The evening of January 4th, a couple of days ago, a customer (sort of) called me out saying
「I'm going to return the lucky arrow I bought at Ise Shrine last New Year's
and buy a new one,
so come to the Lawson at the "Midori 1" intersection on Route 479
—the outer ring road—at 25:00 today (1 AM on the 5th)」.
A lucky arrow is a decorative arrow charm that comes with
a wooden prayer tablet painted with the zodiac animal,
and last year's had the dragon painted on it.
This was a self-powered cycling tour to swap it for
this year's version with the snake painted on it.
We met at the Midori 1 intersection because it crosses National Route 163,
and we chose Kiyotaki Pass—which is also Route 163—as our climb out of Osaka.
If you just keep riding Route 163 you'll end up toward Tsu in Mie Prefecture,
so at some point you have to take the road that goes Matsusaka→Ise.
My companion had completed a brevé (長距離自転車イベント) from Kobe to Ise Shrine before,
and the route was still saved in his Garmin 1040,
so we basically followed that.
Calling for a 1 AM meetup to ride to Ise didn't exactly bring crowds—
just two of us showed up.
The return trip would be by train with the bike packed up.
↑This is the log from my Karoo's (SRAM Karoo computer).
The two purple circles on the route
are places where I recorded lap times,
but both were accidental button presses.
The pin marking the goal and
the actual endpoint where I stopped recording are slightly offset
because I set the pin at the inner shrine
but ended the recording at the bike parking at the outer shrine,
which are several kilometers apart.
The first pass is Kiyotaki Pass.
Around the 50 km mark, those three or so
sawtooth-like elevation changes
are a detour because the Kitaokawara Bypass on Route 163
(Kitaokawara Tunnel) prohibits bicycle traffic,
but the course keeps repeating
「immediately waste the elevation you just climbed on a descent」.
I called it a detour, but this was the only road
even before the bypass was built,
so for cyclists it's not really a detour.
The gentle, long climb after that is Nagano Pass,
and coming from Osaka it's a gradual, extended climb,
but from the other direction it's quite steep.
Around where we avoided the Kitaokawara Bypass, around 2:30 AM,
and at the tunnel exit of Nagano Pass around 5 AM,
the temperature in between was −2°C to −6°C according to the Karoo.
I went on my gravel bike, a Niner,
and since I normally fill my single bottle cage with a tool bottle,
I stuffed my Hydro Flask (trademark) water tank bag
along with my packing supplies,
but the hose and drinking valve froze up,
and I couldn't drink from the water tank until around 8 AM
near Matsusaka when the sun was fully up.
My companion's bottle was a Polar Bottle (trademark) insulated bottle,
but since the cap wasn't insulated,
the contents froze and was basically undrinkable.
We stopped at convenience stores about three times along the way
and bought warm drinks.
My clothing was on the light side—I usually say I get through an entire winter
with just toecap shoe covers,
but on this day the cold air penetrated right through the covers.
My gloves were winter gloves, but
I temporarily lost sensation in the ring and pinky fingers of my right hand.
I bought a neck warmer at the FamilyMart in Iga-Ueno
at 4:42 AM,
and without it I might have frozen to death.
When the roadside weeds were lit by my headlight
they sparkled excessively,
and the frost had frozen into a slushy consistency.
On the Nagano Pass climb, only the bridge—which had no ground heat—
was thinly iced, and when I rode slowly over it
I felt a crunchy sensation, so I thought it'd be dangerous to descend at speed.
Since it was an unfamiliar road I descended slowly,
but there were almost no bridges, so my worries came to nothing.
According to the Karoo's record,
the elevation gained was 1129 m
and elevation lost was 1140 m.
The start point was near the Yodogawa River, and Ise is near the coast,
so both are just slightly above sea level.
↑This is the course profile on the Karoo's navigation
from Nomu Lab to Ise Shrine.
The predicted elevation gain is 1796 m
and Nagano Pass's peak elevation is over 500 m,
but this is because it's routing via the old road.
