Time to get started with today’s ride!

Today is the first big cycling ride with the new TWC Cycling Kit. Looking pretty good if I do say so myself 😉

恵那市 (Ena) is located NE of where I live in 岐阜県 (Gifu prefecture), which is famous for mountains. That means today is gonna be full of climbing..

I love cycling in this direction, as there are a lot of beautiful sights along the way.

This looks like a nice place for a break.

八王子神社 狛犬 (hachiouji jinja koma inu)

This is the front of Hachiouji Shrine with the guardian Shinto dogs known as koma inu.

Here’s hoping they also protect me on my ride today 🙂

Drone Time

As if climbing through the mountains wasn’t already hard enough, I was also carrying a backpack full of camera equipment, and.. my drone!

Completely worth it to be able to get some beautiful shots of this area in 瑞浪市 mizunami city.

小里城大橋

Even more worth it to get this awesome view of 小里城大橋 (orijou oohashi)

This road is crazy high off of the ground and just looks plain awesome! It’s even more fun to ride down, which I did later in the day 🙂

For now though, it’s up up up!

Finally, I arrived at my main destination, 道の駅 おばあちゃん市 山岡 (michi no eki obaachanshi, yamaoka)!

I was pretty hungry, so this was a perfect chance to fuel up on some good food. One of my favorite foods on long rides is 五平餅 (gohei mochi), which is a grilled rice stick covered in salty miso.

200 yen for pure deliciousness.

I also spoiled myself with some ice cream (350 yen).

The End

That’s it for today’s ride. I was pretty cooked by the end, and stopped for some coca cola on my way back for some extra energy.

Today’s ride on Strava

Be sure to watch the full video for all of the awesome views at 恵那市 and 道の駅 おばあちゃん市 in 岐阜県

The post 道の駅 おばあちゃん市 山岡 Cycling to Michi No Eki in Ena Japan appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

Course Profile

The cycling route and course profile from Nagoya to Jurou waterfall in Ena, Japan. Roughly 130 kilometers

Link to ride on strava.

Ride Start

The day started off with a fairly relaxing pace and a nice little early ride snack at Artigiano (アルティジャーノ), a bakery with a beautiful exterior/interior, in Tajimi, Japan.

Never too early for sweets

After eating, we slowly made our way towards Ena. It was an extremely hot day, however, and we both quickly ran out of water. Luckily, we weren’t too far into the country yet, and we were able to find a supermarket to restock on some fluids.

As we approached Jurou waterfall, we found a nice family-run curry shop. By this point, we had already been riding for a few hours and were pretty hungry, so we decided to stop for a quick lunch before continuing the last few km to our goal.

Mountain curry with some locally grown veggies

The staff was very kind and even gave us some free freshly grown tomatoes from their garden! Definitely stopping here again when I ride out this way next.

Arrival at Jurou waterfall (寿老の滝)

We continued on our way for the last few km and finally arrived at the secret Jurou waterfall, where some children were already cooling off in the water.

Cruise at Jurou waterfall (寿老の滝)

After a long, hot day in the saddle, we couldn’t wait to enter the cool water!

Cruise “meditating” under the waterfall

After cooling off in the falls for a bit, we were attacked by some Japanese hornets (スズメバチ), which apparently don’t like when you try to knock them away. When they feel threatened, they call their friends, and will group attack their target, regardless of size. These creatures are actually quite dangerous and getting stung numerous times can lead to death. Not wanting to stick around for more of their friends to come, we quickly departed to start our journey back home to Nagoya.

Random discovery of
道の駅 おばあちゃん市

Bradley’s GPS wasn’t working quite right, and I didn’t have the course loaded, so we randomly were making our way back by just riding Southwest, and then we came across this random tourist spot, which translates to something like Grandma City’s Road Stop (道の駅 おばあちゃん市).

This extremely large watermill caught our attention, so we decided to stop by 道の駅 おばあちゃん市

They were selling one of my favorite Japanese snacks, Gohei-mochi (五平餅), so of course we got some, even though we had to wait 15 minutes (worth it).

I was really impressed with the entire area of Ena (恵那). There were so many beautiful sights and unexpected surprises on this ride.

There was a fairly large dam nearby the shops as well.

Although I started the ride not feeling that great, I was feeling fantastic towards the end. Maybe it had something to do with all of the pastries, curry, and other snacks I ate along the way. In any case, it felt great to be back on the bike again after a few weeks off, and also catch up with my good mate, Bradley.

VLOG / Video for today’s ride

Here’s a video that Bradley put together about our ride.

The post Cycle to Jurou waterfall in Japan, Ena’s hidden Gem (寿老の滝) appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.