Jeffrey E.F. Friedl's Blog, page 6

Announcing a New Plugin for Adobe Lightroom: Smart-Collection Sync to Adobe’s Lightroom CC Cloud

part of the plugin explanation from its home page

I've released a new plugin for Lightroom Classic (Lr6 and later) to help users wanting to sync smart collections to Lightroom's
cloud ecosystem. Lightroom Classic allows syncing only normal collections, so you can't sync smart collections such as “all
five-star photos” or the like.

This plugin works around this restriction by allowing you to keep a set of normal collections automatically synced with your
smart collections; you then add those automatically-mirrored normal collections to Lightroom's cloud.

It sounds simple, but the devil's in the details... the same details, I'm sure, which caused Adobe to not support
smart-collection sync in the first place. It's all explained at the plugin's home page:

Jeffrey’s “Smart-Collection-Sync” Lightroom Plugin.

As with most of my plugins, it's released as donationware. It can be used freely by all forever, but becomes slightly less convenient after a while to encourage thinking about a gift.

Special thanks to Gerhard Wolf for suggesting a realistic way to approach a
plugin like this in Lightroom. I took his suggestion and threw it out, building something
completely different that made more intuitive sense to me, but in the end just didn't feel elegant. Indded, Gerhard reported that
my approach worked, but again urged his. I gave his approach a try, and upon
implementing it finally saw it for the more-satisfying approach that it was. Thanks Gerhard.

Impromptu Portraits at Horseshoe Bend

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/1000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100 —
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Photo-Worthy View

Horseshoe Bend, Page Arizona, March 2015

I came across these photos in my archive, from our trip to Horseshoe Bend
in 2015, and thought I'd post them.

For the most part the view in this area tended to look like this:

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/320 sec, f/8, ISO 250 —
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The Common Scene

folks milling about

So, these two girls isolated in front of the view made for a nice shot...

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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 98mm — 1/640 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100 —
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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 116mm — 1/500 sec, f/8, ISO 400 —
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Selfie







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Portrait

I thought the scene was sufficiently photogenic that I chatted with them a bit, and later sent copies.

Curiosities and Discoveries While Searching for the Eisho-in Temple

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Getting Started

amid some bare trees

Konkaikomyou-ji Temple (金戒光明寺), Kyoto Japan

The fall-foliage season is mostly over in Kyoto. During this season I re-discovered and explored some wonderful areas
within walking distance from my house.

It started when a friend suggested that I visit a temple nearby, sending a map link, so I headed off towards it.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
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Promising View

from where his map link pointed to

The map link brought me to one of the entrances to a big graveyard behind the Konkaikomyou-ji Temple, an area with a lot
of visual richness. I went in to explore.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/1000 sec, f/1.8, ISO 100 —
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Typical Modern Japanese Gravestone

dated 1972

Despite the English word “gravestone”, there are no bodies buried here, just little fragments of bone in a cavity under the
stone, as described in “Kotsuiri — Placing of the Bones”.

They're often beautiful and photogenic, especially the older ones.

But this was the fall-foliage season, so I was first drawn to some colorful leaves near the northern edge of the graveyard,
and I looked over the fence to see this:

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/320 sec, f/9, ISO 3200 —
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I couldn't see much, but the partially-visible roof made me guess that it was the back garden of a temple.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 110 —
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Anyway, I continued to explore the paths in the graveyard, and at the end of one came to a larger affair:

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Teshima Family Grave

dated “明治38” (1905)

The wabi-sabi is strong here. Its size suggests importance, and parts of it
are still in good shape, but other parts are leaning precariously, and there are few right angles left anymore. But the fact that it's
still here means, I think, that someone's still paying for its space on temple grounds.

Reading the information on these stones is an art, one of which I have only the most basic abilities.
Here's the side that has the date:

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Across the top are two characters, 「松」meaning “pine” and 「淳」, which my dictionary says means “pure”.
I don't know whether these are headings for the dates that come underneath them, or whether they are a single
word (and if so, whether it's 「松淳」「淳松」), so I'm off to a bad start.

But, down the right side is clearly a date that reads 「明治三十八年八月十日歿」, which means
“Died Aug 10, Meiji 38”. The 38th year of the Meiji era is 1905.

The writing is somewhat stylized, as you can tell by comparing the font seen in the sentence above with that seen on the stone.
In particular, I'd not recognize the middle character as 「年」outside the context of an obvious date.

