I had been in Hungary and Germany for the first 12 days of the month, with only one bike ride there (3 hours with my brother). Normally I try to do a Century ride on the first weekend of each month to secure my continuing "Century a Month" (CaM) status but this was the 3rd weekend already, with rain forecast for Saturday. So I decided to do some work on Saturday, spend Sunday at home with my wife and take Monday off for the ride.
Deciding on a course only late at night the day before and it being a weekday ride, I didn't post it anywhere.
The weather forecast had been for a cloudy afternoon but it didn't turn out that way until about 16:00. It was hot and sunny until after the hottest part of the day, but at least up on the Greenline there was some shade. The wind was in my face almost all the way from Tokyo to the mountains, so it was just as well I wasn't rendezvous-ing with anyone at Kitasakado station. Instead I dropped in on my mother-in-law for a chat and a coffee.
I could see Mt Fuji still with a snow cap from near Kawagoe and later Tokyo Skytree from Dodaira-san (65 km as the crow flies).
I didn't feel very energetic throughout the ride, maybe because I had only done two rides (both less than 100 km) in the past 4 weeks or maybe it was due to the heat. I could also blame it on jetlag. But then again, I was riding on my own, so I wasn't holding anyone else up and I could take as many pictures as I liked.
The views from Dodaira were nice. The sky was very dark on the Chichibu side, it looked like it was raining over there. I later felt some drizzle too, but not for too long. The roads everywhere were deserted. No tourists on weekdays.
From Dodaira and Shiraishi toge I headed over to Kabasaka toge. Of course there was no coffee van parked there on a Monday, so I just took a couple of pictures and then descended towards Shomaru toge. Originally I had planned to descend down Rt299, head up Rt395 and visit Nenogongen temple again, but I was running too late for that. So I just continued to Yamabushi toge via Shomaru and returned to Ome via Rt53.
I stopped at "Sherpa" in Ome for my usual curry, which gave me enough energy for the 42 km ride back to Tokyo. 174 km with about 1600 m of elevation gain. 82 consecutive months of CaM!
