Bad Idea Bike Ride, 8/25 Edition

Welcome to what is almost certainly the first of many Bad Idea Bike Ride posts! Indeed, for the past several years I've taken a staunch damn-the-torpedoes position on most any activities performed in the path of bad weather, plague of locusts, etc. Why? Because adversity of almost all varieties are the mother of fantastic adventure! Also, the more often and more intensely we leave our comfort zone the further that zone's boundaries are pushed back, allowing for a greater breadth of memorable and unique life experiences.

So, damn it, go out and drive without AC in summer heat, try that freaky tofu quesadilla, walk down that sketchy street in the Mission and ride your bike in the rain in Japan.

And that's exactly what I did last Saturday, 8/25. For the two hours I'd been up the sky was cloudy and ominous, but not a drop of rain had yet fallen. I knew it would rain, I just didn't know if it would be in this town or the next one over. Would the wind whip it back east to Hita and Saga Prefecture instead? I put on my riding gear anyways, oiled the chain and rolled the dice.

My heading was south from Kusu into the town of Kokonoe, famous for its hot springs, winter snow festival and the world's longest pedestrian suspension bridge (built for no apparent reason other than to be pork project). At the border of Kusu and Kokonoe the road forks in two: left is highway 210, the larger of the two that eventually leads to Oita City; right is 387, a much more narrow road that winds its way to Kumamoto Prefecture and the Kuju area after some time. I'd been on 210 seemingly every other day since I arrived, but the last time I was on 387 was in a blinding snow storm over two years ago on my way to Kyushu's only ski resort. Naturally I headed up 387.


Mirrors at curves and corners are very common in Japan. This one is near the 210/387 split.

The road follows the Kusu River for about a kilometer before beginning its gradual uphill climb. Kudos to Japanese road engineers on their path finding for even these backwater highways, they are never so steep to be unpleasant for riders and their surfaces are always immaculate. However, by the time I reached the village of Minami Yamada, about seven or so kilometers from home, the rain I'd thought wouldn't materialize did. At first it was a drizzle, then a sprinkle. It stayed at that level for the next few kilometers when I stumbled on a hot springs town (onsen) town I'd been wanting to visit for a few weeks, Hosenji Onsen.


Some poor sap's rusted out Honda in Hosenji Onsen.

The practice of bathing in spring water isn't uniquely Japanese, but don't tell them that--they think they're the only ones in the world that do it. So when a foreigner enters an onsen town, especially these out-of-the-way ones, its time for everyone to really stare at the crazy white man. And why the hell is he here on a bicycle, in the rain no less? Well, I had forgotten my towel at home, not anticipating any hot springs action, so I can't make a review of this quaint riverside onsen town. Forgetting one's towel doesn't disqualify you, but you have to pay more for the rented towel. Besides, I was sopping wet and didn't want to take a nice bath then hop into cold, wet clothing. Yuck. I rode around town, snapped some pics then made for home.


Largest statue in Hosenji Onsen's Buddhist diety park.

This is where it got hairy. As I left town the sky really--REALLY--opened up with what the Japanese call ôame. These are fat, surreal rain droplets that impact and seemingly crawl all over your skin. My glasses were useless and actually made my vision worse with them on. The water was flowing off the road into ditches in sheets and I was hydroplaning often on my slick Serfas track tires (very good tires, by the way). Compounding the danger and fun was that all my uphill on the way to Hosenji Onsen was now blissful downhill. Like I said before, the roads here are perfectly paved and a joy for cyclists so on even slight downhills, in my highest gear, I can break the speed limit with ease. I joined a pack of cars in Minami Yamada and tucked into their tire wake to avoid large standing pools of water. I was doing at least 50 kph for those last few kilometers before the border of Kusu.


House with a moat. How cool is that!

And then at the border, quite literally where the sign announced one's entrance to Kusu-machi, the rain abruptly stopped and the roads were dry. Nature works in mysterious ways. For my risky flight through the rain there wasn't a particularly juicy pay off other than discovery of a nice onsen town and good exercise, but you can't win them all. One thing that was helpful though was to know that Hosenji Onsen is about ten kilometers from my apartment and I made it in less than an hour despite it being about half uphill. Armed with this knowledge I can make reasonably accurate judgments about trip times with my bike.