Cycling Across Japan in One Day 🚲🇯🇵 500km/300 mile Bike Route to Wakayama and the Pacific Coast

Cycling Across Japan in One Day 🚲🇯🇵 500km/300 mile Bike Route to Wakayama and the Pacific Coast

sometimes cycling can be a lonely sport not lonely in the sad sense really and there are huge communities built around cycling but it’s also one of the few Sports you can play by yourself so when the races are over the sun’s not yet up or the weather’s not ideal the daily ritual of riding often boils down to just you the bike and and your goal whether that’s a physical destination a personal Milestone or in the case of this video both how long is too long for a single day solitary ride Ze had an especially lofty personal cycling goal this year to Pedal 500 km or 300 M in one ride from one coast of Japan across to the other in a single day today he would attempt that going one pedal stroke at a time from our home on the Sea of Japan across to the Pacific Ocean he would be self- supported during the ride but I was driving down to meet him at the Finish Line we decided to kick off his Adventure on the Sea of Japan at uchata beach after Zeb finished work there’s Zeb and that’s where he works this was the day before he would start his ride we wanted to have an early picnic dinner and start this trip properly with a view of one ocean before we saw the [Music] other Zeb had been planning his ride for months and had everything set down to the exact convenience stores he would stop at the only thing he had left to do was ride his bike it was a simple enough plan just wake up ride and don’t stop till you reach the ocean to have enough time to finish in one ride Zeb was starting in the middle of the night just before 1:00 [Music] a.m. the plan was to get as much distance in as possible before the sun started heating things up and the traffic started getting busy all right bye see you later okay be careful have fun it’s 12:45 uh in the morning at night I don’t know almost 1:00 a.m. and Ze just started his ride so I’m excited for him a little bit nervous because because he has to ride so much in the dark but I’m going to go back to bed wake up at 5: and then start driving down to the other side of the coast I thought that the first few hours in complete darkness would be the hardest but Zeb said that this was actually his favorite time of the whole ride there was all the anticipation and excitement that comes at the beginning of an adventure and very few cars were out though there were plenty of gats to keep them company so it looks beautiful sun’s coming up but I’m riding through one endless swarm of gats it’s truly disgusting he was able to run his headlight at a pretty dim 300 lumens since his eyes got adjusted to the low light and rode that way in the dark for three quiet [Music] [Applause] hours in the summer the sun rises very early in Japan before 4:30 in the morning so by the time Ze fui prefecture he was already able to see beyond his narrow headlight path [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] so I’m not really anywhere scenic but I needed to put some sunscreen on and I’m at my first stop of the ride yeah so I grabbed some water here and just put my drink mix in there so I’ll be good for another 130 km my next stop is in is at 260 the Sun just came up about an hour ago so the beginning of this ride went I think better than I expected I thought that I was going to be going a lot slower in the dark but I was able to keep my speed up it’s 5:46 right now I thought it would be here at 6:00 a.m. yeah I’m already done I got my water and my sunscreen on and about to start rolling so yeah about 10 minutes ahead of schedule so that’s great all right so it’s 5:30 in the morning and I’m going to get on the road so I can go down and meet zeev I did see on my phone that he’s already in fukui and Chis in and so that’s pretty exciting actually there he is see his little dot on the map so it’s about a 6 and 1/ half hour drive but aren’t you glad that we’re not on the bike for 18 hours today so you can come with me in the car let’s go meet Zeb the climb on National Road 365 to the border between fukui and shika prefectures was zeb’s favorite [Music] he said it had recently been reopened after being closed for multiple years likely because of landslide damage at the top of the climb 550 M up the temperature was a comfortable 16° C 60° F but it wouldn’t stay that way for long [Music] [Music] around 6:30 in the morning after 170 km of riding Zeb says he was rudely tossed out of the waning Spirit realm of night and back into the profoundly boring world of humanity unfortunately the following 150 km were at best unmemorable and at worst slightly dangerous his route seemed to follow the same roads the truckers used to avoid toll roads so he was frequently passed very close and fast by large trucks and even honked at which has been rare for us on rides in Japan did another crouching update in front of the GoPro stop number two slightly ahead of schedule and I’m eating a bunch of rice balls then I got deep fried tofu and carrot I also just have salted rice ball and then this thing I’m really excited about and smell the banana through the bag so right now it’s 10:37 and I thought I would be rolling in here at 11: so doing good on time I’m like 260 km in and I don’t feel like I’m going to die so it’s huge Pro so honestly the last like 100 km was not super enjoyable I’m hoping that’s going to calm down now that it’s not like morning anymore well it’s still morning so the heat is definitely starting to play a role I’m crouched in the shade over here in front of this 7-Eleven the lady in this convenience store gave me two oshibori like the little towels and that’s never happened to me before I think when I went in there I think she was like dang this guy is disgusting it’s not going to help me so like the second quarter of this ride was pretty busy with traffic so I’m really hoping this next bit won’t be bad but we’re going to go find [Music] [Applause] out Ze Ro near Lake bwa jumping briefly from shika prefecture into gifu prefecture for a short stretch of road 365 not long after entering M prefecture though he rode through the historic post town of sakuku an old stop on the tokaido road during the Edo period there were five routes that linked the capital of what is now Tokyo to the surrounding provinces these were called go kaido or the five highways we previously rode bikes on part of the nakasendo one of the five routes but another of these is the tokaido