Bob Sanchez’ BS

I have decided to pack my bags and move to Tokyo this spring. There will be more work and more opportunities there, and it is a better place to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. There will be one well-trodden road back to Kochi if I choose to take it again, and surely many more will open up before me if I spend a year or two in the biggest city on the planet.

Thus, my objectives for the rest of the winter are to clean up my ideas and projects and set some clear goals that hopefully last through the craziness of the honeymoon period; and, more importantly, to enjoy Kochi to the best of my ability while I still receive mail there…here…one of the two.

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I have run out of new highway to explore within a 25-mile radius of Kochi City, so the destinations on my list all involve staying the night and putting in serious hours in the saddle. First up on my list was iconic Route 439, which slices right through the middle of Shikoku Island on the Kochi side of the Shikoku Mountain Range.

Japan's national highway shields remind me of the green spades for California state highways.

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Going west from Kochi City, the highway winds its way up the backside of Mount Irazu, on the opposite side of the source of the Shimanto River, which is billed as one of the last all-natural rivers in Japan. It snakes through elevated valleys and all the way down to Nakamura City where it meets the Shimanto River again at its entry into the Pacific Ocean.

If I started from Kochi City early enough, I could make it all the way down to Nakamura City, stay at a cheap inn on the coast, and explore other roads in Western Kochi on the next day as I made my way back to the city. My planned route for Day One totaled 125 miles and would have taken 5 hours even by car as the map had it, but I was ready to see just how deep the mountains, forests, and river valleys get in this place.

These trips always sound like such a great idea when they pop into my mind, and I conveniently forget what a pain in the neck - and back, and rear end, and feet - it is to ride that long with a backpack on, not to mention the aggravating dichotomy of my front being blasted with cold wind and my back getting hot and sopping wet with sweat from the pack. It’s a good thing that slips my mind; otherwise I’d never even suit up and clip in.

Minus the pack, and minus a few degrees Celsius at a snowbank behind Mount Irazu.

The first hurdle was Mount Irazu and the tunnel through it measuring in at 2500 feet above sea level. Buckets of snow had been dumped on Western Kochi in the week prior to my trip, but I thought I’d be fine because it had been sunny and 65 in the city for a few days following the storm. I was wrong, but the snow was cleared to the side of the road and it was a safe, dry ride up to the pass, so I took pictures and laughed at the novelty of biking “through” heavy snow.

At this point, the snow was still fun - look, a bike angel!

Road to the source of the Shimanto River. Obviously summer-only, and only if it's paved at that.

Dark tunnel. The lights do nothing.

Then I went through the tunnel, which, by the way, is way darker than it looks. On the other side, I screeched to a halt and gawked at the sight before me - there were but a few patches of gray asphalt poking through the steep decline in front of me.

The smart thing to do would have been to turn around and go home. I had a dry road behind me and there is certainly no shame in stopping in the name of safety. Common sense doesn’t apply to Super Mac in the heat of the moment, though, and I tried to navigate the slippery slope and got about 20 feet before I lost control and ended up under the bike.

Oh, the feeling of slipping on that ice! The utter lack of control and feeling of helplessness was absolutely horrible! Easily ten times worse than my accident last July that shelved me and the bike for a month! I wasn’t going but two or three miles an hour with my hands clamped down on the brakes, but the situation became a nightmare in a matter of microseconds.

And it was all too easy to imagine whipping around a blind corner, hitting a patch of ice and going flying. It was the friction of the road that burned me in July and kept me awake at night, and the lack of friction in January that spooked me like few other things I’ve experienced.

I got off the bike, slipped on my clip covers so that I could walk (in theory), and determined to walk down the mountain until I got to road that I could ride on safely. I could hardly handle walking on the ice and slipped and fell on my bum countless times over the next hour. All told, I duck-walked about two miles before feeling safe enough to jump back on the bike. In that time, I passed a handful of shuttered or abandoned homesteads and did not see a single living soul.

This icy road is much steeper and scarier than it looks. I became more familiar with it quite soon after trying to ride on it.

From that point on, every shadow, every bend and every bridge threw my body and mind into fits of fear. Would there be ice? Would there be snow? Would there be people around to help me if there was ice and snow? I could not open up and pedal hard until I reached the coast just minutes before sunset; that slow fall had ruined my concentration and my day.

