Amami Cycling Tour: Finding Myself by Losing Myself.
Before my coworker posted some pictures of Amami Island I honestly had never known it exsisted. The Amami Islands (奄美群島? Amami-guntō)[1] is an archipelago in the Satsunan Islands, which is part of the Ryukyu Islands, and is southwest of Kyushu. My attention to this part of Japan was always grabbed by Okinawa which is the larger and more popular island further to the southwest. A quick peek on Google Maps showed promise that it would be a good cycling destination and I could see most of it in the 3 days I had available. My misconception that it was just a smaller version of Okinawa was soon to be dispelled.
I always suffer from a bit of winter cabin fever and although I was able to keep myself fit and engaged with virtual cycling my mind, body and soul was craving some outside challenges and adventure. . My wife could get me tickets on JAL and a convenient window of 3 days presented itself in a few weeks so I made up my mind to go exploring this island.
I've had a lot of people on FB and other social media ask me for advise about cycling in Japan and if I had any recommendations so I'm posting this in part to help people that may be interested in coming to Japan to cycle to get a sense of this location. I'll continue to post other interesting routes as I discover and ride them myself.
My goal for this excursion was simple, yet difficult. "See as much as this island network as I could in 3 days." It should be done 100% with a bike and I should lug around my own gear and daily necessities. I would spoil myself by staying every night in the local resorts and "Ryokan" (Japanese version of a B&B)
In the few weeks leading up to this little adventure I had carefully planned my daily routes using Google maps. I knew that the island would be hilly, but what I wasn't prepared for was the size of these "bumps". Climbing on a bike is challenging. Climbing 3 days in a row is tiring. Climbing with loaded panniers is humbling and by the end I was pretty cooked. But, getting cooked, exercising some winter demons and emptying myself was what I needed so it was "mission accomplished".
Clicking on the links below will take you to each day's write-up, which I did at the end of each day while things were fresh in my mind.
I hope someone can find some interesting information from reading this. I'm writing to keep a memory for myself, keep my family up to date on some of my travels and also hoping to help someone that may be planning on riding in Japan.
Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.
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