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Cycling in Hokkaido, 1998

Japan

Agelasto
2004-05-20 20:50:31

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After Africa I needed a more relaxing vacation, so I returned to a favorite mode of traveling, bicycle touring. I also figured that bicycling in Japan would be about as sharp a contrast to rucksacking in Africa as I could find. I was right.

I had wanted to cycle in Hokkaido for almost the entire decade I have lived in China, but things kept getting in the way: teaching, a Ph.D., academic conferences, and most notably several earthquakes in Japan, one on the very island I wanted to visit. Returning from Africa July 1, I gave myself 5 weeks to prepare for touring Hokkaido, Japan' northernmost undisputed island (the Russians co-claim several isles further north). My travel agent found me a half-price promotional ticket on Cathay Pacific (Hong Kong's flagship) that would fly me directly to and from Sapporo, the island's major city. That way I did not have to worry about working my way through the rest of Japan and I could especially avoid Tokyo's airport, the infamous Norita, for me the world's coldest and least tolerable airport, where I have logged in about a dozen hours in the transit area.

The first consideration was to get my bike in shape. The British-made Raleigh was purchased in 1975 in preparation for cycling in England, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man. It had served me well, taking me across the USA (1983), up the coast of Portugal (1992), around most of New Zealand (1988) and parts of Ireland (1992) and Australia (1987-8), especially Tasmania. The bike had been stored at a friend's in Hong Kong. After retrieving it, I took it to a bike shop in Hong Kong where I had planned to get "everything that moves" replaced. That was until we discovered the frame had rusted and that it would be cheaper to buy a new, state-of-the-art bike rather than put new equipment on an old frame. So I pointed to a bike hanging from the ceiling and purchased it on the spot. It turned out to be a made-in-USA Trek ...