Now, the evergreens were beautiful and the air was crisp, clear, and refreshing, but the isolation was austere and the frigid wind threatening. I was far behind schedule and would have to consider altering course and maybe even abandoning it all and taking the quickest route home. Seven or eight hours on a bicycle is tough enough without having to fight the winter elements, and I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to dodge them when I planned this trip.

Sunset over Cape Ashizuri

What awaited me at the roadside inn was a gigantic dinner, a newly redone bathing room with a jacuzzi, and a comfy room with tatami mats whose fragrance sent me back to hot, humid Japanese summers. I showered, ate, collapsed into a heap of futon mattresses and blankets, and did not move from that spot until the sun came up the next morning.

The trip back was certainly easier in the technical sense because it was sunny, it was shorter, and I stayed along the coast, so there was no threat of snow or ice. My left knee was definitely letting me know that I’d put in a century the day before and that it didn’t really feel like traveling the 90 or so miles back home. That’s bound to happen on these trips, and the pain didn’t seem linked to how hard I pedaled, so I chalked it up to harmless complaining and ignored it.

I passed many inspiring scenes and viewed the Pacific from the tops of cliffs that characterize the west side of Kochi. This, I thought, I will definitely miss in the concrete jungle of Tokyo.

Saga Beach

I checked out Okitsu Beach, which is a tiny town located on a peninsula that sticks out into the Pacific in front of a long ridge of mountains that cut the town off from the rest of the world. There is only one road into town, and the pass over the ridge is about 8 miles off the beaten path and well over 1,000 feet tall. It would be a long U-turn, but I’d heard it was worth a gander and opportunities to go there would not come by again soon.

Okitsu Beach resembled the rest of the cliff scenes I see so often, so nothing really floored me about the place, but it struck me as a microcosm of Kochi, set off from the outside world by seemingly unconquerable mountains, turning its back on the country that claims it in name and taxes only, and gazing off into the ocean, happily existing in that space and providing for its few fortunate residents. Why am I leaving, again?

I took many breaks on the remainder of the long return to Kochi City. I was definitely tired of cycling, and my senses were becoming duller with each passing minute. Even Awa Coastline seemed muted that day.

I definitely enjoy looking at my stats after getting home, and my two favorites are Total Distance and Max Speed. If I can rack up the kilometers and hit those magical MPHs that make me scream with delight, then I am happy. But there is definitely a line between “just right” and “too much,” and I crossed it with abandon on this last trip. I put 323 kilometers (201 miles) on the board over the two days.

You’d think I was done for awhile after that, but I jumped back on over the weekend and rode 65 miles with the bike club, ignoring the barking knee with every pump of the pedals. All told, I rode 350 miles in five installments over eight days.

Walking was not fun the next day, a Monday, and even riding around the city to run errands was extremely painful. Range of motion and strength were OK, so I was sure it was just pain, but it became harder and harder to ignore. On Tuesday, I sucked it up and visited a sports doctor in town.

He X-rayed my knees and told me that I cycle too much. Rather, that I need to do other things to develop the rest of my muscles. My cycling muscles are so developed that they are pulling my kneecaps out of place.

This was difficult news to hear. I love cycling so, and while I don’t need to overdo it like I did last month, I do want to be able to ride somewhere distant and spend the night. It looks like I will have to be smarter about long trips, and maybe take a train or a bus to a remote starting point. That should be fine, as there are only three or four ways in and out of the city that I end up tiring of the more I take them.

However, I wonder about my body. Obviously, I haven’t been using it correctly, and I’m going to need to make some major changes going forth. If I can’t just go sweat it out on the bike over and over, I’m going to need to find other ways to move around or start eating less.

It’s taken a long time for the pain to go away, and I wonder if this is the beginning of the end - is this where I start to lose the elasticity, the ability to wait a day or two and bounce back?

I’ve always had a lot of energy and use it like I can’t take it with me - is this where it starts to jeopardize my physical health? Do I actually have to start paying attention to the pain and budgeting my physical activity?

Living life afraid of patches of ice on the road ahead is not fun, but it’s stupid to ignore the risk and plow on destroying things that are important. I learned that with my arm and throwing a baseball, and I hope that I have the strength to be smart about my legs and cycling.

Meshinokawa Farmlands. I may retire here.

Cycling wasn’t a whole lot of fun in the weeks following my first race in June, which I will get arond to writing about at a later date. Every time I hopped on the bike, I felt like I was back in the race; my legs felt like lead and all I could think was “go faster.” Everything seemed so slow on my regular routes even though I was leaving behind my best times.

