Entries this day: TJ_Bike_to_Jesse's

TJ Bike to Jesse's

1:39am JST Saturday 03 December 2005

The short version: I left Atami at 9:40am and arrived in Jesse's (TJ Bike on the back balcony) at 6:40pm. About 100km in 9 hours. Nice. I would love to know more accurately the distance. I checked on a map and calculated 80km, but according to the road signs, it was more than 80.

Last night Koji said it was 100km, and that's about what I had guesstimated by adding up the various distances to cities on the roadsigns.

From TJ Bike diary:

11:11am 2 DEC 2005 ATAMI-->TOKYO

1 hour 25 min from Atami to 小田原 ODAWARA, where I am now. ZOOOOM down a hill with traffic so fast so awesome and so flying! Next hill I did not pedal & lo, water was sprayed on a patch on a curve. Nice. I maybe woulda been fine at full speed, but. Last hill with traffic, pacing RIGHT behind a large dump truck with the mountain on left & ocean to the right horizon. Fabulously ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

12:13pm

My songs changed from composing lyrics to various rap tunes to simple "This is the song that never ends" and "I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves" and memories of the time Sarah and I composed a combination of these two songs while on our way to the San Antonio Rally back in the day.

I have a photo taken at 12:13, just before I ate lunch at 東京スター レーン大井松田 (Tokyo Starlane Oimatsuda) a defunct bowling center that made the perfect venue for me to have a place to park away from traffic and chill and chow. This is just before a hill that I didn't want to attempt without addressing my gnawing hunger, and I wanted to be "well rested" before going through the tunnel that I thought would be coming up soon.

I ate the bento given to me by Koji's wife Kazuko, and made plans to send the photo, wondering if I could get Hitomi to make a postcard out of it and actually mail it. Debated between sending the email in case I never get around to asking/making/getting-address/sending the postcard and having sent both. But I think both won't hurt, because the second one-ups the first.

Sat in the shade slouched against the grate in front of the door at first, but noticed my posture was not good for digestion, and the warm sunlight was just 20 feet away. Sat crosslegged in the parking lot and methodically ate every bit of the bento, except about 30 grains of rice that were stuck to the paper, which I scraped off into the parking lot for any birds or insects or bacteria to enjoy.

I don't remember checking my departure time exactly, but it was between 30 minutes and an hour later, I'm sure.

14:03pm 2 DEC 2005

Just went through SHINZENBA tunnel, reaching its entrance at 13:56. At the apex, just inside was a man walking on the sidewalk. Traffic was a good 100 meters behind me in the form of a bus, so I slipped off the curb & zoom past the man before the bus zoom past me. Then ZOOOOOOM ZOOOM ZOOOOOO Flying down the hill and PASSING traffic then they all started to slow for a construction zone & it got too cozy for me so I stopped passing & had to slow down a LOT - cramming on my brakes, not knowing that I could slow down quickly enough.. Shit! But I did. Blessings for the subsequent green lights. After construction I passed traffic again and caught (*) that bus. Haha!

(*) caught as in "caught up to" not "rode"

I had been flying past traffic saying out loud, "hold your line," which we would say in Ultimate when we were choosing players to cover while on defense, but in this case meaning for traffic to not slide over into my narrow passing lane.

"Hold your line. Hold your line. Thank you! Hold your line! Thank you please!" as a little meditation slash prayer for safe passage in an zone where every variable and every second could toggle into a disaster..

Stomach has been urpy.. ate too much it seems. Right now I gotta pee and it's 47km to Sakura Shin machi (53km to 渋谷) Gonna pee then go.

14:21PeeM.

Peed now Go Go!

"TJ Bike is the bike I like" (repeatedly) and "Just keep swimming" (repeatedly) are the new songs. Mindless simplicity to draw focus away from the task at hand. I think that's the opposite of meditation.

Little sprinkles of rain came on occasion, and I kept hoping I would not have to stop. I knew I would get home "tonight," but I just didn't want to mess with rain.

