BEE Japan

It was supposed to be a nice short ride to the meeting point with our solidarity riders for the day. We had all been looking forward to the so called “shima-nami kaido”, a line of islands connected by bridges all the way from Shikoku to Honshu accross the Seto Inland Sea.

But what started as a cloudy morning soon turn into rain, and half way towards the meeting point the rain was so strong that it hurt just to be riding. We made to the bike terminal, the meeting point, thinking that none of the solidarity riders would show up in that weather. But to our surprised 3 of them met us there, ready with their “ponchos”. After almost 2 hours waiting for the rain (and strong winds) to decrease, we were ready to leave!

But the islands had different plans for us.

Just going up the first bridge, Emi had some problems with her panniers. Nothing too bad, and just after a few minutes checking it, she was ready to continue.

After going down the first bridge, we were ready for the next one, but on the way up a hill, “pang”, a broken spoke! Just as I was ready to start fixing it, we got a call from Colin J, who had just broken a spoke himself a hundred meters behind us.

After having been teached by Emi how to fixed it, I borrowed the tools and with the help of Ana, soon I had put a new spoke and was ready to put the tire back. But then “pang” again, trying to force the tire into position I had pinched the tube and now I had to take off the tire again and fix the tube. After 5 flat tires during my first week I was already good at it, but somehow I forgot to actually put the patch centered in the hole and it didnt work, so we had do start again. What a day!

Finally I was ready to go, but it was already almost 12m, so we all decided to go back to where Colin was and have lunch together. By the end of lunch, and an enthusiastic talk on sustainable food choices, we leaved the first island at around 1.30pm. The solidarity riders on the other side had gone ahead with their bikes and we never see them again for the rest of the day.

The rest of the day was also full of stories: taking the wrong side of the island, singing songs on top of the bridges, enjoying ice-cream made with local-fruits, trying to get into crazy temples after they were already closed, almost getting taken away into a hotel by drunk japanese people, getting lost, and finally changing our destination to a closer camping site that was not accessible by bike so we ended up sleeping at a park near the beach, under a big roof that nobody uses because the summer season is already gone.

Total distance: around 70km

Weather: “I can see clearly now the rain is gone”

Group Mood: “I can see all obstacles in my way”