When work wasn’t gobbling me up, a very late rainy season that lasted into late July continued to pour on my plans. I had two days at home in Kochi between baseball trips at the end of July and didn’t think twice about threatening skies on the first day - I needed to ride.

I headed out with KCTC and we went west over the Yokonami Skyline, the dangerous but beautiful, winding cliff road. I heard a strange clicking noise when I switched to low gear before the climbing started, so I pulled over to the side of the road to inspect my bike.

It turned out that I would only have my big wheel going for me, but I accepted the challenge and prepared for a tough ride chasing the pack on the steep, steamy bluffs. It wasn’t raining and the road didn’t appear to be that wet, so I wasn’t taking any particular cautions and rode like I was racing against my ghost on MarioKart.

I passed the whale sign parking area and thought ahead to the toughest downhill stretch on the Skyline, including one left turn that always gave me trouble. Two-inch high rectangular cupcakes dot the thick yellow line in the middle of the road on the nearly right-angle turn, giving a cyclist only five or six feet of road to work with. Kind of like this.

I had weaved through the cupcakes once before when I hit the turn going too fast and definitely remembered to thank God that I didn’t hit any and that there weren’t any cars coming in the other direction.

This time, I was in a good spot and my was on my rear brake when I noticed something on the road surface ahead of me. It looked like a snake or a tree branch, and either way it was too big for me to run over while leaning to the left as far as I was, so I attempted to change course.

In that instant, I probably squeezed one of my brakes too hard, or maybe I ran over a wet leaf, or maybe I swerved all the way over to the slippery white line on the edge of the road. Whatever happened, I lost control of the bicycle and I was on my back facing uphill before I knew it, a tangle of arms and legs and wheels sliding down the rough road.

It’s strange what goes through my mind in moments like that. Each time I take a spill, I think about my helmet, and this time was no different. As my body decelerated from what was likely greater than 20 miles per hour, I knew my helmet would keep me safe and that I was going to survive the accident.

That didn’t stop the pavement from grinding into my left shoulder and hip and burning my skin through my clothes. It felt very much like that jarring scene from Cool Runnings where Cool Runnings falls apart and goes through like twelve turns with the bobsledders’ heads bouncing about like bobblehead dolls. It’s around 6:50.

It was a nightmare, I just could not stop. It felt like the road had chewed through my shoulder and was beginning to work on my neck. The Skyline became a limestone-studded belt sander, and anything sticking out on my left side (ankle, knee, hip, elbow) was getting ground down relentlessly.

The eternity ended as I skidded to a stop. I began moving everything to make sure that none of it was broken and I was able to sit up and take stock of the situation. My bicycle lay in front of me, the handlebars mangled and saddle stuffing strewn across the road. I scrambled to pull everything and myself to the side of the road as I couldn’t see around the curve behind me.

I hadn’t caught up to anyone in KCTC, so nobody knew about the accident. I tried to ride but the chain was twisted every which way and the handlebars were too messed up to risk trying to make it home with little control over the bike. I dragged my bike along and limped back up the slope to the parking area in hopes of getting some cell phone reception up there.

Rain began to fall as I set the bike against a rock and scurried for cover under the tiny eaves of a shuttered ice cream stand. As I thumbed through my phone book for someone to call, I had the awful realization that everyone I’d go to in just such an emergency was on his bike in front of me. Other friends didn’t have cars or, if they did, couldn’t transport a bicycle. And my battery and signal both showed only one bar.

Finally, I got down to the Ys and reached Rice Man, who lives near me in the city and had wisely decided to stay in for the day. He said that he could come and get me but that it would take a lot of time.

Then, I called someone in my neighborhood to ask them what they’d do if they got banged up on a Sunday - many hospitals close on Sundays and most that are open charge as much as 100% extra, so I wanted to make sure that I went to the right place. I got the name of a good clinic just as the battery ran out and the phone went dead.

The rain really started to come down and I hunched underneath the short, protruding roof of the dilapidated shop. I got as close as I could to the wall, like an elementary school boy being punished during recess, and still couldn’t avoid the fat raindrops.

I held my arm out in the rain to clean it and the raindrops stung my open flesh as they oozed into the wounds. A few young couples came to the area to park and chill out with the engine running, a very popular activity in countryside Japan. Not one of them turned my way or asked if I was all right. I was just part of the scenery.

