3 Prefectures

小田原　足柄峠　三国峠　山中湖　乙女峠　小田原

Odawara - Ashigara-touge - Mikuni-touge - Yamanaka-ko - Otome Touge - Odawara

This weeks hills ride started and finished in Odawara, with a big loop out to Yamanaka ko with 3 main climbs including the fearsome 三国峠 Mikuni Touge. The 3 prefectures of Shizuoka, Kanagawa and Yamanashi meet at the top of the mountain, hence the name Mikune Touge (3 lands).
Initially missed my intended train but luckily we are in Japan so after changing trains in Yokohama and later at Ofuna I was still in plenty of time to meet the others in Odawara. Alan, Naomi, Dave, Patrick and Todor started out.
First climb of the day up Ashigara Touge is tough enough - Todor san is in trouble already, and we catch him cutting corners by hiking between hairpin bends at the summit. Hes having a bad day and heads back after the descent, but still puts in an impressive ride back to Enoshima.

Before this ride, I was reading various warnings about the main climb of the day - gradients of 18%, snow, 800m of climbing a very tough 100km+ ride - all true, apart from the gradient was only 14% I believe.
As we climbed higher, the temperature dropped noticably and the remains of yesterdays blizzard (which prevented a TCC splinter group climbing the mountain) still lay at the sides of the road. At the top I am still out of breath when Naomi arrives apologising in a very Japanese way for being so slow and holding us up. Unbelievable, we have hardly reached the summit ourselves.

Descending down to Yamanaka ko we were treated to magnificent views of Mount Fuji as well as the lake itself. The road doesn't drop much to the lake, the real treat is the descent down to Gotemba after leaving the lake at its southerly point. The descent here is great, fast and very very long (~20km) until the final climb of the day, Otome Touge which was again long but a very gradual gradient and so an enjoyable climb. Through the tunnel, then descend amidst the Hakone day traffic down to Odawara.
Very close to Lake Ashi and Hakone, we could see the steam rising from the sulhpur beds high on the mountainside where the cable cars take the hordes to east their blackened eggs, hard boiled in the steaming waters.

So training is well on track with regards to distance and mountain climbing with less than a month to go before heading off to Shikoku.