I had wanted to bike up the TamaGawa River for some time. Teresa was back in the US for a while, and there was a good weather weekend...so off I went. The River goes up about 15 miles until it becomes a large man made lake...Lake Tama.

I was hoping for nice easy bike paths for the 30 mile round trip...but sadly only a third had bike/jogging paths. So, there was alot of "side of the road" biking. But oh well.... There was alot of folks fishing on the river that day.
There were alot of bridges of course. It's hard to beleive the river was so large that it took a ferry to cross the river until the early 1920's. Irrigation has siphoned off a huge amount of the water.
This is what the bike/jogging path looked like for about 10 of the 30 miles.
The weather was pretty warm, so sunscreen and head cover made a good choice. I also had on biking clothes, which helped wick away the sweat. I was a bit warm, but not too bad.
Of course I passed a number of temples. This one was very cool and shady, and right on the path, so I took a break there.
I actually had to carrry my bike up a steep long set of steps to continue the journey, as the bike path dissapeared for a while at this point, and the continue point was past this shrine.
Each of these pieces of paper is a wish or bad luck fortune...all to be burned and "fixed" by the spirits and gods.
This is a two decker bridge for a large inter-state toll road. It leads off to Mount Fuji, a few miles away.
Looking north, I am now in pretty hilly country at the base of the mountains. I have left the Tokyo suburbs and am now feeling like I'm really in the country!
Lots of little shrines of course...which are good opportunies for a break for my rear end while I take a photo...:)

Looking down at the Tama River. There is a bit more water now, it's deeper and has more fish. And fishermen of course!

Looking south back towards Tokyo.
Another bridge, and looking down at the river. At this point there is lots of rafters, kayakers and canoes.
I didn't make it quite to the lake. I felt a bit of a sunburn coming on, so it was time to turn around. I got pretty close tho, I could see the dam for the lake in the distance. I found a shady spot here by the river to eat a MRE, or military portable meal....
I took the other side of the river coming back, and passed thru this old tunnel. It's about a half mile long, and just for bikers/joggers. It used to be a one way car tunnel evidently. It had great echos!