Down the left side is also clearly a date, though which date I'm not so sure. It looks to be 「昭和四年十月廾一日歿」,
which seems to me to mean “Died October 21st, Showa 4” (year 4 of the Showa era was 1929). But again,
the character that looks to be 「年」doesn't look quite right, so I might be missing something.

Across from this large grave was a more modern, and more colorful one that had clearly been tended to recently:

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Very Modern

But, across from it next to the bigger one was an older one still:

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Dating from 明治32 (1899)








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Dating from 明治25 (1892)

I started on a mission to see how old of a stone I could find. Soon I came across a date with
an era name I'd never seen:

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Doesn't Look Particularly Old








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The Side with the Date

reading 「享保十九甲寅年」down the right,

and「九月十日」down the left

I had to look up the era name, 「享保」,
so pulled up Wikipedia's , and
was excited to find that the Kyoho era went from 1716 to 1736,
so this year-19 date equates to 1734. It's older than America.

The date was clear to me, but the two small characters 甲 and 寅 after the year number were a mystery. Later that evening,
Manseki-san told me it was from the Chinese sexagenary cycle, a
sixty-year cycle that seems to be in the same class as the 12-year cycle we sometimes hear spoken of with phrases like “year of
the horse”. Indeed, doing the calculations for 1734, we find it equates to year 51 of that cycle, which is denoted by those two
characters included on the stone.

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明治16 (1883)

Looks older than it is, perhaps because it's not pure stone?

(is it a layer of cement that's flaking off?)








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明治19 and 20

(1886 and 1887)








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文政9

(1826)

The current era is in year 29, and the previous era ran for 63 years, so it's easy to forget that sometimes the eras lasted
just a few years (they last only as long as their emperor). In the past 150 years there have been only four eras, but in the 150
years prior to that there were 21. This part of Kyoto used to be on the fringe, and has been used for burial rituals for over a
thousand years, so with well over a hundred era names that might apply to things I find, I have to look up any but the most
recent. It can be a bit exciting as I scroll backwards in time and still don't find a match.

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Lots of Questions

This seems to have a mini life story. From what I can tell, he was born on Sep 18th in
the year 文久2 (1862), joined families (by marriage, I assume), and died
on May 8 of 昭和17 (1942), which would put him just shy of his 80th birthday. But it seems
to say “81 years old” at one point. I'm probably just misunderstanding something, but
I wonder whether they simply lost track of the years. In counting from the birth year (文久2)
to the death year (昭和17) one has to know the details of six eras (文久 covered three years,
元治 just two, 慶応 covered 4, then 明治 and 大正 covered 43 and 15, respectively, and then they
were still in 昭和).

Now I suppose they have an app
for computing time spans across eras, but I can't imagine how they kept it straight back then.

What I’m Sure Won’t Be My Last Wigglegram from the Eisho-in Temple

Note: this article may not appear properly in news readers.

This article contains interactive aspects that are likely removed by most news readers. Please see this particular article directly on Jeffrey's blog for full functionality.

div#dEcdDMPwmPwmndA img { width:690px; height:469px; visibility:hidden; position:absolute; top:0; left:0; border: solid 10px #311}



















Animatable Wigglegram (18 frames) — slowly sweep mouse from side to side to view 3D effect
写真の上をマウスで左右にゆっくり動かすと「３D」な感じが出ます。
The Eisho-in Temple This Morning

with its larger-than-life Buddha statue up on the hill
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I popped out early this morning to visit the Eisho-in temple (栄摂院、京都市), first seen on my blog a week ago in
“A Few Views of Kyoto’s Spectacular Eisho-in Temple”. It really does pack a visual punch for such a small place, and I had it completely to myself the whole time I was there.

Lovely View from the Konkaikomyou-ji Temple’s Cemetary

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Lovely Day

Konkaikomyou-ji Temple (金戒光明寺)

Kyoto Japan
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I had a lovely walk today, with Paul and Akiko, who's in town
taking a break from crazy international travels as a professional photographer. I put up a few photos
at Strava until I can do a proper blog post.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/1000 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
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One bummer from the day is that my camera came unscrewed from its strap, as I apparently didn't tighten it well enough. I first noticed the problem when I saw my Nikon D4 bouncing one way, and the bulk of a $1,000 Cosina Voigtländer Macro APO-Lanthar 125mm F2.5 SL bouncing another way. Oops.

