Category: european bike epic

I’d never really considered the topography of Wales before. I’d always vaguely assumed it had some nice rolling hills, maybe some rocks. So I wasn’t expecting the insanely steep hills that were thrown at us. Tiny little winding country lanes that would force you into your lowest gear, then to stand on your pedals in your lowest gear, then give up and struggle to push your bike up. Mostly they weren’t quite that bad though, which meant that you had no excuse to stop riding – even if you were desperately grinding away in your lowest of granny gears.

The other thing was the sheep. There seemed to be even more sheep in Wales than in Ireland. And they all liked to talk to each other. Constantly. It probably didn’t help that our first couple of nights were in farm campgrounds, with sheep wandering round, talking to each over across our tent.

We spent a lot of time following the National Cycle Route (Number 8 being the one that crosses Wales). We got to be suspicious of its tendency to take us up the steepest hills it could find though.

“Oh, there don’t appear to be any hills here, lets follow Number 8….. oh wait”.

Thanks to my fingers I didn’t get much sleep last night. We’re cycling uninspiring industrial coastal road into Chitose though, so I don’t feel too bad about the fact that all I can think of is my fingers. On the way we stop at a pharmacy and mange to get a mild steroid cream for me. It doesn’t help much.

We set up in a campground in urban Chitose, then try to find some more medical help. We end up at a pharmacy with a girl who phones her English teacher, who comes to the pharmacy to try and help. They are all lovely, and I go away with a numbing cream of some sort, which also doesn’t help. Tomorrow we’ll try the hospital.

Another night of not enough sleep thanks to fingers, and I spend all morning in search of, and at, the hospital. I come away with drained blisters, a stronger steroid cream, cotton gloves, and some lovely strong pain killers. We find some food in the city, I take my first pain killer, then we set off to the airport. I start slurring my words, and concentrate very hard on cycling.

As we arrive at Chitose Airport we say goodbye to the Boy, who keeps cycling south through the rest of Japan. We sit packing away our bikes into the Tardis bags, and our panniers into our low-rent stripy plastic bags, which are rapidly disintegrating. Check-in is fine (no excess luggage hurrah – we’re flying JAL, but through the oneworld Japan tickets), mosburger for dinner is tasty (my ‘bun’ consists of a fried rice patty, oh the tastiness), and the flight goes fine, spitting us out at Tokyo Haneda airport just as it is closing for the night. We can’t get to Narita tonight, but we need to be there first thing in the morning. It’s nearly midnight, and it seems pointless to try and sleep for the night. We store our luggage in lockers at a train station, and go wandering round central Tokyo.

Distance cycled 15th: 109km
Distance cycled 16th: 26km
Trip total: 1398km
Location: Shizunai – Chitose – Tokyo