The Himedomachi Cycling Club

I heard a crash on the tiled roof outside my window, something scampering about, then silence. I slowly pulled the paper screen back and there sat a monkey, gazing into the forest. I took a couple of pictures before it disappeared.

I ended up eating breakfast at 6.45. Mr Ueno offered it to me as soon as I was up. We chewed our way through the bamboo roots he’d collected in the forest, rice he’d harvested – also with added bamboo – and omelette and sausages. I thanked him for the advice he’d given me when I went to the bath, to add cold water if it’s too hot.

“Oh, that’s normal. The people who have grown up in Atsumionsen don’t mind 44 or 45 degrees. But outsiders always want it cooler.”

I admired the way he’d arranged his life so that he would earn money, have company and his house wouldn’t go to waste. He was generous with his time and had cultivated a ‘not a care in the world’ attitude of someone with no kids or parents to think about.

I had a long day in front of me, 117 kilometres. I’d travel along the main road, turn right down a smaller road down the coast, then rejoin the larger road about 20 north of Niigata. The temperature was over 25 degrees and the wind was low.

I stopped at the last convenience store before the turn off and got chatting to a couple of motorcyclists. The chatty one was wearing a Harley overcoat, blue denims and cowboy boots. Shades and a moustache completed the look. I guess he was about 70 and he had some kind of three wheeler motorbike. His friend was more nondescript in a white cardigan, shades and an American looking hog that I suspect was made in Japan.

They were fascinated by Ribena, who glowed when they praised her disc brakes and carbon frame.

The men, who had been talking in dialect before we spoke and had switched to standard Japanese to speak to me, were fascinated by my saddle and dived back into dialect to speculate about the damage it must be doing to my bottom.

“It hurts?” the chatty one asked, sticking his hands between his legs to demonstrate where.

I laughed. “Yes, it does.”

They seemed pretty bemused about my plan to cycle to Sata and peppered me with questions.

I asked where they were going today. The chatty one said that they lived just up the road. Afterwards I thought, “That’s a bit sad, dressing up like that and riding that bike to live out your Easy Rider fsntasy.” Then I laughed at myself and thought, “At least they can do it in their backyard. You had to travel to Japan to live out your Alan Booth fantasy!”

The coastal road ran past some striking rocks that were each named and marked on the map. There were a lot of tunnels and not much traffic. Most of the tunnels were short enough to see the other side, but a few of them were long and two of them had pavements so narrow I had to get off and push. There were bike tracks where dripping water had formed mud, footprints too, so I wasn’t the only one.

I kept my breaks short, setting myself a goal of completing 15 kilometres before having something to eat and drink. I stopped at a place where a sign advertised the sale of Skunk Cabbage. Men were building a new bridge to replace the old one, which seemed just fine as I cycled across it.

Let me just say, Niigata is a nightmare to cycle through with its flyovers and four lane traffic, its airport sized factories and its succession of shout out loud in frustration, slow to change traffic lights.

I entertained a fantasy where I had the Head of Town Planning kneeling mob-execution style in front of me and I pointed a pistol in his face while I interrogated him.

“Why does the sign for the only bridge you can cycle across point so ambiguously? And why are there steps leading up to it?”

BAM! BAM! BAM!

I bought myself a sticky bun, shelved my fantasy and found a bike lane that brought me to my hotel.

In fairness, the cycle path across the bridge was perilously thin and the cycle lane amounted to a few blue chevrons. It took me two hours to do the last twenty kilometres.

I drafted a man cycling in flip flops and a jaunty hat and asked myself why I was so cross. I was done in when I got into my room and stripped down to my shorts and lay under the air conditioner for half an hour.

Ribena is very excited as she’s taking the Shinkansen tomorrow for the first time. We’re skipping the section through the Noto earthquake area out of respect for the people there. The guy at the station saved me 7,000 yen on the ticket, half of which I splurged on blue cheese and French bed from the Vie de France bakery.

I’ve got three hours to kill tomorrow before my train so I’m going to dive into Alan Booth for inspiration. No doubt I’ll wake up feeling sick from all the cheese I’ve eaten.