We spent 4 days in Nagano during the summer break and had 2 hilly mountain climbs.
The best road was called Harmonic Drive. It was a steep 2km climb straight up to the starting point then turn left and gradually go up and down for the next 10km. This took us mostly downwards and the harmonic tempo was nice. On the way back there was more crescendo than downhill and some tough climbs. The final 2km descent was painstakingly slow on the wrists that had to have the brakes locked all the way down. We stayed amongst a couple of thousand apple trees and the local farmers had these machines that blasted a BOMB sound every 5 minutes to make sure the monkeys wouldn’t come down from the hills to eat the apples and peaches. This BOOOOM would start about 5:30a.m every morning and go on till night fall all day. Was nice to be forced to wake up early, kinda!

Sean made the hard initial 2km straight up climb with no cleats and this was his first ever ride on a road bike. (probably his last too) I should have started him off on something a little less challenging!

On the way home we took the dogs for a swim, loaded them into the back of the car and forgot that the bikes were on the roof. We were all a bit hot and bothered and decided to get a drink. Rather than waste 30 yen on the drink machines we went to find a supermarket to buy in bulk. Upon entering the ‘outdoor’ carpark and started looking for a spot ‘outside’ to park the car we went across a low lying pedestrian walkway and here are the results.



My rare Italian sized obsolete 1 inch forks.

The roof rack’s brackets were all bent (I’ll try and repair them) the cross bars were bent and there was a dent in the roof of the car where my forks hit.


About 50,000 yen damage to save 30 yen on a drink!!!!