The Road Warriors, Part One

We came, we rode, we did it for The Kids!

This past Thursday, March 20th saw the start of something I've been waiting through four months of miserable winter for--the annual Oita Prefecture JET Charity Bike Ride! Three days, about 275 kilometers, several bananas, thousands of feet of mountain pass climbing and only my brain to keep me company. If that's not a recipe for hijinks I don't know what is.


The completely unremarkable Sakanoichi Station. If I lived in this part of Oita City I would almost certainly turn to crime just to add some spice to life.

Ostensibly this ride was to support Room to Read, the charity of choice for we Oita JETs that funds school construction in third-world nations, but for me it was a test of pretty much everything I've done with cycling for the past four years. I think most of you know the story: I started riding in Japan four years back just to get to and from school, which then morphed into recreational cycling at all hours around Oita. When I returned to America and my motorcycle ran into problems I adopted the bicycle as my primary means of transit, going virtually everywhere on it and making friends by it. It became a lifestyle. But still, I'd never gone further than runs down the Peninsula to visit friends in Palo Alto and that can't be more than thirty miles of mostly flat terrain. This trip was to confirm that I had it in me to do a serious bike tour.


The ride route is the green line. I couldn't find one of this quality that also went down into Miyazaki and Nobeoka City so just imagine that the line goes off the map another few inches.

First I'd like to fill you in on the parameters of this ride, where it was going and how it was being conducted. There were around twenty riders in all, mostly American, British and Australian ALTs, but with four Japanese riders who were teachers from an agricultural school in Mie (which we'd be passing through) and two ALTs from our southern neighboring prefecture of Miyazaki. Following the entire group were a rotating cast of support personnel numbering about ten. Among the whole group there were four hardcore cyclists, not counting myself: Guy from Miyazaki, Mr. "I don't eat chocolate or drink alcohol in a quest for a low BFI" (that's not a dig at Guy, he's a real upstanding, uh, guy); Mike from Utah, head of the Oita International Center; Creepy Joe from Yufuin, a forty-something man who hit on every woman in the group at some point; and "Alaska", a JET from Alaska.

The ride started in Oita City at Sakanoichi Station, an annexed suburb on the eastern edge of the ever-creeping urban landscape and seaside industrial blight. From here we headed East to Saganoseki and followed the seaside road down, down, down through Usuki, Tsukumi and Saiki until finally reaching the first night's lodging at Kamae-machi's Marine Culture Center. While the first day had only two challenging inclines, day two was virtually nothing but extreme inclines. The coastal road down to Nobeoka from Kamae is like a sadistic roller coaster that only lets up once you drop down to sea level in Nobeoka...only to have to climb back into the mountains for our rented cabins in backwater Ume-machi, back over the border in Oita Prefecture. The third day had less than ten kilometers of challenging climb as we headed over a mountain pass into Mie and then flattened out (somewhat) through farming valleys and pasture land. The final stretch was the twenty-five kilometers following the Ono River back to our start/finish point of Sakanoichi. The route isn't particularly done justice by the map above, what with all the twists, turns and alternate routes, but the days were 108, 85 and 75 kilometers, respectively. However, for me those numbers are highly fuzzy as you'll soon read.


Indeed I can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time!

Thursday started, literally, dark and ominous with a thick layer of rain clouds looking more and more like they'd fulfill the 10% chance of rain prophecy. And it was windy, oh my how it was windy. Bikes were being tossed over like bits of paper and the damn stuff never seemed to be at one's back. And I was going to need that too because a handful of us who brought our bikes by car had nowhere safe to park and ended up hunting for 45 minutes while the entire group started ahead of us. So much for group solidarity. I was delayed another handful of minutes when my pedals decided to fall off. Don't worry, I fixed it and was on my way without incident for the rest of the trip from them. Now, I know this wasn't supposed to be a race, but here I am with a badass roadbike, all done up in (sexy) riding gear and setting myself up to be last into Kamae. There were certain people who I especially didn't want to arrive behind as well so I stepped on it and sprinted down the coast to Usuki, passing two ALTs and the four Japanese riders, but seeing nobody else. Oh well, I resigned myself to fate and pulled into a Portuguese restaurant in Usuki I'd always wanted to try for a Guiness and some J-Portuguese fusion cuisine--you know, real biker food.

Leaving Usuki is one of the two challenges for the day, the double threat of a steep hill climb for a couple kilometers followed by a 2.5 kilometer long tunnel with no sidewalk and terrible exhaust venting. Thank you Twin Peaks, Buena Vista Heights and Potrero Hill for giving me the tools by which to fearlessly book up hills! In the level tunnel I was able to get a tailwind and tuck into the calm air behind some cars to keep up at a brisk 50 KPH or thereabouts. Descending into Tsukumi on the other side I discovered half the group stopped off at Lawsons for a quick snack break/lunch meaning the hill and tunnel had killed them. With a little time on my hands I went to pay my friend Lisa a visit and then went to take on one of the more inscrutable route choices of the entire trip.

Between Tsukumi and Kamiura heading south there exists a tunnel approximately two kilometers in length and with at least two bends inside of it. To reach the same destination without the aid of the tunnel would require a ten kilometer detour around a cape with unbelievably steep roads and frequented by armies of concrete and gravel trucks. So the tunnel is a godsend, right? Well, it would be except...it's not finished yet. The trip's planners assured us that the surface inside was entirely paved and it was only the far end's entrance/exit that hadn't been quite finished yet and I had no choice but to believe them because there were no lights in there other than tiny, faint LED fire hose markers and I'd left my light in my car. Hey, I had to keep my CF frame light, gimme a break! What was very mysterious about the affair was riding blissfully past the construction crew working outside the entrance and them no caring that some American dude on a bike is riding into the blackness.

Past the tunnel and into Kamiura the seaside fishing towns look like Hawaiian resort towns that have seen better days: winter-withered palm trees line the shores; souls are scarce anywhere around town; and the paint on all the fishing boats are peeling unchecked. I've been here twice in the summer though so I know it turns lively as the year gets on. Before I knew it though I was in downtown Saiki trying to find my way to the country lane that leads to the final climbing challenge of the day, but failing miserably and making a four kilometer unintentional detour until a super-hot gas station attendant set me right.

By this time in the day I'd gone over eighty kilometers and I had to admit it was all wearing on me quite badly. Climbing the hill I had to really concentrate on points in the distance and set them as mini-goals for the whole three to four kilometers of climbing. Bombing down the backside of this pass into the northern reaches of Kamae was one of the best feelings in the past few years of cycling as I was certainly breaking the posted speed limit.

Kamae is one of the most unique seaside fishing towns I've ever seen. Perched between the sea and nearly vertical cliff sides, the town is like a snake clinging to land trying not to be swept into the sea, contouring itself into and around several coves and capes for kilometers on end and never more than a two hundred meters wide. Following the snake for another forty-five minutes I finally came to the goal, Kamae's Marine Culture Center. Miraculously I was the third to arrive. I bought a cookie to celebrate. I earned it after all.

More hard road slog to come when I pick this up again tomorrow. Good night for now!

--Matt