On this ride we actually used the bicycle-legal bypass (tunnel) at Nagano Pass,
and the Karoo's actual recorded maximum elevation is 366 m.
There were several other tunnels where we avoided the old road,
and each time the course profile updated,
reducing the identified climb segments from an initial 16 down to 13,
After Nagano Pass, when we followed my companion's Garmin route
instead of the Karoo's navigation,
one additional climb segment was identified along the way,
so the final count was 14.
The blue section below the elevation graph indicates
the climb segments.
The Garmin 1040 also has a feature that alerts you to identified climb segments,
but there were times when
a climb the Karoo identified wouldn't be detected by the Garmin,
while the reverse never happened,
so it seems the judgment criteria are slightly different.
However, when checking remaining distance and elevation
during a climb that both identify,
the remaining distance was almost the same,
but the Garmin tended to show
slightly larger remaining elevation.
Polar heart rate monitor ride record.
Both the Karoo and Polar base their speed display on GPS data,
so when entering long tunnels
the speed drops and the distance traveled stops updating.
Their behavior differs in this regard.
The Polar draws a straight line between where
the satellites lost lock (tunnel entry) and where they reacquired it (tunnel exit),
adds that distance retroactively to close the gap—a kind of balancing act.
So immediately after reacquisition, with each data update
the recorded distance jumps by tens of meters to around 200 m at once,
which roughly corresponds to the tunnel length.
↑Close-up of the area near the Shin-Nagano Tunnel.
The interval between satellite signal loss and reacquisition appears as a straight line,
and this straight segment is added to the distance traveled.
The log is slightly rounded at the tunnel exit
because I stopped briefly to swap out my front light,
entering what I call「butterfly mode」.
By butterfly mode, I mean—
when moving, the GPS trace makes a clean line,
but when stationary for a long time, even though you're completely still,
the GPS trace flutters around like a butterfly in the log.
That's the phenomenon I call it.
Unrelated to this ride, but back in November last year
when I went to Inunaki Mountain at night,
at a crosswalk near an intersection, two university-age guys
had parked a scooter to the side and were
shining a smartphone light and a cheap pen light on their keychain
at the road before the crosswalk, searching for something.
So I called out,
「Did you drop something? Want me to help you look?」
At that time, I'd leaned my bike
with Karoo and Polar heart monitor attached
against the sidewalk fence (completely stationary the whole time),
and brought out my USE Axis MK10
(→here) with an official 1300 lumens
and a minimum runtime of 1.5 hours.
I had it set to high for 2 hours/low for 6 hours,
so on high it was probably over 1100 lumens,
and I helped search(that's not product placement for USE),
backtracking about 100 m from the crosswalk.
The lost item was
the hinge pin on a full-face helmet's visor—
the part where you raise and lower it, held on with a coin as a screw.
The visor was rattling at a traffic light, so they noticed it fell off.
Looking at what remained on the helmet,
it was a round white and silver object about the size of a 500 yen coin.
While a black object would blend in, if they'd dropped it
within 100 m of the crosswalk,
it should've been found no matter how thoroughly we searched,
but we didn't find it, so they must have dropped it
somewhere between the station and the crosswalk,
and not actually near the intersection where they noticed the loss.
When I suggested we look a bit further back,
one of the guys said to me,
「Cleats wear out so it's not worth it,」
which shocked me.
I asked if he was a cyclist, and he said a friend bikes,
so he knew the term cleat.
↑That's the Polar log from that time, and
↑the Karoo log.
The Karoo's butterfly flutter trace is cleaner,
not as messy.
I don't use auto start/stop mode,
and don't stop recording for things like traffic lights or vending machine stops,
so I forgot to stop recording on both devices during this stationary period.
Back to the Ise pilgrimage.
The Polar labeled it as Shinnagano Tunnel,
while the Karoo called it Nagano Pass Bypass.
Here too it drew a straight line between
satellite loss and reacquisition,
but this straight segment was NOT
added to the total distance traveled.
