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     <title>Cycling on Chris Bracken</title>
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     <description>Recent content in Cycling on Chris Bracken</description>
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       <title>Ride to Okutama-ko and back</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2008/10/ride-to-okutamako/</link>
       <pubDate>Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2008/10/ride-to-okutamako/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1qLR0za_apX5qMJi32cqDoNYESRI&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;msa=0&amp;amp;ll=35.67441532772013%2C139.44887900000003&amp;amp;spn=0.214689%2C0.47083&amp;amp;t=p&amp;amp;source=embed&amp;amp;z=9&#34;&gt;View map&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;I haven&amp;rsquo;t ridden a &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_ride&#34;&gt;century&lt;/a&gt; since I moved to Japan but with a bit of
 spare time on my hands before baby number two is due, I decided I was going to
 get back into decent enough shape that I could pull one off. I&amp;rsquo;ve been using
 mornings and weekends to get back into riding longer distances, and slowly
 building up toward the goal of 160 km by riding further and further up the Tama
 river every weekend.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Five minutes looking at Google maps yesterday morning at 6 am convinced me that
 Lake Okutama was exactly the necessary 80 km away, so without a minute to lose
 I got dressed, headed out the door and rode north up the Tama river.  Here&amp;rsquo;s
 the &lt;a href=&#34;https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/18311395&#34;&gt;activity report&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The ride along the river is gorgeous, one of the few places in Tokyo you can
 ride uninterrupted through a green belt that runs from the ocean at Haneda
 airport all the way into the mountains in the northwest corner of Tokyo. The
 bike path ends at the south Hamura dam, but by then it&amp;rsquo;s pretty &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.ehimeajet.com/inaka.php&#34; title=&#34;Inaka: rural Japan&#34;&gt;inaka&lt;/a&gt;,
 so you can continue by road from there without much worry about traffic. At
 the north Hamura dam, I crossed over to the west side of the river, to pick up
 Route 411 through the towns of Oume, Sawai, and Mitake before leaving the city
 completely and starting the climb up into the mountains.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The trip on from Mitake is a long, slow ascent along a narrow, winding road
 through small towns and villages while criss-crossing the river. Particularly
 this time of year with the leaves changing colour, the trip is visually
 spectactular, with the mountainsides lit up bright orange and red. Okutama is
 the last major town before the final hill-climb up to the lake. At its
 westernmost edge is the world-famous Tokyo &lt;a href=&#34;http://web-japan.org/nipponia/nipponia19/en/feature/feature05.html&#34; title=&#34;Conbini: Let&#39;s enjoy convenience store life!&#34;&gt;Conbini&lt;/a&gt; Shuten—the final
 convenience store of Tokyo. Complete with latitude and longitude figures on its
 sign out front, it is a site of pilgrimage for cyclists headed up to the lake
 and the border of Tokyo and Yamanashi prefectures. Too bad it&amp;rsquo;s a &lt;a href=&#34;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Yamazaki&#34;&gt;Daily
 Yamazaki&lt;/a&gt; and not a &lt;a href=&#34;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FamilyMart&#34;&gt;Famima&lt;/a&gt;, but either way it&amp;rsquo;s got
 &lt;a href=&#34;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocari_Sweat&#34;&gt;Pocari Sweat&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;From the town of Okutama to the lake is a 13 km hill climb up through tunnel
 after tunnel to the dam at the edge of the lake. My the one route change I&amp;rsquo;ll
 make the next time I do this is to go &lt;em&gt;around&lt;/em&gt; the tunnels instead of &lt;em&gt;through&lt;/em&gt;
 them. I can&amp;rsquo;t possibly imagine why someone felt the need to put (very
 expensive) tunnels in on this road given that almost every single one can be
 bypassed on the road. I can only assume that this has something to do with the
 government trying to buy the powerful rural vote with thousands of unnecessary,
 environment-destroying &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.iwanami.co.jp/jpworld/text/publicworks01.html&#34; title=&#34;The LDP and pork-barrel politics&#34;&gt;construction projects&lt;/a&gt; per year.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The good news is that once you hit the top, the views are spectacular, the
