北関東のツア
The Trip
This year, for my 40th birthday I decided to go on a tour of the Kita Kanto region of Tokyo. The route would pass through multiple prefectures, and hit at least 5 towns I’d never visited before. Last year I went to Osaka via the mountains to the west of Tokyo, but this time it was a simple counter-clockwise loop, always staying within two hours by train from the Tokyo metro. I never had to pull the Tokyo escape hatch, but the ability to take a quick trip to great bike shops and emergency supplies was nice to have. Another first on this trip was ordering supplies online for delivery to my hotel—I’d forgotten to replace my rear brake and rode down a mountain rubbing metal on my disc rotor. I also switched things up this time by bringing a friend along: June. Her bike may be more internet famous than her, but she’s a great friend and easy travel companion. We bristled at each other occasionally, but the laughs and smiles always returned. We even survived the horrific combo of her dairy-heavy vegetarianism mixing with my meat-heavy lactose-intolerance.
The first day
We began with great weather, albeit a little later than planned, riding out of Yotsuya in North Tokyo at 11am, headed towards Tsuchiura. Our first hour was a painfully slow game of red-light, green-light to get out of the city, and then a number of converted rail-trails, mostly elevated. There was a persistent headwind, and a great deal of construction that meant a number of detours. This was the rule of the trip broadly: slower-going terrain, and wind. By dark we were close to Tsuchiura, as we entered the Ring Ring road as it passed through the southwest bit of the lake. The bike infrastructure and hotel in Tsuchiura were highlights of the trip, immediately apparent as we entered town. The entire Hotel area had blue lines to follow with your bike, and every part of the building had bike parking. The only real downside was that the bike shop on the first floor inexplicably didn’t have chamois cream—either people have stronger skin in Japan, or people rely on pharmacies. We checked in to our hotel, grabbed dinner, and drank sake before bed.
Day two
The second day we originally planned to circle the lake, but my legs were feeling like shit due to the abnormally high amount of walking I’d done in Tokyo with friends in my first week in Japan. Somehow this rest day then turned-into a 56km+ ride with 600m of climbing (four cat 4 hills over 6% with one at 11%). The elevation gain was very typical for my riding in the bay, but due to my weight I tend to avoid steep hills—short ramps are fine, but over 6% means riding at a very slow cadence that’s rough on my knees, even with a 43/46 gear. If you want an idea of the sort of suffering I go through on steep roads, this video is instructive. The main differences between this man and I are that I have significantly less muscle, but am much more cycling-trained. The pain is the same though. The view from the top of Tsukuba was excellent, as was the descent, despite my non-existent rear-brake.
We got back to hotel for a bath, pizza, and more sake and German tv.
Day three
Onward to Ōyama. Our third day was wet. We chose the flattest route possible to avoid dangerous descending, but there was no getting around being soaked and cold. We hid in conbini whenever we could to warm up, and I spent longer on heated toilets playing Balatro than I should’ve. By the time we arrived at our strange shipping container hotel, we were exhausted and a little mentally finished. A bath, some flat udon, and a strange visit to the local derelict mall closed out the worst riding of the trip. Ōyama was a sleepy town in a strangely interesting way. I don’t think I’ll return, but it was a reminder that even little suburban places in Japan can entice. The distance from Tokyo to our hotel was comparable to the Mission to Sacramento, but a huge difference is an hour and twenty minutes on Japanese trains vs nearly three hours on Bart and Amtrak. This means people in Ōyama could reasonably commute to Tokyo by public transit. Every trip to Japan I’m struck by just how much better transit is there than even in a comparably good American city like San Francisco—not even mentioning the vastly better fare gate system and high speed Apple Pay.
Ok, so it’s clear there’s not much to say about the city or the wet day itself, so I’ll move on.
Day four
Heading to Kiryū the next morning began with more rain. We hid out in a nearby 7/11 until the morning showers subsided, then got back on the road. The stress of first week and a half in Japan really hit me as I dried off, and even though June convinced me to go up a small cat four climb, I skipped the longer climbing route she enjoyed. Later, when we’d both arrived at our night’s house, she told me the climb was steep and tough, which underlined how much better of a decision it was for me to stick mostly to flat areas. Kiryū was one of our best nights, with excellent Izakaya food and a fun chat with the locals. One guy, a farmer at the bar, even complimented my Japanese by saying “damn, y’know a’lotta words. We’re really talkin’!” When the night begun, I thought about going to the local sentō, but I chose solidarity with June so we just went home and watched tv.