↑Zooming in quite a bit, immediately after reacquisition
there's just a tiny butterfly mode effect.
↑Zoomed-in Polar butterfly mode
—after reacquisition, the straight line connector
terminates at a side road right after exiting the tunnel,
but of course we didn't go that way.
Due to this difference in operation, when riding through many tunnels,
the Polar and Karoo record different total distances.
This ride the Karoo recorded 138.8 km
while the Polar recorded 140.50 km.
At Ise Shrine, even in areas where photography wasn't prohibited,
I basically didn't take pictures,
and I have almost no images where my companion, his bike,
or bystanders' faces don't appear,
so cropping and blurring would be a hassle—
I'll just use what I can.
We visited the outer shrine first, then the inner shrine,
and at Okage Yokocho in front of the inner shrine,
at the Snoopy Village Ise,
I bought souvenirs focused on exclusive-to-this-store items
for a friend who loves Snoopy.
Also, at an Ise udon restaurant,
I ate Ise udon
and at Akafuku's main shop I ate
two Akafuku dumplings served on a wooden tray
along with tea,
but the Akafuku here, though I believe it's the same as what's boxed for souvenirs,
had a completely different mochi texture.
The flavor seemed different too.
Akafuku has such a short shelf life—2 days including the manufacturing date (※)—
but even between day 1 and day 2 the firmness changes, so
I was surprised that only a few hours after manufacturing
it has this kind of texture.
※To be precise, the shelf life is 2 days in summer, 3 days in winter including manufacturing date,
and the homepage states
「From October 5, 2024, it switched to 3 days,」
so at the time of this post it's 3 days.
Purely by coincidence, or perhaps intentionally woven into
the brevé route saved on the Garmin,
the main shop of「Henba Mochi」was on the way to Ise Shrine,
and I bought their famous Henba Mochi (as takeout, since dine-in was closed)
and ate it for the first time—it was extremely delicious.
I considered buying a 500 yen red rice bento box too,
but even though the return would be by train pack-up,
I thought the extra baggage would be annoying,
so I didn't. I regret it to this day.
「I'm going to return the lucky arrow I bought at Ise Shrine last New Year's
and buy a new one,
so come to the Lawson at the "Midori 1" intersection on Route 479
—the outer ring road—at 25:00 today (1 AM on the 5th)」.
A lucky arrow is a decorative arrow charm that comes with
a wooden prayer tablet painted with the zodiac animal,
and last year's had the dragon painted on it.
This was a self-powered cycling tour to swap it for
this year's version with the snake painted on it.
We met at the Midori 1 intersection because it crosses National Route 163,
and we chose Kiyotaki Pass—which is also Route 163—as our climb out of Osaka.
If you just keep riding Route 163 you'll end up toward Tsu in Mie Prefecture,
so at some point you have to take the road that goes Matsusaka→Ise.
My companion had completed a brevé (長距離自転車イベント) from Kobe to Ise Shrine before,
and the route was still saved in his Garmin 1040,
so we basically followed that.
Calling for a 1 AM meetup to ride to Ise didn't exactly bring crowds—
just two of us showed up.
The return trip would be by train with the bike packed up.
↑This is the log from my Karoo's (SRAM Karoo computer).
The two purple circles on the route
are places where I recorded lap times,
but both were accidental button presses.
The pin marking the goal and
the actual endpoint where I stopped recording are slightly offset
because I set the pin at the inner shrine
but ended the recording at the bike parking at the outer shrine,
which are several kilometers apart.
The first pass is Kiyotaki Pass.
Around the 50 km mark, those three or so
sawtooth-like elevation changes
are a detour because the Kitaokawara Bypass on Route 163
(Kitaokawara Tunnel) prohibits bicycle traffic,
but the course keeps repeating
「immediately waste the elevation you just climbed on a descent」.
I called it a detour, but this was the only road
even before the bypass was built,
so for cyclists it's not really a detour.
The gentle, long climb after that is Nagano Pass,
and coming from Osaka it's a gradual, extended climb,
but from the other direction it's quite steep.
