We kept saying it was a warm winter this year, but this week, the long-awaited (?) cold wave finally arrived. With high hopes that there might be snow on the mountains, I headed out for a bit of a distance exploration ride.
As I made my way up the rugged mountain path, patches of snow began appearing on the shoulders of the road. With my anticipation building, I finally reached the main course: the unpaved section.
Just as expected, there was fresh snow. To be honest, I was a little anxious because the snow had started at a lower elevation than I had anticipated, but Keita and Yuya pushed on with their SIMWORKS BY PANARACER / Volummy tires (sorry guys, I really didn't think there would be snow this low...).
The plan was to ride the gravel road all the way to the summit and take in a beautiful sunset, but at this pace, the sun would definitely set while we were still heading down.
So, not wanting to push our luck, we decided to cut the route short and head home while still enjoying our first snow ride of the year. Even though we had things to do, starting a ride in the afternoon during the short days of winter is just unrealistic, so please don't follow our example...
Personally, this day reaffirmed for me that while riding in the crisp winter air is definitely cold at first, once you keep pedaling, your body warms up and your senses become sharper—and that's the best part.
Though I swore to myself that next time I’d get an earlier start, I ended up enjoying the perfect magic hour as the sun sank into a cloudless sky from the open-air bath at Kushihara Onsen on the way home, and I couldn't help but think it wasn't a bad way to spend a day off. (The sunset that day was truly beautiful, and I highly recommend their open-air bath.)