With the annual Tour De Chiba on this weekend training was cancelled. A lot of them went on the night bus to ride today’s stage. As I bought my bike to save money I don’t actually like paying to ride unless it’s a race fee. Instead I did my own tour of Chiba today. I went to Watarase. My first time.
I was impressed. Lately I’v been looking for a bit of variety in my local rides and just by riding a little further than usual or riding up the opposite side of a river a whole new Universe of good cycling appears.

111km in the saddle today. Hard wind. Hard saddle. Sore legs. Sore body. A hard hit after 2 weeks of nothing.

Route: less 2km where I forgot to turn the monitor back on:

Watarase was impressive. I was so impressed I forgot to take any photos. Due to the strong winds the windsurfers were flying out on the lake. There was a sailboat race as well. The lake seems bigger than Tega-numa. It was hard to find as I didn’t take a map. I had a rough idea where it was but wasn’t sure how to get there. As you approach it there are a number of cycling paths. I took the obvious one which was probably the wrong one. It lead me around the North East side of the lake but due to trees and the huge expanse of the river basin I had no idea where the lake was. I got sucked into some black hole cycling paths too. They are the paths that look excellent and you head into them and you get about 5 or 6kms into them and they end up being dead ends. Nothing to do but back track. Then there are other ones you think are black holes so you go along them with trepidation only to find that yes, they actually do go somewhere and actually take you to where you were hoping to go. I found some of those as well. All good pioneering for next time.

Today: 111km
Year: 4621.25km