Cycle Touring Japan Ep. 4 || Okinawa Bliss Meets Honshu Rain

Cycle Touring Japan Ep. 4 || Okinawa Bliss Meets Honshu Rain

what’s up Eric
i don’t want to get wet
i don’t either 44 miles of city riding in the rain we’ve left the beach and are back on the bikes but that doesn’t mean we’ve left the water behind come along as we swim our way from Osaka to Kanazawa [Music] [Applause] [Music] we tried to wait it out for like an hour but at some point you just got to do it we’re just going to do it [Music] we’re only like 4 miles into the day and Court has already suggested just stopping and getting a hotel [Music] we have a hotel but it’s 40 more miles away [Music] oh riding by a little castle in the rain it’s nice [Music] i think it’s the worst part of riding in the rain is the road grit that gets everywhere [Music] [Music] [Music] first major mechanical My shifting cable just broke but I’m married to my mechanic so there it is snapped off right in the shifting head in the shifter which is odd oops yeah that makes sense cuz I felt something tear and it pretty much looks like it tore i just had to replace Court’s rear shifter cable and it went pretty smoothly actually but I didn’t have the tools to cut the cable and crimp on the end so we stopped by this little cycle shop Coco that was right down the street and the guy at the shop just cut it and crimped it for us in 2 seconds we’re finally on the bike path just outside of Osaka we’re only about halfway through the miles for the day but this should help put some miles down because there’s no stop lightss on it the stop lights just zapped all of our momentum today and then the shift cable braking was just the cherry on top but shifting cable was replaced shifting on the bike is back to normal that uh could have been worse but thankfully I had a spare cable but now I no longer have a spare cable so now I need to get one we just had a kind of a freak accident happen i hit a bump my pure flew off went right into Eric’s path he didn’t have enough time to react his bike went up and over it it got caught in his bike and he spilled got pretty stuffed up on his hands and his knees and and our first aid kit was just water logged
oh it looks so bad
it’s okay
does it hurt
no not really i mean it stings a little bit from the alcohol right now but it’s okay there’s not always a good place for the bikes and sometimes they just get put against wall and locked together we cross our fingers that they’re here tomorrow oh it’s my flash on again riding through N Park this morning seeing all the deer and all the tourists we just got to the beautiful fivestory pagota it looks a little more modern than I expected it’s under repair this is the world famous hand pounded mochi
softest mochi world’s softest mochi soft oh it’s beam we just saw the guys making the mochi by hand pounding it with a hammer quickly it was really cool i’ve seen those videos on the internet before i had no idea what they were making and now not only have I seen it but I’ve eaten the mochi and I still have a little bean stuck in my teeth from it [Music] turtle crossing oh he’s left a trail today we’re headed from Nara to Kyoto pretty short day but lots of sightseeing to do so we’ve dedicated most of our time today to just seeing sights we’re on this really nice little cycle path this morning leaving Nara which has been really nice because we haven’t been on an actual cycle path in a long time not have to deal with cars court and I are both dealing with pretty severe seasonal allergies right now so if we sound a little funny that’s why these bike paths make me really miss Korea we had planned to go check out the town of Uji and a tea house and a couple temples and some sites but once we got on this river path and we found out that this path doesn’t go to Uji but it does go right to our hotel in Kyoto we’ve decided to stay on the river path and skip Uji so we’re getting pretty close to Kyoto and the streets are small and tight and just kind of an absolute maze which is really cool but also makes it very hard to find where you’re going i think we found it do you like orange this is one of the largest wooden structures in the world
it is huge this is the coolest thing we’ve seen today new favorite place
yeah third time in 10 days it’s
the most we’ve ever repeated a place
yeah it’s easy to repeat we are headed towards Kanazawa today we’ve got 244K to get there in two days there’s also some rain in the forecast so we’re going to try to put in as many miles as we can today so we have to do fewer in the rain tomorrow the drivers have not been very friendly to us today so on this long tunnel we’re just going to walk the narrow shoulder it feels too risky to ride it that tunnel was no fun that was not fun some of those trucks didn’t even fit in the lane
i know lunch taking a little snack break for some garlic toast and iced coffee we just stopped at this really adorable little cafe for a quick coffee and garlic toast break now we’re back on the road headed to Takashima this afternoon doing a little stretch along Lake Biwa largest lake in Japan i think it’s really popular to ride around on a bike but we are not doing that wow you’re coming too JP and then that’s the end of the movie i really miss movies all right i want to watch something that’s not my own video things have gotten a little out of hand here we’re currently sprinting down the road between waves of big semis road’s quiet right now but in a minute there’ll be 50 semis coming through all at once it’s crazy how this road can go from perfectly quiet to this if you would ask me where we were staying tonight I would say I don’t know probably camping turns out the answer is a hotel inside an ice skating rink in a port town called Seruga i think despite doing about 110k today 68 miles we still have about 140k to get to Knazawa uh hopefully the rain in the forecast is not too bad i mean we could also just stay here although we can’t stay here good morning from a rainy day 32 [Music] they don’t taste like anything
it’s all the stringy stuff it’s bacteria let’s put this stuff on it this is like hour 36 of rain in Saruga i’m starting to think it’s the rainy season
we’re starting to think yesterday we woke up in Suga and it was raining and forecasted to rain all day so we scrapped our plans and just stayed in town uh to wait it out um this morning we woke up in Suga and it’s still raining but it is expected to clear up today checked out of our hotel and we’re waiting for the last bit of this rain to clear out and then maybe we will make some progress okay it was supposed to stop raining by now but it has not so we will just ride eric just said and I quote “A dry butt is a happy butt.” There will be no happy butts today a dry butt is a happy butt tonight we’re staying with a warm showers host uh this family has four kids and allegedly there are three is it three other bikes three other bike packers
three other bike packers also staying there with us and them and their four kids i’m so excited it’s going to be great i already know goodbye Suga it’s been a good two days i think we just accidentally came across the third largest wooden Tory gate in Japan considering we’re now soaking wet there was probably no sense in waiting at all we turned off the main highway a couple minutes ago onto this coastal highway and now it is pretty empty it’s really nice love riding with no cars court was just telling me how much she’s loving this riding if there was any other way to get from point A to point B with a bicycle other than riding it we would probably do that because this is genuinely not fun but there is not a better way so this is us sometimes when cars pass I try to look really pathetic so they’ll just pick me up and take me to their warm home it hasn’t worked yet it’s not raining right now say hi Eric
hi Hey hey hey [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] just making it into town [Music] to do this bye [Music] we have got a full crew headed out of Fukui today got uh two French friends that are traveling the world for the next two years and one of their brothers who joined them for Japan it’s uh Sebastian Brian and Guom you have to carry all the It’s almost like a rock [Music] we just said goodbye to our new world traveling French friends so uh good luck to Guiam Brian and Sebastian now we are headed off to Kanazawa for the night it was great getting to meet some other cyclists we uh did a little ride to a castle with them this morning before we said goodbye our plans do converge in four or five days so maybe we’ll see them again in the mountains we are back on the coast for the rest of the afternoon after yesterday’s rain today is pretty hot gonna make a lot of stops at the uh vending machine in Kini today i think we I might have you may notice but like with black top
court and I have been talking about the shape of the wave brakes for like the last two hours but this is the most interesting wave break we’ve come across it’s like two semicircles there’s there’s a lot of wave breaks here there as far as you can see that’s just court that’s not a wave break it’s time to try the noodle dog
noodle dog
it’s a yakasoba let’s see it oh m big bite the texture is pretty fun pretty fun not bad describe the flavor for us
it tastes like noodles and bread honestly two of my favorite things
go wrong
honestly it’s a win all around wow like a little taste of America the riverside path in Kanazawa beautiful really really nice we’re visiting the Kenoku in Gardens the third top three most beautiful gardens in all of Japan welcome [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] heat heat [Music] heat heat [Music]