All told, I spent two of the loneliest hours of my short life with my face against that wall waiting for Rice Man. What had taken him so long was putting a bike rack on the Rice Shop van to transport the bike without having to take it apart at the scene. He came bearing convenience store sandwiches, curry and mayonnaise, which I normally wouldn’t touch but gladly accepted. He graciously took me by the Bike Shop to drop off my horse and then to the hospital to get cleaned up.

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What followed was nearly three weeks of slow recovery. I went out for authentic Korean food the very night of the accident and took the seat furthest to the left so that nobody would have to look at my arm and leg. My longest baseball trip of the year followed, and for a week I went to games with my shirt sleeve and pants rolled up with a beach sandal on the bad foot and a shiny black shoe on the other. I disinfected and changed the dressings twice daily and spent as much time naked as I could. Guess that last one isn’t so bad.

The physical pain sucked, but even more awful was the fact that I couldn’t ride. I would have jumped back on the bike the next day if it were in riding condition, but instead I waited for just over a month.

The Bike Shops let repairs stack up and actually had to pretend to close the shop to stop from getting more work. I walked into the Bike Shop during one such false closure after yet another baseball trip in late August, ready to pay up and walk away with my chariot, but they hadn’t even started working on it yet! Mrs. Bike Shop had a bunch of numbered tags in her hand and she and Mr. Bike Shop were having a draft to determine to order in which to fix the bikes.

My bike had been given #5 with a due date of September 5.

I expressed my desire, nay, desperation to ride and got that changed to #1 quick-style.

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I just started riding again last week, and I am such a mess both physically and mentally. Five straight weeks of eating out and doing stationary activities like scouting and translating have set my cardiovascular system back, and I’m as bad as Derek Zoolander at turning left.

This is going to be the most difficult hurdle to overcome - slipping and falling was painful and expensive, and while I successfully turned left while going downhill well over a thousand times before becoming one with the road, the memory of that one turn on Yokonami Skyline haunts my consciousness and my dreams.

Riding scared is no way to ride; it’s probably more dangerous and is absolutely not as fun. The thrill of exploring new roads is too much for me at this time and I’m worried that I may never taste it in the same way again. It’s one thing to make a mistake or have a scare on an unfamiliar course, but I ate it on a road that I know and love respect.

In closing, I would like to express my disappointment with Summer 2009. It wasn’t long enough, it rained too damn much, and still manages to rain almost every time I go out! My second time out since the accident, I got stuck walking my bike down a mountain because I was too scared to ride it down in a drizzle.

Maybe I need to enter another race to take the whammy off.

Since acquiring a mad new machine, I’ve deftly avoided talking about and, more importantly, participating in a race of any sort.

Believe me, the KCTC members have tried:

“Mac, you should give it a try. You might set a new world record!”

“Don’t waste that talent. You should train hard and come race with us.”

“Mac, I NEED you out there, I can’t race without you!”

I’ve sidestepped the issue by pretending there was something in my ear, attending to a pressing (phony) phone call, and emptying the contents of my nose onto the pavement just as Bachelor #3 was about to get on his knees and beg me to join him.

Blowing snot rockets is right up there with tossing mikan peels and apple cores into the forest. I love the freedom of being on a bike!

As for racing, besides the fact that I am retired, I enjoy the way that a good, hard ride makes me feel and don’t think that a training schedule would add anything to that. I’m well set in that way of thinking and would only consider racing in a huge, fun, open-entry event where there’s a division for these guys.

Since words haven’t been working, a few guys decided to try a physical demonstration and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

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Today’s ride through the Yamakita mikan groves attracted over 20 riders, some of them new to my eyes. I’ve only been out with KCTC twice on the new bike and have hardly seen them since June, mostly because of baseball trips.

We did this trip last year, and I remembered it when we walked into a roadside shop and they dished out some wild boar stew for us to celebrate the new year. A biker remarked at my skill with chopsticks and willingness to eat Japanese food - the same guy that said the same things last January. Not three weeks ago we were hoisting Kirin Ichiban beers and eating sushi and tempura at the KCTC year-end party.

Anyway, the short, squat trees were stripped bare of mikan and I can’t say that they were all that exciting or beautiful. I can say that it got a little colder around every bend and that I nearly jumped out of my full-length tights and booties when I saw snow hiding in the northern shadow of the highest pass.

