Fukui – Nagahama 83 miles I awoke early to a selection of lurching footsteps, creeping around outside my tent. Fearing that I was about to get molested by the walking dead, I grabbed a pile of wits and chanced a sly glance through my tent’s involuntary secret peep hole. I was relieved to find that…
Tag: cycling
The Phoenix
19. Fukui Heading out of Kanazawa, I met up with my old flame, Route 8, as I journeyed into Fukui Prefecture. Route 8 was as feckless as ever, with its limited hard shoulders and hordes of trucks that bounced along the heavily fractured bitumen without a care in the world….
The Angry Warden and the Japanese Garden
Kanazawa – Fukui 60 miles After coffee and a high five, I left Jimmy and Lei to their Japanese studying; something that I was struggling to find the time to do. I had been averaging anywhere between 60-100 miles a day in the saddle, so the very thought of sitting down to study Japanese at…
One Thousand Rice Paddies
Mitsukejima – Kanazawa 111 miles I’d managed to survive the night without being coerced into any deep crevices; in fact, as I left surrounded by a spooky sea mist, I could hear my camping neighbour snoring contentedly. If I wasn’t so eager to push on, then I may well have been jealous of his sleeping…
The Bastard of Noto
Toyama – Mitsukejima 98 miles The day would start like many a day on the road, by seeking out the nearest 7-Eleven. There, I would have a breakfast of noodles and gyōza, accompanied by two coffees whilst abusing the free Wi-Fi on offer and seeing how many Facebook friends had called me a ‘cock’ in…
Here comes a new challenger…
17. Toyama Takayama – Toyama 64 miles The ride north to Toyama City saw me leave the Japanese Alps behind; it had been an intense week and I had been feeling a longing for the coast again. Toyama means ‘many mountains’ and it would certainly live up to its name; a riotous cluster of alpine…
Getting fucked up in the Japanese Alps (4/4)
It was whilst atop Mt. Norikura, amongst a dirty grey mist, that I stumbled across a graveyard of abandoned racing bicycles. It appeared that the ‘Racing Carnival’ was no more as up to 100+ of some of the most expensive bicycles on earth lay strewn across the mountain top, not an owner in sight. Their…
The Japanese Alps – Part 3
Norikura Kougen – Takayama 37 miles Up and away by 06:30am the skies were dreary; contrary to the weather forecast. The climb was slow and steady and a number of race cycling enthusiasts passed me en route to the summit. Each wished me good luck as they went by, some would comment upon my heavy…
The Japanese Alps – Part 2
I wouldn’t be the first Englishman to tackle Mt. Norikura, and certainly wouldn’t be the last. In 1878, a: professor, mining engineer, mountaineer, foreign advisor, writer, archaeologist, better man and fellow Englishman, William Gowland, became the first to summit Mt. Norikura. He noted then how the beautiful, multi-pinnacle terrain was reminiscent of the French Alps,…
Dawn of the Alps – Part II
Yudanaka – Kusatsu 31 miles Breakfast started with a brutal 10% incline which set the pace for the bulk of the day’s journeying, as I traversed Japan’s highest public road – amongst its abandoned summertime ski slopes. I wondered if I was insane to be lugging some 30kg of property up into the skies with…
Tokyo to Tokyo 