The impact was taken by three screws that held the bulk of the lens to its mount, which all snapped. So it might actually be
fairly easy to fix. We'll see. The camera was fine, which I'm thankful for.

On Government’s Use of Force, and Net Neutrality

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Rock-Garden Detail

Tenjuan Temple (天授庵), Kyoto Japan

A thought process:

I like cookies.

I love free cookies.

Gee, it would sure be nice if cookies were always free, don't you think?

The government should compel, by force of law, bakeries to give cookies away for free!!

At what point do you think the thought process crossed the line? If you like cookies, I bet you agree with #2 and #3, so why
not agree with #4? Why not compel bakeries to give cookies away?

By their very definition, laws and regulations compel people to act a certain way, whether they like
it or not. It removes their right to do as they please. This is often a good
thing; I'm glad that society removed your right to take my car whenever you feel like it, for example. But as
the cookie example shows, forcing someone else to do something that benefits you is not always what a
good and just society calls for. We show restraint and consideration in where we invoke
government power unto others, as at the same time we expect restraint and consideration in government's intrusion into our own
lives (especially if we make the occasional batch of cookies ourselves).

So, when contemplating laws and regulations (and taxes, for that matter), where society will use force to compel behavior, it's
not enough to ask “Do I like this idea?”, or
“Would it be good if everyone did this?” or “Will more people benefit than be harmed?”.

No, you must also ask “Is this
sufficiently compelling to force it upon people who don't share my opinion?”

So that brings me to the subject of net neutrality, and the many
discussions of it I've seen.

First let me say that this blog post is not an argument for or against net neutrality. However, this blog post is
an argument against discussions that don't consider whether it's compelling enough to require under threat of force.

Take, for example, the occasionally-funny comic “The
Oatmeal”, and his article on net
neutrality, where he talks about all the bad things internet service providers could and would do if left unregulated. He gets a bit melodramatic, but his points are completely valid.

It's as if he's talking about what would happen if restaurants could set their own prices for food. He'd
make the valid point that since some dishes would cost more than others, you'd be faced with the unpleasant task of
considering price when making your selection, instead of just being able to choose based upon your current mood. Or, he'd
correctly point out, every dish in a particular restaurant might be priced too high for you to afford,
so you'd be effectively barred from eating there! This would be really unpleasant! The answer, he would then point out
obviously, is to require restaurants to set all meals to a single government-mandated price.
There, problem solved!

Why isn't there a law requiring this? The vast majority of humans would benefit from this... only the
restaurants (which are not even people!) would have their rights taken away. That seems to be a small
price to pay for such widespread benefit, no? No. That's not how a just society works. The idea that all food is priced equally might be nice on the surface, but not enough to compel people to do
it if they don't want.

The restaurant business is very different from the ISP business, so the analogy goes only so far; the salient point is that any
discussion of a law/regulation/tax should include the recognition that it's the application of force by the government to restrict
others. The end result might be just what society needs, but it shouldn't be done without recognizing that it's being done.

So, when discussing the use of force to require internet service providers to run their business in a
particular way, please also discuss whether it's good and right for society to use force in that way.

Maybe that discussion will end up with “yes” for any number of reasons, or “no”, but at this point I've never seen the
discussion actually happen.

Even Seth Godin, who has long been a bastion of common-sense insight in a
sea of misdirection, in his comments on net
neutrality looks only at how some individuals might be hurt if net neutrality is lost, completely failing to consider how
society might be hurt if it uses its force without due consideration.

A Few Views of Kyoto’s Spectacular Eisho-in Temple, and More

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/320 sec, f/4.5, ISO 3600 —
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Come on In

Eisho-in Temple (栄摂院), Kyoto Japan

I went on short photo walks yesterday afternoon and this morning, at a cluster of temples near my place. It was quit pretty. I'd never been to the small Eisho-in Temple, and went yesterday on the recommendation of Tal (seen on this post) and found it to be exquisite at the height of fall colors.

I went back this morning with Damien, and we had the place all to ourselves.

I'll write more about it all later, but for today just a few representative from both days' ramblings.
(You can see the paths I walked on Strava, here
and here.)

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South Garden

of Eisho-in








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Cleaning Crew

including a man with a leaf blower at the big Buddha statue up on the hill










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Deserted in the Morning









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Damien's Back in the Game








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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/4, ISO 6400 —
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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 640 —
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My walks also visited the Konkaikomyou-ji Temple (金戒光明寺), of which the temple above is a sub part, and
the next large temple to the north, the Shinnyodo Temple (真如堂本坊).

