Day 2 – Sasebo to Ishaya 76.4 Kms Bikepacking Japan

Day 2 – Sasebo to Ishaya 76.4 Kms Bikepacking Japan

Okay, welcome to day three sasso 2aya. It’s raining. It’s coldish. It’s not cold. I feel cold, but once we get moving, it’ll be good. And we have 64K, 10K of busy city riding at the start. And hopefully it doesn’t monsoon. There’s supposed to be 50 mm 64K in the rain. 50 mm of rain, 2 in. I think that’s almost a monsoon. But hey, we’re trying two different strategies today. Yeah, it’s going to be exposed versus not exposed. We’re going to see who wins. See who’s got in a better mood at the end. He’s suggesting I wear the wool. So, he’s been putting me he’s trying to push me on the wool hard. And I’m not disagreeing. I’m trying it out today. We’re going to go wool and see how it goes in the rain. Well, they’re from New Zealand sheep this like it rains a lot in New Zealand, so they know should be good. All right, bye. Here’s the place we stayed last night. What’s it called? Shinoa. It’s an old uh what was it called? Pawn shop. Pawn shop. Yeah, it was an old pawn shop. There’s a storefront on the other side apparently and this is the home side was uh interesting cheap. But I will tell you it’s the last time I’m ever sleeping on a futon. I’m walking down this side. It’s a steep ass hill. You know what, man? I think that’s how I’m not. dangerously. One of these days I’m going to find a brake shop. A bike shop. I mean, they seem to need brakes. Behind me. Oh, [Music] nice. See that guy knows what’s up. He’s a BMXer from way back. She’s a rainy day in Fukoka. [ __ ] Thanks. All right, got the lights going. I got the high viz vest on the back. I’m riding I’m I’m taking the tail today cuz I got the high viz. Oo, speaking of squeaky brakes. Oh my Brad’s waking up to town here. Jeez, I thought mine were squeaky. Oh, I’m in the granny gear. All right, we are off. Oo, taint’s feeling a little tender this morning. I’m going to give it a three out of 10. Chew highs uh on the pain painful taint scale. And ready to navigate. We’re not on the route. I’m trying to get it to stare. Tech has kind of been a problem for us. Yeah, really. We need our [ __ ] tech guy in drink. Is that 35? I think that’s 35. We’re going that way, right? We’re going left. I’m pretty I’m like 90% sure we’re going that way. Yeah. Why can’t you just take me to the route? Shout out to Pizzeria Shin 5. My boy Shingo at Shin 5 us up with some pies. Hooked us up with some good pie. That guy, you know, this guy does good work. Look at how clean that is. I don’t understand. I don’t know how so clean. That is impressive. We got a chance to do some laundry again last night, which was good because we had some sweaty, stinky clothes from yesterday. I feel like this chat is kind of like watching the tour to France. And I don’t mean in the sense that we’re all highly tuned athletes. Uh more so in that when you watch the tour, I mean it’s it’s a long it’s a long thing. It’s a long event. And 99% of the time they’re just watching guys ride their bikes around the countryside. But what is impressive about that and what reminds me about it is that they seem to always find things to talk about. One of the more interesting things they talk about in the tour to France, Chad, is food. What they ate the night before. Oh, yeah. I love that part. Well, what’d you have last night? Okay, so we’re in this town. They’re known for hamburgers. It’s Dutch settlement. Kind of weird, but we wanted pizza. We had a hard day. We’re craving carbs. And we went to this outdoor place and pulled up. We had a Michelin star. Yeah. Like legit Michelin star pizza. I think it was 20 bucks with the beer. With the beer or I got the honey sour. It was like you can tell you perfect. And the venue was fantastic. It’s like an outdoor like picnic table. It was really nice with the margarita cuz I wanted to taste the It was quality, man. It was good. The couple that ran it were just like two of the nicest people. They really were really interested in us and our adventure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it’s called Shingo. Shingo. Oh, actually turned out. Yeah. Chat, you guys are in there. Are they in there? Yeah, it’s great. It’s a great photo. Nicely done. All right. It took some time to set up, but we got a good shot. For anybody that’s following this chat because maybe you want to do uh or this video because you want to do something similar in the future, pro tip, don’t go to Sassibo. Stay away from Sassibo and just come here. This looks great. It’s just like out of town Okura Hotel Okura the Tenbos any of these hotels it’s a beautiful area and there’s a nice bike path say everything we failed but I’ll take a cab in and have that pizza say hi to Shingo that tell them team Drinkstrong sent you Drinkstrong Adventures Drinkstrong Adventures you know I haven’t found any places that I was like this would be a good spot to camp I bet you on Shikoku Shikoku yeah Like I said, I was only it was only going to be like a three night thing kind of and it may not even turn out to be that. Got ourselves a rainy downhill section here. Oh man. Oh yeah, that a good downhill right into town. Woohoo. Woo! I got to hit the brakes. Oh [ __ ] I lost my can. Oh well, it’s gone now. We stopped for family marts. Ah, that was a good downhill. [ __ ] How fast were we going there? 