The other bikers were rightfully ho-hum about the snow. We would go on to encounter long stretches of frozen road going uphill, and I am surprised that only two bikers fell and that we made it through without chains. I am turning around and going home the next time there is any indication of icy conditions.

The climb was painstaking and scary, and we had to wait quite awhile for everyone to finish and find the right way. We finally got to the sunny side of the mountain and that’s where the fun started.

We were like birds unclipped, dogs unleashed, wild boars unstewed. We had a little more climbing to do, but the leaders got faster and faster while I was stuck behind a big group in the middle. The incline seemed easy enough, so I separated from the middle and caught up with the leaders.

On and on they pressed, sprinting faster and faster upwards. Clouds of white breath poured from their mouths and nostrils, and each rider that I overtook was panting harder than the last.

I sneaked in behind the three leaders, clambering up the unknown slope, taking sharp corners as tightly as possible, trusting them to find rocks and cars before I did with but five or six feet of leeway. After being restrained by the cold, the snow, and the ice, it was exhilarating to throw caution to the wind and simply pedal as hard as I could.

Finally, the guys in front said, “Mac, take it away!” and did I ever. I got over the pass and zoomed down the long hill toward the coast. I’m sure that the views were other-worldly, but all I cared about was the lilting, twisting gray pavement disappearing beneath me at forty miles an hour.

The sign at the beginning of the road had informed us that we were traversing a “forest road,” which usually means lots of pebbles and rocks, slippery moss, and places where a waterfall decides that it doesn’t want to go under the road any more and takes over a whole section.

This was the most pristine stretch of asphalt in Kochi, baked to a perfect crisp by the noontime sun in a cloudless sky. I clumsily navigated the elbows and hairpins that the road threw at me, but quick glances backward showed that I wasn’t bothering any other riders. I had left them all far, far behind.

I knew that I was experiencing a moment that will represent this chapter of my life when I recall it in the future. All of my rides will melt together into a collage, but this one downhill ride after an extremely frustrating and freezing ascent will stand above all of the others.

Larry shocked me out of my euphoria by tapping me on the shoulder on a long straightaway. I let out a yelp and swerved away from him. He may very well have pulled me back onto the road; the whole thing was quite surreal.

“Mac, let me go ahead. Do what I do,” he said calmly, almost in a whisper.

He had been on my tail the whole time, so close that I couldn’t see him when I peeked over my shoulder. He went in front of me and showed me how much I have to learn when handling downhill curves.

Larry was so much better and efficient than I, but what I lost to him on the turns, I gained in momentum on the straightaways. I finally realized what 30 extra pounds will do for me and how much faster I could go with better technique.

We reached the bottom well ahead of the other riders, and Larry asked again, “So, Mac, when are you signing up to race for us?”

It may take snow and chains to keep me off the amateur circuit in Japan. That and dozens of baseball games.

On a remote mountain road, the scruffy dog with grimy, matted fur leered at me as I frantically tried to change a bike tire before my fingers froze and broke off.

“Shut up!” I yelled at it, mostly to get my blood circulating again so that I could continue replacing the wheel. I planned to kick it or box it if it came any closer, but that tire simply had to go on before I froze to death in what was basically fancy underwear and a helmet.

The impolite old man returned to the scene before I was finished pumping the tire up all the way, and I pointed out the dog, which had skittered up the hill on the other side of the narrow road. He scooped up the dog, chained him up with the other three, and peeled out toward an unknown destination with nary a word said.

He was as icy as the wind. I was very close to seriously needing help escaping the bitter cold, and I am so glad that it didn’t come down to asking him for a ride. He may have refused.

I had little choice but to turn around and go back the way I had come. I was about 20 miles out of Kochi and well over the second set of mountains, but continuing would have guaranteed the need for a ride home.

I shivered and sniffled my way back up the mountain, and tears seemed forthcoming but I doubt that they could have squeezed their way out of my frozen eyeballs.

It was at the top of the pass that I realized that it was not pollen blowing around in the air, but snow. I had seen snow fall from the sky but three times in my life prior to that, and this snow was hardly doing what I would call falling. It floated in the air, moving to and fro, and when the flakes made contact with my clothing, they just stuck there without melting.

My feet were bricks of ice, but luckily their work was done. It was 16 miles downhill to the city, and I exhaled a huge white cloud of relief. It didn’t take long for it to dawn on me that 16 miles downhill in that weather would mean fiercer wind and less body movement, therefore less warmth.