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/800 sec, f/2.2, ISO 100 —
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Konkaikomyou-ji Temple (金戒光明寺)

You might remember the scene above, with the “no cars” granite post, from
this shot four years ago.

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Grave Markers

the oldest I noticed in this small bunch is from 1692 (元禄5年)









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Sneaking a Peek

at Eisho-in's Buddha from the neighboring temple
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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/320 sec, f/5, ISO 900 —
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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 100 —
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Not Open to the Public












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Lots of People

at Shinnyodo Temple (真如堂本坊)

(but you can find plenty of beauty nevertheless)








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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 640 —
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In the fuzzy background of the shot above, you might be able to notice that there are three people,
one person taking the photo of a couple. It turns out that I knew the photographer. Small world.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 640 —
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Luscious Light
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Lovely Ambiance








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Harsh Light








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Old and New









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Tending History

To be continued...

My First Ride to Kyoto’s Deep-Mountain Soren-ji Temple

Panasonic LX100 at an effective 70mm — 1/125 sec, f/2.8, ISO 320 —
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Koetsu-ji Temple (光悦寺), Kyoto Japan
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I had quite the photogenic day on Monday, with a local outing in the morning to see a nearby temple's fall foliage, then a ride
into the mountains to see by bicycle some of the places seen during the weekend's “First Taste of Kyoto’s Fall-Foliage Season, 2017 Edition” post.

Today's post is about the bicycle ride (view at Strava).

The photo that opens this post is the entrance path to the Koetsu-ji Temple (光悦寺), which I pass on
the edge of town just before entering the mountains and making the climb toward Kyomi Pass. We first saw it on my blog three weeks
ago, in all green, here. Indeed, as I
speculated there, it's spectacular dressed in fall colors, but also as expected, it was crowded.

I took the photo above expecting it to simply illustrate “crowded”, but I really like its vibe, so I made desktop-background
versions.

A lady kindly took my photo for me.

Panasonic LX100 at an effective 56mm — 1/125 sec, f/3.5, ISO 250 —
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Me








Panasonic LX100 at an effective 24mm — 1/125 sec, f/5, ISO 200 —
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Kyoto

taken on the fly, pointing the camera behind me as I climbed up toward Kyomi Pass

On the way down I came across Yasukawa-san, who had invited me on
the trip to Norikura last year. We had a nice chat for a bit.

Panasonic LX100 at an effective 35mm — 1/125 sec, f/2.3, ISO 200 —
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Junction on the Way









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I Love this Old Bridge

My post “Cycling to Kyoto’s Ochiba Shrine Amid the Fall Colors”
two years ago is similar to today's, but has a better photo of the bridge,
here.

I wonder how long ago the bridge was in use. It now leads to nowhere (the road just stops), because, I assume, the construction
for the current modern roads completely changed the landscape in the area.

Panasonic LX100 at an effective 24mm — 1/125 sec, f/2.2, ISO 200 —
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Fine Timber

one of the many ceder farmers in the area

taken at 28 kph (18 mph)

The main thing I wanted to do on this ride was make the short climb up to the Soren-ji Temple, which until now I'd visited
only by car.

Panasonic LX100 at an effective 54mm — 1/100 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 —
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Oops

fallen tree near the top of the climb












Panasonic LX100 at an effective 24mm — 1/125 sec, f/3.2, ISO 200 —
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Top of the Climb

near the Soren-ji Temple

I made a segment on Strava for it, but 50 of
the 52 registered rides are incorrectly attributed to this segment due to bad GPS data. In looking at
them, most were recorded with Strava's iPhone app, and the pattern of wonky GPS is really consistent. I'm
guessing that they all suffered the insidious iOS snap-to-road
“Feature” long enough for the iPhone to think they were on this steep climb, until realizing that they couldn't be and yanking
them back to the flat road they were actually zipping by on.

As it is, I think at the moment only the two slowest recorded rides are actually riding this 400m @ 11% climb. Mine is the
faster of the slowest, so I've got the moral “KOM”, at least until
a real cyclist shows up.