50 something. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Those are 1600 watt microwave. Wow. They crank. Okay. Oh, look at that now. Oh wow. Oh. Oh man. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Look at that. Good people here. Hey, just What is this? Like it’s like a candy. Like a chocolate chicken. How are you? Oh, it’s dying away. Oh man. Did you warm up your pancakes? Yeah. Okay. 10 seconds. 10 seconds. Oh my god. Mhm. It’s like really good chicken waffle. This is a viral sensation. Oh my god. For good reason. It’s delicious. That’s really good. Definitely. It definitely delivers. It’s not good like like family mark good. Like it’s like okay as you see everybody in Japan very kind. I don’t know what it is. But let’s check it out. I think it’s energy. Let’s see. Oh, look at this. Man, it’s so good. I’m not even kidding. Okay. Some kind of chocolate. It’s like a chocolate covered kind of cookie. Oh, it’s not coffee. Chocolate. Oh, that was nice. That guy. It’s actually delicious. Okay. No idea what those are. Oh, MS right here. Get these four bananas. [ __ ] it. Just eating that. There’s the rice right there. Short grain sushi rice. Sushi rice. Try it. Oh yeah. It’s ready. Yeah. Mhm. Farmer Collins decid. Oh, it’s a good year. Ready to harvest. That’s a good year for rice. It’s pretty neat though. There’s another example of the Japanese infrastructure at work. The expressway, that’s a long bridge. Just spans over the edge of this community. It’s got to be another cl probably a kilometer and a half long bridge that just instead of dipping down, let’s keep it nice and flat. Wow. [Music] We’ve gotten off the beaten path big time. You can hear my brake squeaking. Hold on. [ __ ] I got to fix that. It’s driving me It’s driving me nuts. Let’s try that. Nope. It didn’t fix it. It’s going to make me crazy. It’s just not a bike tour unless my brakes are squeaking. Just settling in for this climb. See you at the top. [Music] Just the sound of birds, [Music] crickets or cicas or something. It’s incredibly quiet. It’s incredibly peaceful. Such a stark contrast from what we were riding on just 15 minutes ago. Like night and day. This is the This is the Japan we came to see. Look at the misty mountain side there. Incredible. We have come upon tea field. You must have fans here to either cool it or dry it off. I don’t know. Keep it from freezing. I don’t know. Incredible. Look at the whole hillside is like that. Ignore Tim not wearing his helmet. Incredible. You know, these these tea fields I feel like one of the more exotic things I’ve seen here. Um I don’t know. I’ve been I’ve been in Japan many times. I’ve never seen these before. It just feels exotic. Look at that out there. Wow. Wow. See the ocean off there? The mountains. What a what a what a place. descending. Yeah. You want the microphone? Uh, no. I don’t know. No, don’t worry about it. This is good action [ __ ] right here. Yeah, we’ll put music to it. Here we go. [Music] Heat. Heat. Woo! Wow! Wow! that battery. Oh my god, that was close. I got I don’t know. That was Oh [ __ ] that was so good. [ __ ] I want to ride and do that again. No. You got goosebumps right now? Hope there’s no cars coming cuz I was hugging center line on those [ __ ] bridges. Man, that was that was beautiful. Wow. I got to tell you guys, that that moment was one of the spiking highlights of my life right there. Holy [ __ ] dude. I made the mistake of looking over the edge. I I couldn’t stop looking over there, but I loved it. That was That was like a chunk of green. What the [ __ ] Tim’s telling me we got a big descent here. He’s got Siri in his Yuri. This one. Oh yeah, he’s got Siri. be good in his eerie. So, she’s giving him directions all the time and he’s got he’s got a GPS module in front of him that’s telling him the climbs and the turns. So, he kind of compares notes between the two and uses that to pick the best route. I think we’re doing pretty good. Big descent here. Oh [ __ ] there’s another one. Another one. That just doesn’t get old. It just doesn’t get old. Man, the bottom just drops out. It almost feels like you’re floating. You’re just on this bridge that’s just hundreds of feet up. Nothing on either side. Incredible. And now we go back to work. Just like I was saying before, random hill, quiet. It’s not like, man, this is a this is a good spot to put a vending machine. I don’t know who decides this. Maybe there’s laws. You have to have one every 100 ft. I don’t know. This is crazy. That was a good spot for a vending machine. Bro, just found 50. Good luck, isn’t it? We a good feed, Brad. Just stopped by the bike shop. to get some work done. There’s Tims. That’s But I wanted to show you guys in case you ever wanted to know what a Japanese bike shop look like. There’s a classic mama. That is like the creme de la creme mama without e assist. It’s on sale for 500 bucks. But a lot of these more standard mamachars 240 bucks. Oh, really? 