 roads are flat, and you&amp;rsquo;re back in &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.flickr.com/photos/68908288@N00/141327403/&#34; title=&#34;Jidohanbaiki: Let&#39;s vending machine!&#34;&gt;jidohanbaiki&lt;/a&gt;-land where
 Pocari Sweat and Aquarius are available in abundance! I&amp;rsquo;d accidentally left my
 cycle computer off for a 3km stretch out of Okutama, so I cycled 3 km down the
 road to make up for it and be able to claim a &lt;em&gt;recorded&lt;/em&gt; 160 km. I ran into a
 German cyclist named Ludwig who&amp;rsquo;d also ridden in from Tokyo; he had a
 drool-worthy Canyan carbon-fibre bike, and interestingly, it turns out he&amp;rsquo;s
 part of the &lt;a href=&#34;http://positivo-espresso.blogspot.com/&#34;&gt;Positivo Espresso&lt;/a&gt; cycling group whose blog I&amp;rsquo;d
 been reading for a couple months.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Ludvig continued on up towards Yamanashi-ken with the plan of packing up his
 bike and taking the train back when he got as far as he wanted to go. Good
 plan, and something I&amp;rsquo;ll give a try next time. I turned my bike around for the
 long trip back home. The best part of that trip was the 30 minute descent back
 down out of the hills at car speed, before hitting Mitake, and heading back out
 to the flat cycle path along the Tamagawa.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;All in all, a pretty awesome day of cycling and a trip I&amp;rsquo;d definitely do again.
 While the trip included a nice hill-climb, it wasn&amp;rsquo;t severe, and didn&amp;rsquo;t last
 more than 15 km. I&amp;rsquo;ve included the GPS map—there are a couple errors where I&amp;rsquo;d
 accidentally switched it off for 3 km near Okutama, and for about 5 km near
 Hamura on the way back.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
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     <item>
       <title>Biking Japan 2003</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2003/08/biking-japan-2003/</link>
       <pubDate>Sun, 17 Aug 2003 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2003/08/biking-japan-2003/</guid>
       <description>&lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2003-08-17-cycling-in-japan.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Brodie bike parked beside vending machines in front of restaurant&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;The plan was to travel from Osaka north to the Japan Sea, northeast along the
 coast to Joetsu, south through the alps to Nagano, then southeast all the way
 to Tokyo — a total distance of close to 1200 km, entirely by bicycle.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately for me, disaster struck just over half-way, in the form of
 150km/h winds and torrential downpours. Typhoon Number 10 ploughed straight
 through Japan, following a track from the island of Shikoku through Nagano
 before it died out, dumping up to 650mm of rain a day, and flooding out every
 town and village in its path.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;I arrived in Osaka the night of July 28th and promptly hauled my bike,
 panniers, and tools through customs and immigration, across the airport, and
 into a hotel. I’m not entirely sure how happy they were to have a
 grotty-looking guy assembling his bike in his hotel room overnight, but no one
 said anything, and I snuck out around 6am anyway.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;It’s unbelievable just how slowly you start and stop when your bike is loaded
 with 40kg of gear. Sort of the cycling equivalent of driving an 18-wheeler. The
 weather was a scorching 36C, with the humidity hovering around 85%. Over the
 first 70km from Osaka Itami Airport to downtown Kyoto, I consumed 8 litres of
 Dakara, Boku, Miu, and the oh-so-deliciously named Poccari Sweat, crashed
 twice, and got lost every 5 minutes. Took a break in Kyoto, stopping by to take
 a look at Sanjuusan Gendo, take some pictures, and chat with Taxi drivers, the
 police, and anyone else who wanted to know just what the hell I was doing.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Eventually, after a few more Poccari Sweats and some ramen for lunch, I jumped
 on my bike and started the trek to Otsu. Half an hour later, winding my way
 slowly uphill, along a narrow shoulder on a bridge 30m above a cemetary, I had
 the first major close call of the ride. Fortunately, through a combination of
 luck and skill, I deftly avoided flying over the railing and plummeting 30m to
 my death. Unfortunately, I did so by launching myself headlong into a traffic