First Taste of Kyoto’s Fall-Foliage Season, 2017 Edition

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 56mm — 1/320 sec, f/6.3, ISO 1100 —
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Typical Kyoto Parking Lot

Soren-ji Temple (宗蓮寺), Kyoto Japan

I went out for a short photo jaunt with Damien, Paul, and Adrian yesterday to check out some of the fall color in the mountains
of northwest Kyoto.

First we went through the rural Kumagahata area that was hard hit by a
typhoon last month...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 48mm — 1/100 sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400 —
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Still in a State of Disarray

but the road is clean and utilities are working

The road surface is back to normal; compare to this typical scene just after the typhoon.

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One imagines that the mountainside will have to be thinned considerably

before the utility wires are put up permanently








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Odd Discovery

I ride my bicycle on this road often (it's part of the Kyoto Heart Loop,
for example) but had never noticed this weird bit of brick construction. At first I thought it might be the leftover foundation of
some long-gone building, but then noticed the plaque embedded within:

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隧道

十三石山

I was left grasping at straws to understand this. The characters are much more easily understood in this photograph than it was
at the time, but even then I correctly identified the bigger characters as “隧道” written right-to-left, the old way to write
“tunnel”. I'd seen it only once before, as described here. But there was no evidence of a tunnel nor that there ever might have been... it was odd, and I was left questioning whether I was mixing up
my kanji.

However, searching the web for 「十三石山隧道」
brings up all kinds of stuff, including this very helpful post that describes a system that brings water from the river starting at a point farther up the river
(here),
along a twisty but gently-sloping path that ends up about 1.3km due south to this point
just above a hydroelectric power plant built in
1908. By this point the road has descended about 50m (160') of elevation, but the water has not, so now
at the power plant it can plummet down to drive the turbines.

The non-“tunnel” words on the plaque, “十三石山”, apparently refers to the nearby mountain just to the west.

I find this old stuff to be really fascinating.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 50mm — 1/200 sec, f/4, ISO 250 —
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Too Much

As we continued deeper into the mountains, we stopped from time to time to enjoy the fall colors...

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Helpful Sign










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Kokumozen-ji Temple Entrance

(高雲禅寺)

I'd been meaning to check this place out; the big circular stone is hard to miss when flying by on a bicycle.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 100 —
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Small Tree on Fire








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Old Roof Tiles

discarded off to one side

The temple building itself was all closed up, but the adjacent cemetery was photogenic in some lovely light...

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Nearby back on the main street was a wall with lots going on...

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Visually-Busy Wall

With so much going on, I though that I should be able to do something with it, but in the end it's the photo above that I like the best.

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Nearby Bucket

We eventually made our way to the Shimyouin Temple (志明院), deep in the mountains to the north....

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/8, ISO 800 —
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View from the Parking Lot

Shimyo-in Temple (志明院)

I first wrote about this temple six years ago in “Kyoto’s Shimyouin
Temple: Exceedingly Remote, Bashful, and Serene”, and I took this hard-edged
black and white photo of Paul there, but for the most part this place doesn't appear on my blog much because photography isn't
allowed at most of it. One used to be allowed to bring a camera or a lunch box, but people were just too rude, so about 40 years ago
they stopped letting people bring anything (including cameras) in.

We then moved on to the famous Ochiba Shirne (“Fallen-leaf Shrine”) that has been on my blog many times...

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Iwato Ochiba Shrine (岩戸落葉神社)

It's not quite at it's peak “yellow carpet” level yet, as it was when this shrine first appeared
on my blog seven years ago in “Carpet of Yellow at the Iwato Ochiba Shrine, Deep in the Mountains of North-West Kyoto”, but it's still lovely.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 400 —
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Damien at the Entrance

In a single-frame re-enactment of this wigglegram from five years ago.

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Constant Flurry of Falling Leaves









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Adrian








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Helping Hand








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Dedication to the Shot

The hedge near the entrance is apparently made of various different plants that have different colors during this
season, as seen here, so you get a lovely mix of colors...

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We then moved over to the Soren-ji Temple (宗蓮寺), which was fantastic when we visited it five years ago,
as seen in “A Few Pretty Pictures from Kyoto’s Middle-of-Nowhere Sourenji Temple” and “Kyoto’s Souren-ji Temple at f/1.2”.

This time it wasn't quite as good, perhaps because we were a bit early, but the little park nearby was wonderful.

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Quiet Little Park








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Small, Steep Road

leading up to the park/temple area

The road up to the temple is narrow and steep (400m with an average grade of 11%).
I've never ridden it, but I will soon. I made a Strava segment for it.