Around where we avoided the Kitaokawara Bypass, around 2:30 AM,
and at the tunnel exit of Nagano Pass around 5 AM,
the temperature in between was −2°C to −6°C according to the Karoo.
I went on my gravel bike, a Niner,
and since I normally fill my single bottle cage with a tool bottle,
I stuffed my Hydro Flask (trademark) water tank bag
along with my packing supplies,
but the hose and drinking valve froze up,
and I couldn't drink from the water tank until around 8 AM
near Matsusaka when the sun was fully up.
My companion's bottle was a Polar Bottle (trademark) insulated bottle,
but since the cap wasn't insulated,
the contents froze and was basically undrinkable.
We stopped at convenience stores about three times along the way
and bought warm drinks.
My clothing was on the light side—I usually say I get through an entire winter
with just toecap shoe covers,
but on this day the cold air penetrated right through the covers.
My gloves were winter gloves, but
I temporarily lost sensation in the ring and pinky fingers of my right hand.
I bought a neck warmer at the FamilyMart in Iga-Ueno
at 4:42 AM,
and without it I might have frozen to death.
When the roadside weeds were lit by my headlight
they sparkled excessively,
and the frost had frozen into a slushy consistency.
On the Nagano Pass climb, only the bridge—which had no ground heat—
was thinly iced, and when I rode slowly over it
I felt a crunchy sensation, so I thought it'd be dangerous to descend at speed.
Since it was an unfamiliar road I descended slowly,
but there were almost no bridges, so my worries came to nothing.
According to the Karoo's record,
the elevation gained was 1129 m
and elevation lost was 1140 m.
The start point was near the Yodogawa River, and Ise is near the coast,
so both are just slightly above sea level.
↑This is the course profile on the Karoo's navigation
from Nomu Lab to Ise Shrine.
The predicted elevation gain is 1796 m
and Nagano Pass's peak elevation is over 500 m,
but this is because it's routing via the old road.
On this ride we actually used the bicycle-legal bypass (tunnel) at Nagano Pass,
and the Karoo's actual recorded maximum elevation is 366 m.
There were several other tunnels where we avoided the old road,
and each time the course profile updated,
reducing the identified climb segments from an initial 16 down to 13,
After Nagano Pass, when we followed my companion's Garmin route
instead of the Karoo's navigation,
one additional climb segment was identified along the way,
so the final count was 14.
The blue section below the elevation graph indicates
the climb segments.
The Garmin 1040 also has a feature that alerts you to identified climb segments,
but there were times when
a climb the Karoo identified wouldn't be detected by the Garmin,
while the reverse never happened,
so it seems the judgment criteria are slightly different.
However, when checking remaining distance and elevation
during a climb that both identify,
the remaining distance was almost the same,
but the Garmin tended to show
slightly larger remaining elevation.
Polar heart rate monitor ride record.
Both the Karoo and Polar base their speed display on GPS data,
so when entering long tunnels
the speed drops and the distance traveled stops updating.
Their behavior differs in this regard.
The Polar draws a straight line between where
the satellites lost lock (tunnel entry) and where they reacquired it (tunnel exit),
adds that distance retroactively to close the gap—a kind of balancing act.
So immediately after reacquisition, with each data update
the recorded distance jumps by tens of meters to around 200 m at once,
which roughly corresponds to the tunnel length.
↑Close-up of the area near the Shin-Nagano Tunnel.
The interval between satellite signal loss and reacquisition appears as a straight line,
and this straight segment is added to the distance traveled.
The log is slightly rounded at the tunnel exit
because I stopped briefly to swap out my front light,
entering what I call「butterfly mode」.
By butterfly mode, I mean—
when moving, the GPS trace makes a clean line,
but when stationary for a long time, even though you're completely still,
the GPS trace flutters around like a butterfly in the log.
That's the phenomenon I call it.