 barrier, failing to release my toe-clips, breaking the seat right off the post,
 and trashing both my leg and pannier on the pavement in the process. Pretty
 sure my leg was broken, I lay there for a few minutes contemplating the
 resounding success of my bike trip thusfar while the last of the Poccari Sweat
 drained out of my water bottles into my shoes.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2003-08-17-fireworks-in-fukui.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Fireworks in Fukui&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Suffice to say that the rest of the day went uphill from there (both literally
 and figuratively) and I arrived in Otsu, on the edge of lake Biwa, in one
 piece. Annie met me at the JR train station, we ditched the bike in a parking
 lot, and rode the train back to Kyoto, where we met up with the entire
 complement of Shiga JET Programme teachers at The Hub, an Irish Pub in
 Karamachi. After a few beers, some fish &amp;amp; chips and edamame, Annie and Brent
 hauled me back to their apartment in Imazu, where they (and I am forever
 indebted to them for this) put me up for three days.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Although I didn’t get to go to SummerSonic in Osaka, I did get to pick up my
 bike in Otsu, ride 95km back north to Imazu, and spend the evening at Imazu’s
 Natsu-matsuri¹ with friends of Annie’s and Brent’s (Josh, Yo, and Hatsumi).
 Natsu-matsuris involve many elements, but some of the most important factors
 are: fireworks that put ours to shame, music and dancing, traditional Yukata²,
 and vast quantites of food and alcohol. After the festival, we dragged
 ourselves to Bumblebee Twist, a local bar, and had a few more before eventually
 hauling ourselves off to bed to recover.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The next day, we were all invited to a barbeque. The one thing that any
 foreigner will immediately notice about a Japanese barbeque is that you can’t
 just light the barbeque using zip-lights or lighter fluid. No&amp;hellip; the correct
 way to light a barbeque in Japan is for one person to heat the coals with a
 torch while the rest stand around fanning the flames with uchiwas³ until the
 barbeque, in a moment of glory, bursts into flames and the cooking begins. We
 had music, more food, beer and Chu-hai (a sort of cider), snacks, and more
 fireworks. It was totally great, even though I was beat over and over at some
 kind of pirate game by a three-year-old.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The next morning, I said bye to Annie and Brent, then hurled myself off
 northwards up the highway towards the north coast. For 30km, the road winds up
 through the mountains over a narrow pass toward Tsuruga. In the scariest
 downhill of the entire ride, I plummeted down the winding road, drafting behind
 semi-trucks at 70km/h, flying in and out of tunnels and around hairpin turns
 for the 8km down into Tsuruga.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Tsuruga sits on the ocean at the edge of the Sea of Japan, at the beginning of
 the long road leading northeast to Fukui and Kanazawa. Unfortunately, it also
 sits at the beginning of a 95km-long leg of straight uphill running along the
 edge of a cliff with no shoulder. Fortunately, it’s some of the most beautiful
 riding you could possibly hope for. Even more fortunately, midway through the
 ride, as I sat at the side of the road huddling in a tiny corner of shade at
 the edge of a cliff, two motorcyclists from Osaka pulled up and offered me
 something to drink, a look at their road maps, and some encouragement in
 Kansai-dialect. This was reinforced over and over throughout my ride by
 children hanging out of car windows waving and shouting &amp;ldquo;ganbare!&amp;rdquo; at the top
 of their lungs.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2003-08-17-lining-up-for-okonomiyaki.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Lining up for okonomiyaki&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Eventually, I wound my way up through the mountains to Fukui, where I almost
 had to spend the night camped on a park-bench by the river. Just when I’d
 almost given up hope of finding a hostel, someone walked up to me and in
 perfect English, asked if I needed a place to stay for the night. Turns out her
 family ran a hotel downtown, and she and her sister had spent several years
 living in Australia. Their mom invited me in for tea and snacks after dinner
 and we all stayed up late with their little boy, Ryu, yakking about travelling
 and good Japanese food.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The next day it was off to Kanazawa, which it turns out has a lot in common