The frigid air sliced through my two week-old beard and burned my face. I never doubted that I would find a way home, but the prospect of getting home healthy was vanishing quickly.

Then I passed the Kawamura Farm. I didn’t know it was the Kawamura Farm until I looked up and saw a middle-aged couple throwing twigs and small branches onto a bonfire in front of a dilapidated shed and ramshackle farmhouse.

There was no better time for some good old Kochi hospitality. I pried my feet loose from the pedals and walked gingerly up to the pair, asking them as politely as possible if I could partake in their pleasant pyre.

“M-m-may I please b-b-b-borrow s-some of your f-f-fire?” I murmured, finding it difficult to manage moving my mouth much.

Mr. Kawamura laughed and beckoned me closer to the blaze. I struggled to strip off my gloves and finally defrost the fingers that had worked so hard on the shady side of the mountain.

I gazed up at the lazily falling snow and tried to follow it to the ground, but I lost sight of it in the white ash of the fire pit. Sap sizzled and spat from one of the pieces of bark in the pit, and dozens of tiny ants scurried and hurried in vain to try to escape their fiery fate.

The Kawamuras and I engaged in conversation, and I learned that Mr. Kawamura had spent the first ten years of his life in that very farmhouse, walking three miles each way to school every day. His parents and he moved away to Kochi City, leaving his elderly grandparents on the mountain alone, where they would live out the rest of their lives.

Mr. Kawamura returns to the farmhouse and small plot of land a few times each fall and winter. The roof was about ready to collapse, and it sagged precariously over one side of the building. The shed, too, was on its last legs. Nobody has lived on that land for twenty years, and Mr. Kawamura just gathers twigs and fallen branches and burns them to keep the plot relatively clear.

The Kawamuras were just sitting in front of a bonfire all day, and I began to think that they might have been bored before I came along. I changed my mind when a postal worker zipped by on a little red scooter, nodding to us before disappearing down a side road to deliver some mail.

I heard the man’s voice shout, “Good afternoon!” but there was no reply. The scooter popped back into view, and the postal worker eyed the fire with the same wistful look that I had probably had on my face when I passed by. His deep, coal-black eyes watered over the scarf that covered the rest of his face.

He slowly unwound the scarf and stammered out the same question that I had asked, and Mr. Kawamura bellowed in his booming baritone, “Come on over, there’s plenty of room for you!”

We talked about the postman’s lonely route all the way from the distant town hall to the top of the mountain. He knew how many houses were on his route (214) and regaled us with stories of delivering through rain, snow, sleet, and hail. Contrary to what I believed, there are indeed days when even the postal service can’t get through.

Mr. Kawamura asked after certain people on the route, and both he and the postman knew them all. It was amazing to me not only that he could remember people after forty years, but that they would still be around to talk about. A lot is said about Japanese longevity, and legend has it that many of the centenarians we hear of live in rural mountain towns like that one.

It was very educational for me to be a part of that conversation, if a small one. It reminded me again how easy it is to fall into the trap of talking about my hometown and how long I’ve been studying Japanese, which I will invariably have to speak about every day that I choose to be in this country.

The postman eventually had to get back to work, and it was late enough in the afternoon that it wasn’t getting any warmer. I would have to face the cold sooner or later, so I dragged myself away from the inviting flames after getting the Kawamuras’ contact information.

I narrowed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and let my cheeks flap in the wind as I raced down the face of the mountain. I was going as fast as I could both to end the experience more quickly and to keep my body moving. Thirty long minutes later, I was in the city, where I saw that the high temperature had been 46 degrees. It was most certainly below freezing in the mountains.

I stopped at the Bike Shop to ask about the gaping hole in my tire, and Mr. Bike Shop took a look at it, shook his head, and said, “Hurts, don’t it?”

“What hurts?” I strained to say. My mouth still wasn’t working very well.

“The 35 bucks you spent on a tire that’s no longer useable,” he said plainly, pursing his lips.

I think that he is not-so-secretly counting down the amount of money he would’ve gotten from me had I bought an expensive new bike from the Bike Shop. I’ve bought every new part for the used bike from him, but I think he’s going to wait until he’s recovered the entire “balance” before he starts being friendly again.

I bought another tire and looked forward to getting more practice and more pumping. Whooppee!!!

