Am I crazy?

Well, am I?  STOP!  Before you automatically say “yes” or “no” for whatever reason, here’s why I’m asking:

Last week on our epic road trip around Kyushu (which I’ll blog about later) we stayed in Amakusa two nights with our friend, Len.  He was telling us about his bike trips.  He LOVES to ride his bike and has made SEVERAL long distance trips.  In fact he said that if he stays for a third year, he’s going to get rid of his car and just ride his bike everywhere.    That would be good and great if he lived in or close to the city with means of public transportation, but he lives in the island chain of Amakusa, just as rural as our sleepy town of Yunomae.  (Fun factoid: Amakusa is the number one de-populating place in all of Japan.  No one wants to stay there.  )  He’s ridden his bike all around the island chain, to Kumamoto City (a decent 2-3 hours by car, depending on traffic), and even all the way to Oita Prefecture (as in the OTHER side of our island of Kyushu.)  I don’t know how long that trip took, but I’m guessing a few days.  When he tells the stories about riding his bike, he doesn’t bat an eye.  It doesn’t matter if the distance was 10km or 150km….he sees it all as an adventure!  Len was even talking about biking down to Kuma-gun at some point in time.  From Amakusa, it’s about 2-3 hours by car if that gives you any indication of the distance.

After talking to him, Ian and I got the notion in our mind that we also should do something like that.  How fun would it be to go on an epic bike trip??    Here’s the game plan thus far: There’s a three day weekend the third weekend of September.  Ian and I are going to ride to the beach in Aoshima.  It’s about 100km one way from here, and according to Google Maps will take twenty hours walking.  We’re estimating that we can ride AT LEAST twice as fast as we walk, so we’re figuring that it will be a ten hour journey.  The first day we’ll ride to the beach, use our tent to camp out on or near the beach, the second day enjoy the beach, and the third day will be used to ride home.  The furthest we’ve ridden on our bikes was in May when we rode the Kumagawa Cycling Road to Hitoyoshi and back.  I believe that round trip it was about 70km, so what’s another 30km to tack onto that?    It was fun, and if we can actually do this, then we’ve got bragging rights that we rode all the way to the beach!  That gives us about a month to train up for it and build up those leg muscles.  The cycling road was pretty flat, and we know that in order to make it to the beach, we’re going to have to cross numerous mountains (that’s where the leg muscles will come in handy……)  Assuming that the weather will cooperate, this is the game plan.   

Before you start making assumptions, just know that I wouldn’t dare think about doing this in the States for two reasons:

1) Traffic.  Cars will run bikers DOWN in the States.  Despite what I say about Asian drivers, they are a lot more cautious about pedestrians and bikers over here. 

2) I would never, ever, ever want to just camp along the roadside in the States.  I don’t care if it’s in rural America or not….some crazy person could easily rob or injure one of us.  However, the Japanese are nice.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: YOU CAN TRUST PEOPLE HERE.

This (to me) is another great adventure to have in Japan!  I’ve never done such a thing, and I think it will be very fun….and tiring!

So….back to that original question….am I crazy for wanting to do this?