It would stop and sprinkle, stop and sprinkle. I kept going to the next underpass and thinking I would stop, but then not. I saw an internet cafe and would have stopped had they had a decent bike parking area. A few different times I was riding on overpasses in the tiny space between a wall, curb, and six inches of pavement on my left, a white line under my wheels, and a foot of pavement and whooshing traffic on my right. That shit was scary, but the hills going down the other side were fun, and overall they were far faster than going down and messing with traffic lights and such.

Sometimes, the overpasses would be specifically labeled NO PEDESTRIANS and NO BICYCLES, and I wonder if they were all *supposed* to be labeled as such, but were not. They looked pretty similar otherwise.

Two overpasses with NO BIKE signs stand out: One I went down a relatively steep ramp / shallow staircase combo to a fence, street, pedestrians, including little kids coming home from school, and some traffic. I crossed the street, being careful to not squish any kids, then rode along a playground and thinking I could set up a tent right there, but kept going going going and tried to ride up the next ramp/stair combo in super-low gear, and made it halfway up before having to stop.

The other was an actual traffic exit ramp, and just as I headed down, I was passed by a rather large truck which *totally* blocked my path as I gained speed and he was stopped by traffic. It was all narrow and I simply couldn't get past this truck at that speed with all the variables coming our way around blind corners. This is the kind of traffic for which I want a helmet-mounted camera to record the adrenaline filled moments. I finally squeezed past that truck as he actually stopped, my bags barely sliding along the concrete barrier on my left and then gained speed again as I zipped past cars with ample room around them. Lots of green lights but too much traffic for the cars to move. Beautiful.

16:39pm 2 Dec 2005

14 ~ 15 km from Sakura shin machi, but stopped due to rain. Pooh. 47-15 = 32km. Traveled in 16:39-14:21 = 2:18 or about 12 km / hour when I'm pretty tired on hills.

I parked next to a rail, took off the damp shirt (blue shirt given to me by Maria at the Faisal (mental blessings to her)) and put on the blue fleece given to me by Hitomi.

I sat with TJ Bike while I discovered the bento given to me by Shunji was actually little azuki bean buns. I ate 2 then realized I should get a greater variety of (and warmer) food. I was determined to wait out this rain shower, which didn't show sign of stopping shortly, so I might as well be warm.

I methodically put the food and water back into TJ Bike's bags and walked him across the driveway and locked him to the guard rail next to highway 246. This was at the McDonald's parking lot exit next to Eda Station.

Grabbed a chicken sandwich combo with orange juice (no ice) and was happy to see he had filled the OJ all the way to the top. (Often when I ask for drinks without ice, they fill the cup as deep as it would have been had the ice been taken out *after* the drink was poured with ice.) I made a mental note to come back to get dessert: apple pie or vanilla shake, depending on how warm I felt.

Sat on some lumpy rocks watching traffic and TJ Bike as I kept alternating eating and leaving the other hand in the french-fry-heated bag at my feet. Ate most of the fries, all of the chicken sandwich, all of the OJ. Felt a bit cold, but not too cold that I needed a hot apple pie, so I got a vanilla shake. Delicous and freezing.

Put on Maria's damp blue shirt over the fleece (figuring an extra layer would help and not soak through the fleece to make me colder), added Hitomi's scarf, kept the fries, tossed the trash, unlocked TJ Bike.

17:44pm

ate chicken sand. OJ, vanillashake, fries, 2 azuki buns. Yum. Stopped raining. Pretty cold cold cold though. 17:45 Go Go!

I tried to recheck the math (32km in 2hrs 18 min = 12 km/hour) in my head, taking 2:18 to be 9 fifteen-minute intervals (instead of 5), determining that 9 goes into 32km 3.5 times (actually a bit more) and therefore I went 3.5km every 15 minutes, and multiply 3.5 * 4 to get 14km / hour! Whoo!

18:40pm

In Jesses with TJ Bike on back balcony. So happy to have done it. Whoohoo!!