 29er which he also converted into a SingleSpeed.


Here's my Rig posing along one of the trails:


Here I am crossing a swampy spot, as caught by Chris on his cellphone/camera: