The Himedomachi Cycling Club

Doing my daily check I noticed that my back tyre had lost a lot of pressure overnight for the second morning running. My tyres are tubeless, meaning that instead of an inner tube the tyre has a viscous liquid which will self-seal most punctures. I tightened the valve as it was likely the air was leaking from there. I considered taking the tyre off and checking it. It’s a messy business with the tubeless liquid sloshing around, but I had an outdoor sink and plenty of space.

Toki had managed to get up in time to see me off. It was 7.30 and I for one was hungover. The day promised to be short, just 96 kilometres, the first half of which was downhill. So, I said goodbye to him and his wonderful place, wishing him well with his career, and cycled off.

I stopped briefly around the corner. An English woman called Shirley has opened an English restaurant deep in the Japanese countryside. It was closed but Toki had told me she had married sometime from Kami-Kawatachi. The food was apparently good and the restaurant attracted people up from Hiroshima. It had celebrated its 10th anniversary only recently.

The road was downhill but it was drizzling and traffic was heavy. I had hoped that by taking the smaller road there would be less traffic. Instead it meant that the road was narrow with barely enough space for the constant stream of cars to overtake me.

I stopped on a bridge after 20k and checked Ribena’s tyre. It had lost a lot of pressure, so I topped it up again and took out my valve tightening tool to really make sure that everything was in place. I spun the wheel to see if any liquid had come out – the sure sign of a puncture. I couldn’t see anything and, hoping that it was sorted, cycled on.

Things went from bad to worse and 5 k from Hiroshima I stopped cycling all together. I couldn’t get any pressure in the tyre and I didn’t want to damage the wheel rims. Looking at the tyre wall I could see the stitching of the inner wall. Maybe I had overloaded my saddle bag. I could remove the tyre, reseat the valve and put it back on, or remove the valve and put an inner tube in. Either would be a messy job to do beside the road. What I needed to do was talk to an expert. Maybe switch out the tyre for something better suited to touring.

Google said there was a bike shop 5 kilometers away so I put my saddle bag over my shoulder and pushed Ribena there.

The mechanic was fixing a child’s tricycle when I walked in. Not the most encouraging sign. I explained my problem and he called his supervisor over. Neither of them had any knowledge of tubeless tyres. In the end they agreed to put in an inner tube.

“Can you degrease the chain and the cassette too?” I asked them.

“We don’t have the tools.”

I left Ribena propped up on a rack and went to find something to eat.

Between walking to the shop and the repairs I lost about two hours, and I still had Hiroshima to cross. It was still raining and now the school kids and other cyclists were steering one handed holding umbrellas. Asteroids again, but this time in Hard Mode. Let me also just say that you have enough time to write a novella waiting for a Japanese traffic light to change. By the time I had crossed Hiroshima I’d completed a novel and had already been rejected by six agents.

I’ve already visited Hiroshima’s Okonomiyaki Village, where customers sit in a horseshoe around the cook while he prepares the orders. When I’d turned up with my father and step mother the stall we were sitting at emptied. No one sat down until after we left, although many people looked in at three foreigners and all the empty seats

I’d told Toki that story the night before and he’d said, “25 years ago. There were still hibakusha – bomb survivors – then. Things have moved on now.” He seemed to intimate that the young wanted their city to tell a different story

I’ve been to Nagasaki too. Nagasaki was the first Japanese city to allow a Christian cathedral, and a blackened relic of it stands in the Peace Park, as if to say, “This is what they’re really like.”

In Hiroshima I’d managed to dive down parallel side streets where there was no traffic. Leaving the city, I was stuck on the 2 with no way to get off. The 2 was narrow and congested and I could have touched the cars that passed without having to stretch. It was raining again and I put on my reflective vest. I got to a tunnel and eyeballed the car behind me.

“I’m here. I’m a person. I just want to get home too.”

I missed the turn off for the Miyajima cycle path and was channeled onto a two lane bypass. I cycled as fast as I could, but the cats were much much faster.

I pulled into the ferry terminal to catch my breath, coasting to a stop just inside the No Bicycle Zone. A Japanese man mumbled a four-syllable word at me. I had planned to maybe go to Miyajima. The dramatic, red torii gate standing in the sea is worth the detour. However, it was 5pm. It would soon be dark.  It was raining and hundreds of people were getting off the ferry. I thought it would be like Amanohashidate all over again.

I returned to the 2 again, keen to get the nightmare over with before the sun set. I did manage to get this amazing photo of the torii though.

I crossed from Hiroshima to Yamaguchi, the last prefecture of Honshu. I stopped beside the sea to take a photo. Within 10 seconds a van pulled up beside me and young men jumped off the back to collect the rubbish from the bins. Their boss, a crusty guy in his fifties, asked me where I was headed. When I’d finished talking to him another man came up and asked me the same questions again, in English this time. I pushed off as soon as was polite, the photo forgotten. Another 5-10k later I finally left the 2 with a quiet hallelujah.

Iwakuni was an industrial town. Oil refineries and smoke stacks and high rises to house the workers. I’d spent 12 hours listening to traffic and was totally wasted, mentally and physically. I put a free pasta dish in the microwave, ate, showered and fell asleep in a container with the light on at 21.30. So much for the short day!