which also linked present day Tokyo to Kyoto just through a more coastal route along the Pacific SEI Juku was the 47th of 53 stations or designated postal towns along the tokaido and much of of the historical feel of the town has been preserved this town is part of present day kamama in the north of Mi prefecture which is part of the former e Province there are still about 200 buildings from the Edo to the Magi periods protected along in almost 2 km preservation District after a trip back in time to Historic Japan Ze was once again returned to the reality of a hot humid summer day in central Japan [Music] the hydranges were in full bloom since it was mid June but Ze probably wasn’t noticing this too much at the moment he said he started to struggle a bit around 320 km and had to quickly eat some extra calories to keep his muscles from running out of glycogen or cramping up there was also a lot of construction and road traffic in this section so he had to ride on the sidewalk area in a few [Music] places while he made his way through M prefecture I was already close to the border of wakayama this part of Japan has a lot of citrus fruits especially Mikan and wakayama so I stopped to get some at a me noaki or roadside station okay so we have 2 hours left we’re in M prefecture right now almost in wakiyama I stopped and got this huge bag and it was 500 yen and in Ishikawa Ishikawa has a lot of great things but cheap fruit is not one of them the whole bag for 500 I couldn’t not buy that originally in his plan Zeb would stop at km 374 but he passed a convenience store around km 360 instead and decided that an early break would be a good idea here’s what Zeb was up to while I was buying bags of citrus all right we’re at 350 km starting to come a little undone so I had to get an ice cream red bean paste bun and then I also bought you can buy like these cups of ice you’re supposed to be for iced coffee but I’m going to keep mine in the back of my jersey the heat is is getting to me a little bit and then also I’ve had a headwind for the past like 30 km or so we’ll see how it goes Zeb says that thanks to the power of ice cream caffeine and the slightly cooling temperatures now that the sun was past its peak he began to recover from nearly cracking soon he reached 400 km and with less than 100 to go he felt sure for the first time that he would be able to finish in zeb’s words even if I had a full-on meltdown I figured I could limp along for 100k and finish before midnight also around 400 km was the last long climb of the ride a 5 km stretch with an average gradient of 6% [Music] on The Descent Ze was rewarded with his first views of the Pacific Ocean around 14 hours after he last saw the Sea of Japan in Pui prefecture he had a bit of tunnel vision at this point though just wanting to focus on finishing the ride it wasn’t until kilm 454 in the city of shingu that he finally crossed into wakayama prefecture on the end of the Key Peninsula this was also the same time the sun was setting close to 7:00 p.m. this part of the ride was on a route called the Pacific cycling road which is established as a national cycling route but unfortunately follows some of the busiest Coastal roads for cars too there are some incredible roads to ride on in wakayama away from the Coast but despite the designation the Pacific cycling route is not one of the ones we’d recommend we had been in shingu once before in the video I made about gravel biking and camping in wakayama so it was kind of exciting to recognize roads from a fun previous trip Ze didn’t record any more footage in chingu during the last 50 km but it’s just as well because the light only got dimmer as the day went on instead I’ll take over for a bit as we leave the rental house and meet Zeb at the Finish Line we rented this Guest House on the outskirts of kushimoto the city at the southernmost point of honu the man who owns the guest house keeps it in Immaculate condition and lives right across the street so he showed me around Once I arrived I’ll share my footage from my ride that day and the next day’s ride to the Nai TAA waterfall in another video but for now it was time to finally meet Zeb I got a bunch of food at the grocery store and drove about 20 minutes to the cape shom misaki tourist Tower Parking Lot okay the lighting is really bad because I’m sitting in the parking lot at the southernmost point of honu which is the main island in Japan and apparently at 8:00 they turn off the parking lot lights so yeah I’m waiting for Zeb he’s only like 6 or 7 km away which probably feels like a lifetime after this day but I bought a ton of food at the grocery store cuz I don’t know I don’t know what you’re going to eat after 300 miles I guess anything in sight so he’s so close there he [Music] is oh my gosh you really did it I did it I’m so proud of you thanks pal oh wow yeah it feels fine I’m just really tired I had one rough spot but other than that wow well I have a lot of food for you so good right on the right side is the parking lot with the car that’s yeah I’m the only car do we have normal water yep okay that sounds really nice okay good just plain water I got lots of water nothing with sugar in it yeah I figured he probably would be kind of sugared out yeah I was so relieved to see that Zeb reached his goal safely and was in pretty good spirits despite being of course very tired look how dirty I am he reached the Finish Line around 8:30 p.m. almost 20 hours after leaving the house and after 17 and 1 half moving hours on the bike W 20 hours wow look at that you burned 10,500 calories yeah feel like it I bet 55.5 km later he had really done it it was a ridiculous goal honestly but so impressive and very cool to see him reach an accomplishment like that after so much planning and training the rest of the weekend was spent enjoying some well-deserved rest and lots of snacks I asked Ze if he thought that spending the day alone on the bike for that long felt lonely but no he said it never really felt that way cycling can be a lot of things at different times it’s fun painful rewarding solitary communal it can take you to places you’ve never been both literally and metaphorically but I think in any of these cases cycling is always one thing freedom freedom to get somewhere with your own strength to see new places to go somewhere without a car to meet new people and sometimes to go fast it offers the freedom to set personal goals and the freedom to reach them I wonder where the bike will take us next [Music]