All in all, it would have been a fantastic ride on a hot summer day, and I will definitely remember the spot, but the mountains are closed until March as far as I am concerned. The hour I spent in the shower and hot bath undid all of the pain, and I awoke Monday morning fresh and as ready to go as ever.

Wouldn’t you know it, it warms up again and there isn’t a hint of white in the mountains. I look out the window at school, at the beautiful reds and yellows of the trees up in the hills, and think, “Maybe one more weekend . . . “

I got all excited about buying the mad, new machine that would catapult me to the front of the group on KCTC rides, and promptly spent four weeks away from the club.

Consecutive weekends took me away from Kochi on baseball and other business, and one Sunday featured a silly meeting at the English school that contracted me to my high school. Pair that with a curiously sudden and heavy workload at school, and you have a guy who is itching to sleep in instead of hopping on the hobby horse.

Last weekend, it came time to break away, to disappear from everyone’s radar and just ride. I have a map of Kochi Prefecture on the wall in my room, and I’ve traced my routes with a thin marker so that I can blur my focus and see what my radius looks like.

Saturday, I set out to expand it and chose Kubokawa Town, a small river village halfway between Kochi City and the mouth of the famous Shimanto River in Nakamura City. Kubokawa Town is only five miles away from the Pacific Ocean, yet sits aside the same river. The “River of 40,000 tributaries” carves out a very interesting and meandering path.

The national highway that leads out of Kochi City goes right through Kubokawa Town and on to Nakamura City, but it is a two-lane road most of the way and is jammed with freight trucks up through steep passes and tunnels. No thanks, said I.

I decided instead to follow the numbered prefectural roads, which usually offer hours of intimacy and solitude to the bike rider. I sneaked around the national highway and up into the mountains, and the road that I chose spat me out close to the main source of the Shimanto River.

I had just made it over the tallest pass and to the downhill run when I got stuck behind a logging truck for about 5 miles. The truck was as wide as the road and hung out over the white lines on both sides of the road for most of the time. I saw the outer wheels leave the road twice, and the driver had to slow down to avoid clipping trees and mailboxes on many occasions.

I drummed my fingers on the comfortable, curved handlebars and waited impatiently for the road to widen considerably so that I could get by safely. I imagined the shock of seeing a beast like this behind me and decided that it was better off in front of me after all. “Objects in mirror” and all.

That episode passed along with the rest of the ever-shortening afternoon, and I arrived in Kubokawa Town right at sunset. I sought refuge at Iwamoto Temple, the 37th stop on the journey of 88 temples that takes enlightenment-seeking pilgrims around Shikoku Island.

It is very common to see these pilgrims daily around Kochi, as there are several of the 88 temples within city limits. They are usually dressed in white, wear rice hats, and carry big backpacks and walking sticks. I think part of Kochi folks’ open-hearted spirit comes from helping so many complete strangers pass through.

I’m no pilgrim, but two buddies from east of Kochi City had arrived before me and arranged for the three of us to share an extra room at the inn next to the Iwamoto Temple. We ate a prepared meal at a long, low table with a bunch of pilgrims, and bathed with them as well.

I was asked many times over if I was a pilgrim, and a number of people do indeed elect to complete the trek by bicycle. The ultra-modern, sedentary lifestyle-types do it in tour buses. The man who ate next to me was doing it in pieces around his job; he had been at it for a year and managed to get 37 temples in.

We turned in early, as the 38th temple is quite a haul and many pilgrims can’t get there in one day. Meditation and the incantations were set for 6:00 a.m. sharp.

We arose before six, shuddering at the cold, late autumn wind that whistled through the temple grounds. The monks floated around in their mustard-yellow and brown robes, lighting candles and incense and preparing the temple for the service.

The chanting and praying were by far the most foreign things I have ever done. The monks kneeled on pillows, facing away from the pilgrims, and led them in the swiftly-moving, monotonous chant. One monk tapped rhythmically on a small, deep-toned bell next to him and kept the crowd on pace.

I didn’t say very many of the words, as I was too busy observing the monks and pilgrims and soaking up the scene. Most of the chants were done in classical Japanese, which even normal Japanese people can have trouble understanding.

I was able to grasp the meaning of the characters on the page in front of me, but the readings were rather odd, and there were definitely some parts that weren’t Japanese at all. I caught a few boddhisatvas and Amida Buddhas in there.

The monks fed us breakfast, and then I suited up and struck out in the direction of Kochi City. The plan on Sunday was to follow the coast as much as possible, still avoiding the national highway.