We made it to Honshu and after a quick break from riding in Zamami, Okinawa, we are headed North towards Kanazawa. Nara, Kyoto, Tsuruga, Fukui and Kanazawa mark our route towards the start of the Japanese Alps.

Cycling Japan Ep.3 , WATCH HERE: https://youtu.be/-musxWEfoX0

—-

Next episode: Monday, June 30 (USA)

—-

Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/backcountrybruises/

—

Drone footage provided by Shima Stay Holoholo in Zamami

—-

Our gear:

@CannondaleBicycles71 Topstone 105
@trekbikes Checkpoint
@GoPro Hero 9 Black
@rei Junction Top Tube Bag
@ORTLIEBwaterproof Black Roller Classics Panniers
@ORTLIEBwaterproof Red Roller City Panniers
@ORTLIEBwaterproof Handlebar Pack QRs
@sweetprotectionTV Outrider Mips Helmet
@SeatoSummitGear Ether Light XT Sleeping Pad
@TheMotherofComfort Big Agnes Q-core SLC Sleeping Pad
@marmotpro Phase 20 Sleeping Bags
@NITECOREWORLDWIDE NU25 360 Lumen Triple Output Headlamps
@rei Sahara Shade Hoodie
@patagonia Women’s Landfarer Bike Shorts
@woollyclothing9096 Wool boxer shorts

#JapanByBike
#CyclingJapan
#Honshu
#CycleTouring
#Bikepacking
#TravelVlog
#AdventureTravel
#TravelJapan