Ride to Victory

Had to leave Matsuyama today to head to our next destination. I like this city a lot and I hope to return someday soon.

We packed up our suitcases and and with the help of the hotel staff we “takkyibin-ed” our luggage off to our hotel that we will go to after we finish cycling the Shimanami Kaido. So we are only taking backpacks with the bare essentials for the next 3 days – hence I am typing this update on my phone rather than my iPad. It’s so nice not having any luggage though! And the luggage forwarding system here is so great and reasonably priced.

And so it was down to Matsuyama station to catch a train to Imabari – about 50 minutes away.

At Imabari we picked up our bikes and began our cycling journey. Steve got an awesome Giant road bike, I got a “Mama Chari” with a basket. Look, the basket was useful, but we I came up to the first hill I nearly died and thought there was no way I was going to make the 30 kms or so we were planning on riding today. I had to keep stopping and walking every 100 metres.

We had to cross over to the next island via a huge bridge. And the incline leading up to it was relentless. Once we made it to the top though it was pretty amazing – great views of the Seto Inland Sea, and just super cool riding over a huge expressway bridge.

Over the other side of the bridge was Oshima and we had planned to go to the “Michi no Eki” (roadside station) for lunch – there were rumours of a seafood BBQ…but first we had to make it there. Look, I will admit I am probably the unfittest I have been in years – a nasty cold, followed by a bout of Covid just prior to leaving for Japan rendered me unable to exercise for about a month or more – so my training for this trip was kind of non existent, but man, there are some nasty inclines here that go on forever! The downhill bits, when they finally arrive are really fun though!

We made it to the roadside stop and found a few tourist buses and the seafood BBq. It was already like 2:30pm by now so we wasted no time – got in there and got our seafood and cooked it on the grill.

(You get to choose what you want from the fridges in the store and pay accordingly)

After lunch, I went to the nearby bike rental place and begged them to let me change my bike to a road bike. Luckily they agreed. So no more basket for me, but at least I get more than 3 gears and a bike that doesn’t weigh 50kg. We looked around a bit before getting back on our bikes to head to our accommodation for the night.

Even on my new and improved bike, It was quite a tiring ride, I’m not going to lie, but just imagine if I still had the other one 😱 and The weather, whilst not horrible, is quite cold and windy.

After crossing over another big bridge (not as big as the first one but still damn big) we made it to Hakatajima and found our accommodation- Ryoken Seto. Thank god. I was just about ready to go sleep on the beach. Our accommodation is amazing, which makes it all worth it.