journal features
movie reviews
photo of the day

long ride to Ibaraki

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Kokubunji, 2021.10.11

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.

my approximate route

Three good things that happened today:

  1. I toured parts of four prefectures in a single day: Saitama, Tokyo, Ibaraki, and Chiba - twice, but only briefly.
  2. I got enough sun to get a sunburn.
  3. I got a few pics that I think I'll like.
Three reasons to be thankful:

  1. 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.
  2. Midlife crisis or not, I actually did this. I think it's the furthest I've ever cycled in a day.
  3. My new bracket thing for holding a phone worked very well; I was following an electronic map the whole way.

rand()m quote

... I'll let you in on a secret. Big people are exactly the same as little people. They're selfish, squabbling children whose motivations are jealousy and greed. No one becomes big when the hit adulthood. They just become better at hiding how small they are.

Jonathan Rosenberg