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Steps Up to the Temple

(not quite like last time)








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Pretty Road

It was a nice start to the season.

Because It’s There: a 400km Ride Around and Around Lake Biwa

In Japanese, bicycling a full loop around Lake Biwa, Japan's largest lake, is called 「ビワ1」(“Biwa 1”), and depending on the
route you take, is about 180~200km (112~124mi). It's a concept and phrase well known among cyclists, and even promoted by the
Shiga Prefectural government, and that of various cities around the lake.

It's a lovely ride to do on a long summer day, with lots to see and enjoy, as I present in the story about the first
time I did it 2½ years ago, in
“Bicycle Ride Around Japan’s Largest Lake” (and its Part 2).

Part of what makes it interesting is the discovery and the newness, so it's a bit boring to do again. Still, half a year later, I did it in fast, not-sightseeing mode, in this 200km (125mi) ride.

So, having done it a couple of times and looking to up my does, my thoughts went to 「ビワ2」, two loops. During the zippy
attempt, the actual loop itself (that is, excluding to and from the lake) took 6h 10m, so I thought I
shouldn't have too much trouble doing two of them in one day. I thought I'd give it a try on my 50th birthday, but I ended up
visiting my folks in Ohio then, so it remained an unfulfilled goal.

So, I finally did it this past Wednesday, completing 408km (254 mi) in 18½ overall hours:

I set out from my house in Kyoto at 4:10am, to meet the two others I would ride with,
Ionut (seen on this post), and Hatano-san
(seen on this one).

iPhone 7 Plus front camera 2.87mm f/2.2 at an effective 32mm — 1/15 sec, f/2.2, ISO 1600 —
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Waiting with a Cup of Coffee

4:30am, western Kyoto, about 11°C (52°F)

Ionut's day got off to a bad start with a puncture on the way to the meeting point, so he was a bit late to arrive. We eventually got going and climbed over the short mountain between Kyoto and the city of Otsu, to a tiny traffic circle near the
lake that would be our start, middle, and end.

iPhone 7 Plus front camera 2.87mm f/2.2 at an effective 32mm — 1/15 sec, f/2.2, ISO 2000 —
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Ready To Start the First Loop

5:10am, Port of Otsu, about 10°C (50°F)

We did a loop around the little grass-filled traffic circle seen in the background at the start and end of each loop, to “lock
in” the loop and make the full loop unambiguous. And then we were off as a paceline at a brisk pace.

A “paceline” is when you ride with others single file, taking turns at the head of the line, and other times drafting immediately behind the others, to save energy. When
you're at the front, you take group responsibility for watching for hazards, as those behind you can't see the road or side hazards
because you're in the way, and when you're behind others with your wheels separated by just inches, you pay hyper attention to the
movement and signals from the person in front, lest they swerve or slow down and you don't react appropriately.

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Half an Hour In

5:45am, 8℃ (46℉), 35 kph (22 mph)

photo by Ionut Sandu

Most everything with the paceline went smoothly, except for one adrenaline-pumping event early on when it was still pitch
dark on a middle-of-nowhere stretch of road. Hatano-san was leading the paceline, and I pulled out of it to move forward to take
my turn at the front, and in the process came across a very dark hump of roadkill in the middle of the very dark (but otherwise
pristine) road. It's the kind of road hazard that one could easily go over or avoid, so the danger was in the surprise. I bobbled,
but thankfully did not pay the price for my inattention. I did not make that kind of mistake again.

We took even turns early on, but as the day progressed, Ionut took longer and longer turns at the front. He's by far the
strongest, and wanted to train for a long endurance race he has coming up, so except for a small part of me with pride, I was happy to let him pull. All in all, he pulled for probably 80% of the day.

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Gorgeous Sunrise

6:30am (1h20m into the first loop), 7℃ (45℉), 32 kph (20 mph)

photo by Ionut Sandu

Because I spent my mental energy on riding safely (and on worrying about the total distance, and about fretting at how long it
was to the next milestone, and worrying about what body part was in pain at the moment), I didn't pay much attention to the
scenery, but the sunrise was gorgeous, with deep rich oranges and blues painted with a warm, rich gradient.

I'm thankful that Ionut had the energy (both physically and electronically) to take a few photos. To allow my iPhone to record
the whole ride, I turned off all its antennas except for GPS (turned off WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellular), put it into low-power
mode, and touched it as little as possible. After 19 hours, the battery was still at 47%, so I guess I didn't need to be so
severe.

