Day 1: South by Southwest, Post Haste

May 21, 2017

Day 1: South by Southwest, Post Haste

Despite going over my mental and physical checklist many times the night before, I woke up at 4:30 am feeling like I’m missing something. “Oh well, what can go wrong” I thought and set about getting myself to Haneda airport for a 2.5 hour flight down to the Japanese Island of Amami, part of Kagoshima prefecture.

My first physical challgne was getting myself and my bike about 600 meters up to road to our local train station. With thanks to my daughter Aimee, who helped with this process as she was also heading out to school on the same train, I got to the train station with ease. Next challenge, how to get myself and a large bike bag onto one of the famously crowded commuter trains without pissing too many people off. These people where doing the slog into Tokyo for work and I was clearly going to play. Some jealous looks were cast my way.

Smiling cause I think someone just pinched my ass.

Carbo-loading like a boss

Coffee Brewed right.

After arriving at Haneda airport I went right for check-in. I'm flying on employee tickets (Thanks to my wife!) so I am standby and wanted to get here extra early. I want to compliment Japan Airlines for being one of the only airlines I know that still allow bikes to fly for free.. On top of all this they took extra care ensuring that my bike was packed safe and that it would arrive in a ride-able condition. Check-in complete and with plenty of time it’s time to find some proper carbohydrates and caffeine..

Day 1 is going to be the most hectic as I won’t land until 14:40 and need to get my bike ride-able , bike bag stored in a coin locker and then head south for 86 KM to my little Japanese inn. Since the sun sets at 19:10 today it will have to be at a fairly decent clip. I’m also unsure about finding water / drinks along the way but this is Japan, there has to be a vending machine every 100 meters or so.. … right? If this all comes off as planned I should be sitting pretty and much more relaxed at a more easy pace for the rest of the trip. Anyways, my bike lights (Xmas gift from my Mom, Thanks!) are installed, it’s a semi-tropical Pacific island and my bag is loaded with energy bars.. My only concern are the poisonous snakes and wild boars on the island.. (more on this later)

JAL, as always, out performed and got us on the deck 10 minutes early. Glancing a look out the window revealed an island not just bobbing in the Pacific, but more accuratly "jutting out" seems a fitting description. My legs were feeling nervous with all the climbing now apparently in store for me. I was anxious about getting to my first nights stay on time so every minute helped. My bike was wheeled out to me from a friendly JAL staff and it was then “game on” to get the bike built, the bag disassembled and stored in a coin locker and then my butt on the saddle headed in a southern direction. First hiccup was the rear derailleur hanger threads are nearly stripped out.. I won’t have many more removals of this before it is completely shot.

At the airport and chomping at the bit to get rolling.

At 15:30 i was finally clipped in and moving which felt a great relief in itself. .. With three GPS devices tracking me (iPhone / Apple Watch / Garmin 500) there is no way I could get lost… Right? Wrong.. When I planned the route, on Google Maps I chose a slightly less traveled route.. But, no problem because it was still showing as a road.. Well, this is what the road looked like and it only got worse.. a LOT worse, after this.. On top of this was the fact that I was not getting any antenna signal which meant that Google Maps was useless.

After 2 or 3 KM of this ever more rugged path and my bike covered in mud and me covered in exotic spider webs I had enough.. Time to admit defeat I turned turned it around and headed back to civilization. Once I had a signal again I let Google guide me the whole way, barking instructions to me in my ear buds…. As you can see from the images, it’s mountainous here so I spent a considerable amount of time in tunnels under them. The longest of them was 4.5 km long but all of them were built with nice cycling / walking sidewalks so it was not an issue at all, in fact it was kinda fun knowing I was cycling deep within a mountain.

Because of my jungle detour I was a good 45 minutes behind where I wanted to be, but I had a pleasant tropical tail wind pushing me along so I think things balanced out.. I think I scored my highest heart rate of the whole day when I was chugging up a lonelyl road near dusk when I heard hoofs clicking from my right hand side. Out of the scub shot a wild boar who cut across my path about 10 meters in front of me and dived into the other side of the road undergrowth. I think we both let out a bit of a squeal in surprise.

As the sun just dipped below the horizon, and I emerged from my last tunnel to my arrival town of Sentouchi, the clock just showed 19:15. 2 KM from my destination my earbuds started to ring and I answered to a concerned Inn staff at Hala Diving Resort was met on arrival, ushered to my amazingly wonderful room and fed a heavenly meal after my relaxing and refreshing shower.