 with Kyoto. While it’s much smaller, there were many beautiful old sections of
 town. There are temples and shrines everywhere, Kanazawa Castle and Kenrokuen —
 probably the most famous Japanese garden in the world. There’s also a crazy guy
 dressed in a cape and John Lennon glasses who runs around dragging people to
 convenience stores. Too embarassed not to buy an ice cream treat from the
 shopkeeper, I grabbed some ice-cream mochi balls, borrowed the phone and set up
 reservations for Nagano.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Because of the typhoon, I ended up doing the rest of the trip by train. I found
 a bike shop and spent the day yammering away in pseudo-Japanese to the little
 old grandma and grandpa who owned the shop. Turns out that he had done almost
 the exact same bike trip about 40 years ago! He had also cycled across
 Australia and much of the rest of Japan. Pretty amazing! If I hadn’t found
 them, my bike would probably be lying in a crumpled heap in a landfill right
 now. It took hours, be we did manage to pack everything into an unbelievably
 small bag that I could haul onto the train with me.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;From Kanazawa, I caught the train to Nagano, taking local lines and limited
 express trains the whole way. Nagano was the site of the 1998 Winter Olympic
 Games, but has since reverted to its pre-Olympic small-town feel. It was a
 beautiful place to visit, hidden away in the Japanese alps, surrounded by
 Japanese hot springs and ski hills. I can’t wait to visit in winter. Nagano’s
 biggest feature is probably Zenkouji, a Buddhist Temple which houses the first
 Buddhist images to come to Japan from the Asian mainland. Underneath the temple
 is a pitch-black maze of tunnels that you can wander into, pushed along by wave
 after wave of school-children on field trips, people on pilgrimmages, and
 curious tourists. It’s almost impossible to tell just how fast you’re moving,
 or how far you’ve gone&amp;hellip; just disembodied voices in the dark. Eventually you
 arrive at the “key to salvation”, which you can’t see, but you can feel. A few
 shakes and rattles, then you’re swept away down the tunnels again.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;From Nagano, I caught the Asama Shinkansen into Tokyo. At 280km/h the trip
 takes just about two hours. The train tore through the edge of the hurricane at
 breakneck speed and we were in Tokyo on schedule to the minute. You can’t help
 but love the Japanese train system.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2003-08-17-akasaka.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Akasaka at night&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Met up with Yasuko in Tokyo, and we spent the week bumming around town and
 catching all the sights: Akasaka, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Odaiba, the Tsukiji fish
 market. Took a side trip to the art gallery a few hours away in Hakone
 Prefecture where a mix of European and Japanese art is on display. There were
 some absolutely amazing pieces of Japanese pottery in their collection. Back in
 Tokyo, we had the chance to see a Kabuki play. I wasn’t entirely sure what to
 expect, but it was great. The most striking thing is perhaps the movement. It
 was absolutely incredible. I wish I were able to describe it, but the best I
 can do is recommend that if you’re even in Tokyo, you go see a Kabuki play!&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;I returned home on August 17th. Ate breakfast, lunch and dinner in Tokyo,
 jumped on the plane at 6pm and had another breakfast and lunch. Arrived back in
 Canada 8 hours before I left, and had lunch and dinner again, for a total of
 seven meals on the 17th. Not bad! It was a pretty wild and crazy trip, but it
 was one of the best trips I’ve ever taken. I can’t wait to go back.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Thanks to everyone who put me up along the way! In particular, Annie &amp;amp; Brent,
 and Yasuko! You guys are the best!&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;glossary&#34;&gt;Glossary&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Natsu-Matsuri:&lt;/em&gt; every village’s traditional summer festival, usually in
 early- to mid-August, near Obon, the Day of the Dead.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Yukata:&lt;/em&gt; traditional light cotton kimonos that come in a variety of colours
 and patterns.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Uchiwa:&lt;/em&gt; Large, flat traditional Japanese fan.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
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