Ogose is a quiet town at the edge of the Kanto plain, where the flat sprawl of greater Tokyo gives way to the first low hills of the Chichibu and Okutama mountains, and it has the feel of a place that most people pass through without noticing. Its pleasures are modest ones: terraced tea fields, stands of cedar and cypress, small orchards, and a plum grove, the Ogose Baien, that blooms in March and fills the slopes with white and pink. The roads that wind through these hills are the sort that a rider remembers as the pleasant end of a long day.
The hills here are the Musashi ridge, a fringe of old forested ridges that rise to a few hundred metres, and the landscape is a patchwork of woodland, villages and rice paddies, with narrow valleys running between. The area is known for its tea, the Sayama tea that is grown and processed in the nearby hills, and for its small farms, which sell vegetables, eggs and persimmons from stalls by the road. In the autumn, the persimmon trees hang heavy with orange fruit among the bare branches, and the maples on the ridges turn red.
Riding here is a matter of careful pace. The roads are narrow, often with one lane and passing places, and they twist sharply between the houses and the trees, with blind corners, steep ramps and drainage grates at the edges. The surface is generally well kept, but fallen leaves and wet patches in the shade can be slippery, and on weekends, there are many cyclists and other riders. Speed limits are low and strictly enforced, and a patrol car may wait at the bottom of a popular hill. Drive on the left, and watch for traffic coming out of side roads.
Morohongo, only three kilometres away, and Sakado and Ogawa, a bit further, are the towns for fuel, convenience stores and meals, and there are noodle shops and small restaurants by the station. In Japan, you can rely on a vending machine for a hot or cold drink in almost every village, and on a convenience store for a rice ball and a coffee. The best seasons are March, for the plums, and November, for the colour, and the roads are least crowded on weekday mornings.