The Himedomachi Cycling Club

The wisteria is blooming in Switzerland and people are stopping to smell the lilac tree in our garden where it overhangs the fence. In northern Japan, the snow is disappearing and the cherry blossom wave that started in the far south a month ago is about to make the leap from Honshu to Hokkaido. I am hoping that, when I land in Sapporo, they will be in full bloom.

I have mapped every day of my ride and booked cheap accommodation. On my last day of riding I’m staying above a Japanese pub, an izakaya, about 50kms north of Cape Sata, Japan’s southernmost point. I’ll cycle to Sata then spend another night in the pub. Depending on how I’m feeling I’ll either take a train or cycle to Kagoshima and jump onto a Shinkansen for Kumamoto. A local train will take me to the edge of the Amakusa islands, the sub-tropical archipelago where I spent two years in my mid-twenties.

Five bridges connect the islands to the mainland and my plan is to cycle across them. They are a threshold, torii gates made from rivetted metal that span the luminescent Sea of Fire that separates the islands from the mainland. In my imagination it’s always one of those blistering hot days when the thermometer reads 37 degrees and the sky is achingly blue. I’ll be there on June 9th, just in time for the rainy season, so maybe it will be grey and drizzling, but why let the facts get in the way of a good daydream?

Getting onto the islands is quite easy, getting off them more difficult because my bike will be in its flight case and there is almost no public transport. However, a friend has offered to drive me to the airport and, with this logistical headache solved, and bar one or two small purchases I’m still to make, my preparations are essentially finished.

Last week I loaded Ribena with clothes and kit and cycled to France via the Col de Marchairuz, a 1300 metre eminence in the Jura hills. It was a two-hour suffer-fest where I seldom got out of my largest gear, the so-called ‘granny-gear.’ I fortified myself with Liquorice Allsorts and the repeated mantra, “Just ride the road in front of you.” There were rough cow pastures and crumbling stone walls at the top, as well as lingering speckles of snow which added to the moral satisfaction of making it.

It was the peak I wanted to climb before I left for Japan, the one that had loomed over my imagination, goading me for being too unfit, too heavy, and too scared to conquer. It was the confidence booster I needed, and now it’s done and I can forget about the bike and my fitness and concentrate on what I am really going to Japan for: its history, its food and, most importantly, its people.

My plan over the next two weeks is to push myself indoors when I have an hour or two, then pootle about outside in this lovely spring sunshine to rediscover the simple joy of exploring a country by bicycle.

The ride by the numbers:

80km along, 1650m up