Bathing in Japan is complicated. Onsen, the fancy old-style hot springs around the country, are largely inaccessible to me due to my tattoos, and sento, the public-anyone-can-come baths in every neighborhood are gender segregated, which can be rough for non-binary people, or people whose bodies don’t match the expectations of the random strangers at these baths. For me, I can usually just deal with comments in Japanese about my size, my tattoos, or whatever catty speculations the women in the bath come up with, but it’s stressful, so I prefer private baths. I’m certain that not easily accessing the baths in Japan is a massive negative for trips there, so if you can enjoy them, please savor the experience for me too.
Day five and six
As we left Kiryū, the cute bakery and quaint town struck us both as rad places. The buildings were mostly pre-war, and the Izakaya we’d been to the night before was a fifth generation-run spot from 1919. The owner of the house we slept in told me Kiryū mostly served as a rest stop for Japanse tourists traveling from Nikko to Nagoya or Nagano. There wasn’t a lot of art in the town that I saw, but there were enough little shops run by younger people, it gave me hope that towns like this could come back from simply being shuttered streets.
We rode south for 80km through the mountain passes. Despite some very tough climbing at the end of the day, the ride was pleasant enough, with chunks of river-path, and a failed attempt at buying new brake pads from a couple bike shops in Honjo. The hotel I chose for two nights in Chichibu was unfortunately on top of a mountain, which afforded excellent views with a tough walk and ride to town and back. We BBQ’d both nights, which left June mostly with veggies and rice, and me with a plate of solely unseasoned meat. It was a weird time. Our “glamping” spot had decent amenities and was near a large number of park attractions, like an airsoft range, a karting track, and a Canadian-themed breakfast spot. We only had a shower in our room, but one night in the Onsen for me had me wishing I couldn’t understand Japanese.
Day seven
We bid adieu to Chichibu and headed towards the mountains on the way to Akiruno. I knew this would be the hardest day of the trip due to all of the climbing, but I hadn’t figured on just how steep almost all of it would be. Our first climb of the day was an HC climb of 2km at 10% average, with ramps up to 20%. The fastest time up this climb for women was close to thirty minutes, but it took me an hour with a fair bit of walking. The tough climb put me a bad mood, but a descent later in the day made things at least a little better. As we kept at it, stopping for the bathroom, and lunch, I resigned myself to type-2 fun that at least would end in a beautiful place. Ride with GPS led us up a bonus climb for another kilometer past our hotel, which I only realized as we dead-ended at a hike-rally point bathroom. The surprises didn’t end there either, as the hotel manager told me I’d forgotten to order any food to BBQ at the fire. Luckily, our host drove us into town to the grocery store so we could cook dinner. I massively overbought food, as I’d started drinking before our grocery trip, but it was delicious. Our accommodations were excellent, and comfortable, but again there was no bath. We watched Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 to prepare for the 2024 edition of Til Death Do Us Blart. Our stay was bittersweet as we knew the next day would be our last on the bike this trip, but my body was grateful we were close to done.
Day eight
I swore my last day would be spent on a train to give my legs a break, but instead I begrudgingly followed June all the way to her hotel in Tokyo to get my bag. There was minimal climbing, but almost the entire day was urban riding with start and stop traffic lights. I’m an inertial rider, and I prefer long steady riding and effort these days, so getting up to speed repeatedly only to stop again was tough. I got frustrated but by the time we got to the hotel I was just grateful to be back; enjoying coffee and whiskey at June’s hotel before heading to my sauna hotel.
Trip review
This was a fun trip, but my lesson was I prefer riding alone and choosing my own route on roads with less stop-lights/stops, and ideally lower-gradient climbs. I want to go back to Japan again and potentially bike in Hokkaidō or north from Tokyo, but September or October could be more idea weather-wise next time.
Since I got home, I’ve tried to just rest and decompress. As always, the toughest part of this trip was being away from my cat, Snorri, so being back home with him rules. June and I agreed near the end of the trip that even though we both wanted to be home we kind of wished home was in Japan instead. After over a dozen trips to Tokyo and 50+ trips elsewhere, I think there’s a strong difference between foreign travel, and hotel/away-from-home time. Being away from my home is the hard part.
Where we stayed
2024 bike trip gear
Gear
Bags
4.5 orucase
- iPhone
- Chargers
- Lights
- Palma
- Hyperlite bag
1 down tube
1.2 top
7 rear
- Long bib
- Thermal bib
- 2 long jerseys
- 2 wool socks
- 1 pant
- 2 underwear
- 2 sports bras
- rinko
- travel shoes
7 front
- Light jacket
- Shoe covers
- Gloves
- Hat
- Senchi
- toiletries
- iPad Mini