I-94 for Bikes

Well, our first day started out with a bang. We come downstairs bright and early, get everything ready....and I have a flat tire. It seemed to hold air last night, but not today. So, first thing I get to do before breakfast is change an inner tube.

It is exactly as fun as it looks

We finally get going and head out to Asakusa, stopping at a konbini to grab some yogurt, apple juice and water. We headed up to Zenkouji to eat our breakfast, and were greeted with the monks of the temple doing their early Sunday morning chants.

After our feast, we got up and really began our trip. There was, as expected, a lot of riding through Tokyo suburbs, checking our not very detailed maps, waiting at interminable stop lights, until we finally made it to the bike path. 

The not so good part of the path. Still very nice.

The bike path extends from just north of Tokyo all the way up to Ashikaga, a good hundred miles. And it's not a gravel path. It's as wide as a four lane road, well paved and just for cyclists and pedestrians. For almost the entire length, it is on a raised embankment next to the Edogawa river. The river valley is home for all sorts of things that most of Japan does not have the flat space for. Baseball diamonds, soccer fields, full 18 hole golf courses. Things we take for granted with all our space, are clustered along the rivers of Japan. So, for much of the day, we saw many suburban Japanese out enjoying whatever their hobbies were.

The nice part of the bike path. It was like this for most of the trip.

And it was hot. Over 80 with no clouds and a bright, direct sun beating down on two people who were dealing with snow last week, and have not been outside for 10 hours at a stretch since our last bike trip. Being on the embankment, there is zero shade. None. So, we were constantly putting on sunscreen, sweating it off, reapplying it, etc. The cycling was as flat as you will find it in Japan, which was great, but it was a pretty grueling first day out.

About halfway through the day, we rolled into the small town of Sekiyado. What made this place appealing was not the nice castle and museum that bordered the bike path (though on any other day, we’d have stopped in to look around), but the wonderful bicycle rest stop that was next to the castle! 

Sekiyado Castle, museum and snack bar

Shade!

A covered bike parking structure, vending machines galore and a shokudou, a place to stop in and eat. There were a ton of cyclists out today, so the place was pretty full. A wonderful, refreshing stop!

These guys were just outside the castle area

These guys as well. There were also turtles and fish. No clue.

It struck me, as we were cycling along, that much of what we were seeing is exactly what you'd see on a bike path in the States, with a few minor differences. This is our first time seeing the Edogawa plain, and it is very different from the rest of Japan, which is mountainous and much more cramped. Large rice paddies, dairy farms (we were mooed at. Felt like home.), lots of space. Also, since we were on the bike path, we weren't passing through the small towns, just passing outside of them, like an interstate for bikes. It was odd. The path made the trip smooth and easier than it would have otherwise been, but it was missing the people (other than the other cyclists) and the atmosphere of small town Japan that we like so much.

Cool tunnel on the bike path covered with trees and vines.

We pulled into Koga around 4pm, and found our hotel, located next to the station, with no troubles. A much needed shower, discovering where we didn't put enough sunscreen, and a search for some dinner. Well, Koga is not a big town. A Sunday afternoon meant not much was open and we were not going to bike anywhere after about doing 70km in the heat. So, the train station it was. Our sad choices pretty much boiled down to MosBurger and Vie de France. Well, Vie de France had spaghetti plates and the food wasn't greasy, so it won out. I highly recommend the Banana and Honey Au Lait they serve there. Bananas, honey and milk whipped together. Fantastic.

Tired, burnt and out of shape, we stumbled back to the hotel and were asleep by 7pm.

Found outside a shop, a large, inflatable lucky cat.