230. Some of them are really They’re like beautiful bikes. Really comfy. They all got the comfy seats. Ooh, like the color on that one. Look at that styling one. Maybe that’s maybe that’s the momentary. Well, I might go with dark gray. 390 bucks. Now you want to know what the fancy bikes look like? Come over here. Look at that. It’s an Echari. 13,300 bucks. 1,300 bucks. Ear. I think that is the most expensive bike. Well, 1580. It’s almost a mountain bike. Yeah. Hybrids. Interesting. Log lifestyle outdoor gear. We’re working on Brad’s bike. He’s having front derailer issues. Nothing but the best service here. All right. We’ve been blessed with a little more rain. Um Got another hour riding left. 17K. Got to get through this through the city and whatnot uh to our hotel. A little bit of city riding. A lot of rain. The rain is supposed to actually pick up today. That’s fun. I’m so gl grateful that they brought fenders. All right. So, don’t tell Tim this, but I’ve been making fun of him for months now cuz he’s like pro wool. He’s always like, you got to use wool. You got to be He got The dude wears wool shirts, like t-shirts, wool socks, wool underwear. All right. Every day. That’s closed for sure. And I’m always very doubtful. I come along fast. But here’s the thing about wool marino. Oh, hold on. Oh, let’s stop under the bridge. It looks like it goes up in that way. Their last instructions were turn left on the road, turn right on the road, turn left on the road. It’s like it’s so hard to decipher what she’s saying. Turn on dead ends and stop there too, right? It’s hard without seeing it in front of me. Like she’s trying to slow. I can’t just carry my phone. No, it’s impossible. And sometimes there’s a delay. Yeah. And she said that maybe 3 minutes ago past the corner and you’re like, “Oh, you wanted me to turn back there.” We’re actually Kurai should take Kurasai. [Music] We received a report of Oh, look. We received a report of a suspicious individual. Okay. Okay. Oh, [ __ ] Glamorous bike packing video. Oh yeah, we’re out here and it’s wet. We just got stopped by cops. Uh semi- detained. Talked ourselves out of it. 70k 519. It’s going to get dark and your boys need some beers. Stacked. All right. So, from what I gather, he was asking about where the bikes came from, when we got here, when we’re leaving, but he was saying something about YouTube. So, and he was looking right at me when he was saying it. I have no idea. Something shady. Shady. Shady is maybe not the right word, but suspicious. Um, yeah. I don’t know. I think he was just fishing or something. We don’t know. We got 10k left to go to the hotel. We’re ready to be done. It’s been a good day, but it’s been a long day. Unfortunately, we got to ride along this highway for a lot of the next 10K. Still inching ever closer towards the hotel. We’re getting lost in a maze of rice patties. We We have to rely on Siri. The Garmin is not giving us a route that is feasible like I said before during rush hour. So Siri will give us some bike friendly options, but it’s kind of like rolling the dice. And it’s basically like, well, this is feasible. Here we are. Still raining. We’re very wet. Got 3k left to go. Go. I was going to say that was Paul’s fault. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They said they finished that turn left at the second rice patty uh dyke and uh you thought it was the first rice patty d. Yeah, it’s okay. How about this rice patty d? No. Second one. We almost have it again. I don’t know how these are on Apple Map. We’re just We’re just going to divert these guys to the rice patties. Show you guys this hotel we’re in. We We It seems like we have this floor to ourself. Attack. Attack. We got to do some washing, some drying out. Here’s Brad’s room. Here’s my room drying out cuz we are soaked to the bone. They come with every room comes with a foot massager. You know, I’m going to use that. Uh TV. My brain just stopped working. Refrigerator, the bed, a sink, and a toilet. You got to put the bathroom and toilets toilet shoes on when you go in. That’s a little For those of you wondering, that’s a little heater, electric heater. Uh, this place is so clean. It’s insane. And it’s not even like a new building. It’s It’s just incredibly clean. I I can’t even I can’t even get over it. So, we have a shared shower. Here’s the mints. Um, it’s so clean. Um, washing machine, washer, dryer. It’s incredible. There’s nobody here. Bananas. Are you going to use your foot massager tonight? Are you going to use your foot massager tonight? Kind of scared of it. And we’re going to go use the onen right away. Has an onsen, too.

A rainy morning, incredible descents and a run in with the law.