Unrelated to this ride, but back in November last year
when I went to Inunaki Mountain at night,
at a crosswalk near an intersection, two university-age guys
had parked a scooter to the side and were
shining a smartphone light and a cheap pen light on their keychain
at the road before the crosswalk, searching for something.
So I called out,
「Did you drop something? Want me to help you look?」
At that time, I'd leaned my bike
with Karoo and Polar heart monitor attached
against the sidewalk fence (completely stationary the whole time),
and brought out my USE Axis MK10
(→here) with an official 1300 lumens
and a minimum runtime of 1.5 hours.
I had it set to high for 2 hours/low for 6 hours,
so on high it was probably over 1100 lumens,
and I helped search
backtracking about 100 m from the crosswalk.
The lost item was
the hinge pin on a full-face helmet's visor—
the part where you raise and lower it, held on with a coin as a screw.
The visor was rattling at a traffic light, so they noticed it fell off.
Looking at what remained on the helmet,
it was a round white and silver object about the size of a 500 yen coin.
While a black object would blend in, if they'd dropped it
within 100 m of the crosswalk,
it should've been found no matter how thoroughly we searched,
but we didn't find it, so they must have dropped it
somewhere between the station and the crosswalk,
and not actually near the intersection where they noticed the loss.
When I suggested we look a bit further back,
one of the guys said to me,
「Cleats wear out so it's not worth it,」
which shocked me.
I asked if he was a cyclist, and he said a friend bikes,
so he knew the term cleat.
↑That's the Polar log from that time, and
↑the Karoo log.
The Karoo's butterfly flutter trace is cleaner,
not as messy.
I don't use auto start/stop mode,
and don't stop recording for things like traffic lights or vending machine stops,
so I forgot to stop recording on both devices during this stationary period.
Back to the Ise pilgrimage.
The Polar labeled it as Shinnagano Tunnel,
while the Karoo called it Nagano Pass Bypass.
Here too it drew a straight line between
satellite loss and reacquisition,
but this straight segment was NOT
added to the total distance traveled.
↑Zooming in quite a bit, immediately after reacquisition
there's just a tiny butterfly mode effect.
↑Zoomed-in Polar butterfly mode
—after reacquisition, the straight line connector
terminates at a side road right after exiting the tunnel,
but of course we didn't go that way.
Due to this difference in operation, when riding through many tunnels,
the Polar and Karoo record different total distances.
This ride the Karoo recorded 138.8 km
while the Polar recorded 140.50 km.
At Ise Shrine, even in areas where photography wasn't prohibited,
I basically didn't take pictures,
and I have almost no images where my companion, his bike,
or bystanders' faces don't appear,
so cropping and blurring would be a hassle—
I'll just use what I can.
We visited the outer shrine first, then the inner shrine,
and at Okage Yokocho in front of the inner shrine,
at the Snoopy Village Ise,
I bought souvenirs focused on exclusive-to-this-store items
for a friend who loves Snoopy.
Also, at an Ise udon restaurant,
I ate Ise udon
and at Akafuku's main shop I ate
two Akafuku dumplings served on a wooden tray
along with tea,
but the Akafuku here, though I believe it's the same as what's boxed for souvenirs,
had a completely different mochi texture.
The flavor seemed different too.
Akafuku has such a short shelf life—2 days including the manufacturing date (※)—
but even between day 1 and day 2 the firmness changes, so
I was surprised that only a few hours after manufacturing
it has this kind of texture.
※To be precise, the shelf life is 2 days in summer, 3 days in winter including manufacturing date,
and the homepage states
「From October 5, 2024, it switched to 3 days,」
so at the time of this post it's 3 days.
Purely by coincidence, or perhaps intentionally woven into
the brevé route saved on the Garmin,
the main shop of「Henba Mochi」was on the way to Ise Shrine,
and I bought their famous Henba Mochi (as takeout, since dine-in was closed)
and ate it for the first time—it was extremely delicious.
I considered buying a 500 yen red rice bento box too,
but even though the return would be by train pack-up,
I thought the extra baggage would be annoying,
so I didn't. I regret it to this day.