long ride to Ibaraki
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
It was a beautiful day today, and the only one in the forecast for my week off that wasn’t going to be rainy. So I said to self, it's a high of 28º, I’ve got a bike; to hell with it, let’s go see Ibaraki.
On my first leg I crossed Saitama's leafy western reaches and its rather less pleasant eastern industrial area. I crossed the river on a bridge that had many a truck and nary a shoulder.
Then because it was so unsafe I decided to go to the next bridge that could take me back but that added at least 15km and then required that I cycle back. At 16:05 I had 62km to get home. I arrived in one piece at 19:40, ten minutes later than I told Mari by Line text at around 17:00. (edited)
I’m not sure the total distance. Looks like about 142km. Must have been some post-midlife-crisis thing I guess. My leg is already cramping, my shoulders are buggered, my thumbs are numb, I have a sunburn and plenty o’ chafing.
Three good things that happened today:
- I toured parts of four prefectures in a single day: Saitama, Tokyo, Ibaraki, and Chiba - twice, but only briefly.
- I got enough sun to get a sunburn.
- I got a few pics that I think I'll like.
- At one point in my journey I was thinking, I bet if the kids could see how far I had to go they'd come up with a chant for me, like "ganbare, daddy, ganbare." I have great kids.
- Midlife crisis or not, I actually did this. I think it's the furthest I've ever cycled in a day.
- My new bracket thing for holding a phone worked very well; I was following an electronic map the whole way.