How long is too long for a single-day, solitary ride? Zeb’s personal cycling goal this year was to pedal 500km (300 miles) in one ride, cycling Japan from one coast to the other in a single day.

In this video, he attempts to go one pedal stroke at a time from our home on the Sea of Japan, across to the Pacific Ocean. After starting in Ishikawa Prefecture, he rides through Fukui and Shiga Prefectures, along a section of the historic Tokaido Road (東海道線) and along Mie Prefecture into the Kii Peninsula (紀伊半島). He would be self-supported during the ride, but I was driving down to meet him at the finish line, at the southernmost point of Honshu, in Wakayama Prefecture (和歌山県).　

Jump to…
00:48 – the cycling goal
1:12 – the day before
2:07 – 1am start
3:52 – sunrise in Fukui
4:31 – rest stop one
6:20 – morning chimes
6:57 – entering Shiga
8:06 – rest stop two
10:00 – historic Sekijuku
10:49 – Mie Prefecture
11:58 – michi no eki
12:38 – rest stop three
14:13 – Pacific Ocean & Shingu
15:28 – our guesthouse
16:36 – finish line!
18:19 – beach time

Ride Data and Bike Route:
https://www.strava.com/activities/11650047311

🎙️ Want to keep up with the rest of our adventures? We have a podcast! : https://www.ramblingramsbothams.com

More about…
– The Tokaido: https://visitmie-japan.travel/en/spot/detail_1840.html
– Sekijuku 関宿 Post Town: https://www.kankomie.or.jp/special/sekijuku/?wovn=en
– Pacific Cycling Road: https://www.kkr.mlit.go.jp/road/pcr/en/index.html
– Mie Prefecture 三重県 Tourism: https://visitmie-japan.travel/en/index.html
– Wakayama Prefecture 和歌山県 Tourism: https://www.visitwakayama.jp/en/
– Kushimoto Area: https://kumanonada-nihonisan.jp/en/model/03.html

🇯🇵 More videos about Japan here:
Bikepacking Toyama’s Amaharashi Coast: https://youtu.be/VIFvovFUGB8?si=QtElCLtNOOhN_Fj4
Cherry Blossom Bike Route: https://youtu.be/YqQJQW4w-64
Gravel Cycling in Wakayama Prefecture: https://youtu.be/weifAuHdJ0Q
Week-long Bike Tour Kanazawa to Matsumoto: https://youtu.be/OOgtL6N20mY

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