But I'm glad I had it and could record my whole ride. I brought four different devices to record the ride with,
and two had troubles. The iPhone worked perfectly, but my Garmin Edge 820 wouldn't even turn on. I've been having all
kinds of problems with it lately, but thought I had them taken care of until the morning of the ride when it seemed to
turn on but the screen didn't display anything. I brought it with me in the hopes that it'd record everything, but it
was just dead weight, and it recorded nothing all day.

Then there's the Polar M460 that I bought as a backup when the Garmin started acting up. This piece-of-shit cycling computer is
worth a whole blog post of ridicule on its own. It's horrible. I had to stop early in the ride to de-register my heart-rate sensor
because it kept popping up “HR sensor battery low” messages, sometimes multiple times per second, even though the HR sensor
battery was new and full. The message would stay there until I pressed a button, after which another one would come anywhere from
after a few minutes, to instantly. It took a while with it's ridiculous input system to clear the HR sensor from the unit, and the
resulting silence was angelic, but it seems to have decided to drop all sensor data from that point, even though it displayed it
(e.g. power data) to me during the ride. These are just a few of the many problems I encounter with this unit. I sent a note to Polar,
and they still haven't even responded.

I also had an old Garmin eTrex 20, which recorded everything fine.

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taken at 36 kph (22 mph)

photo by Ionut Sandu

In even considering to attempt this ride, I questioned whether I had the strength and endurance to complete it. A year ago I
would not have given it a second thought, but this year has not been kind to my fitness, and I'm not even close to my peak. But as it turned out, I felt strong on the flats, which is most of the route.

Mentally, I didn't feel so strong, and the ride ended up being much tougher mentally than physically. Milestones along the
route were so slow to come, and it was taxing to keep wondering “When on earth will we get to the spot?”.

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Heading South in Makino

9:30am (4:20 min into first loop), 15℃ (59℉), 28 kph (18 mph)

photo by Ionut Sandu








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Aerobars

I'd borrowed some clip-on aerobars from a friend, which allow me to rest my elbows on the handlebar and relax in a fairly
aerodynamic posture, as seen in the next photo, while maintaining good power and cadence.

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photo by Ionut Sandu

I really liked them, feeling natural the first time I tried them the day before. These particular ones were a bit short for me,
so I did have to put some thought into a position that didn't hurt my elbows and wrists.

Perhaps six hours in, an hour before we were done with the first loop, I lamented that we wouldn't make
it to the grassy traffic circle to finish the first loop by noon. Ionut said that we'd not go all the way down there, but instead
cut off about 40km (25mi) of the bottom of the lake by cutting across the Great Biwa Bridge. This had been his plan all along in
order to help ensure we finished at a reasonable hour, but I had clearly not understood it.

I was surprised at my reaction. I'd spent the last three or four hours worried that I'd not have the fortitude to continue,
that I'd give up after the first loop, but in hearing that 40km would be cut off, I immediately told them to go ahead as they
liked, but I'd continue to finish the loop. It was meaningless to me to cut off the end of the first loop (and cut off the start
of the second loop, for that matter), as that would give us zero loops for the day, and I came into it planning to do two full
loops if possible, but at a minimum one full loop.

We talked about the timing and how late we'd likely get home, and in the end we continued as a group to finish the full loop.

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Almost Done with the First Loop

Noon (7h into first loop), 21℃ (70℉)

photo by Ionut Sandu









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One Loop Down

12:20pm

In the end, the first loop took 7:13:35, more
than an hour longer than it took me last time I'd tried alone. Because we went slower, and were working as a team, I had ample
physical energy, so it was with less dread than I expected that we started the second loop.

Hitano-san had been having increasing pain in his knee, so he decided to bow out at this point. It's lucky that we had
continued to finish the whole loop, because had we not, then by the time he felt the need to abandon, he'd have been much farther
from home.

Ionut and I continued on.

27km (16mi) into the second loop, we stopped at a cycling statue recently installed near the lakeshore.

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Detour off the Cycling Path








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Ballerina Bicyclist

The plaque says “Lake Biwa”, and the somewhat presumptuous “Cyclist Hallowed Ground”.

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It's a nice statue, and a nice place to pause. (It'd be nice if there were some services nearby, such as toilet or water, but I
guess the lake can serve for both