The temperature hovered in the low forties, but I was properly equipped and didn’t feel much as long as I kept moving. I expected to have to climb a bit to get out of the basin in which Kubokawa Town sits, but to my surprise I found a steep, twisty road down into Shiwa, a small fishing hamlet on the coast.

It so happened that Sunday was Shiwa’s day to shine - they were holding their annual Konbu Seaweed Festival. The villagers bustled about, preparing huge pots to make konbu soup and setting up tables and chairs for their expected visitors. One old man was running around with a portable blowtorch on full blast, and I didn’t see him light anything with it, but nobody was freaking out so perhaps I met Shiwa’s village idiot. I watched him for a good minute and there appeared to be no reason to have the torch going.

I declined to stay for the festivities and turned toward the lone road leading north out of Shiwa. The pavement was gritty and the street shot straight up the face of a rocky cliff, and I would see similar geography all the way back home. Challenging slopes followed by screaming downhill stretches, a fantastic way to spend a Sunday morning.

At nine o’clock, I phoned Mr. Bike Shop, who was just about to hold court with KCTC and decide the day’s route, to beg the bikers and him to head west and meet me somewhere in the middle. They went east.

Shortly after hanging up, I encountered a strange-looking roadblock in front of a shaded hillside graveyard. Three cones stretched across half of the road, but there was no signage and plenty of room for a bicycle to pass by, so I proceeded with care.

Not far beyond the cones, a lone car was parked off to one side, and I could see the driver and his passenger burning some leaves up on one of the plots of land that stuck out from the hill. The road was littered with twigs and leaves and looked like it hadn’t been traversed in years, but curiosity got the better of me and I continued climbing.

I got my answer at the relative peak, where a rockslide blocked off most of the road. There was plenty of room for a person (or a biker) to step over the ropes and onto the other side, but it was impassable by car. I tiptoed through the rubble and plopped the bike down on the opposite side.

It was a little scary, and I debated whether or not I should continue. Around the next bend, however, was an old man sitting on the pavement, smoking a cigarette in front of his pickup truck. He was startled to see me coming from the direction of the landslide; this abandoned road appeared to be his secret space, his escape.

I asked him if it was safe, and he nodded, but quickly shook his head from side to side, expressing his surprise at seeing someone emerge from the rock pile. At the bottom of the road, a similar half-roadblock stood next to a sign that described the landslide that had forced closure of the road in March. No plans existed to fix the road, and there was no need because of a brand new tunnel through the shaky mountain.

On I pedaled, up and down, over and over, past magnificent rock formations and wonderful, craggy islands in the ocean near the coast. I spied some fishermen standing out on some of the rocks. I stopped to enjoy a banana and some mikan and, as I do nearly every day, thought myself lucky to be in Kochi at that very moment.

Finally, I reached the Yokonami Peninsula, which is basically a small mountain range separating a narrow bay from the ocean. The hellish, badly-paved road rises and falls and tests riders of all levels, but it offers some absolutely breathtaking views.

There is a road on the backside of the bay that I usually take, and I had a choice to make. I had sworn off the Yokonami Skyline because of the impossibility of the slopes and the coarse conditions, but I was feeling feisty and decided to give it a shot for the first time on my new ride.

It was nothing! Oh, I love this bike!

I coasted home, cleaned the bike, showered, bathed, and set out for an all-you-can-eat cake and pasta deal at a restaurant down the street. I had been looking forward to stuffing my face with spaghetti and strawberry shortcake all morning and afternoon, but when I arrived at the restaurant, I was met with the totally lame X-mark explaining that the restaurant was full.

Bummed, I exited the place, right into a gaggle of college-age girls wearing matching hats and holding trash bags. I asked them what the get up was all about, and they explained that they were picking up trash around the area for the next hour. I put on a hat and joined them. Didn’t take long for that situation to turn around!

Later that night at the supermarket, I bumped into a young woman who works at one of my favorite restaurants. The last time I had seen her, I had made a badly-timed, badly-delivered joke that ended up sounding very rude. The restaurant had gotten quiet at just that moment, so everyone, including the shop owner, had heard it, and I was sure that I was banished from the restaurant for life.

Finally given the chance to apologize (after kicking the idea around and not doing it of my own volition), I did, and she brushed it off and said that I was still welcome at the restaurant.

What a weekend!