Once we finished breakfast we rolled out of town and onto the country highway. As disorganized as we had been earlier we now rode with surprising unity. Inspired by our previous day’s pilgrimage to watch the Keirin track races and with six days on the road behind us, we now rode faster than ever. Our range of abilities and riding styles finally coalesced into a cohesive pack, tempered by the equalizer of the road. Knowing we had milage to make up today we maintained focus and swiftly passed through the industrial beef town of Matsuzaka, through the port of Tsu, and up into the hills. Our destination for the night was the village of Iga, known for being the historical “birthplace” of the Ninja.

As we climbed up and up, passing hillside villages and streams, getting deeper into the mountain forests, it was not hard to imagine back to the days when ninjas trained in these mystical environs. At this point the village lay just on the other side of the mountain peak, but as it turned out the only path there was a 2 km (1.2 mile) long tunnel. We had already gotten yelled at by the authorities for attempting to go through a tunnel a few days earlier and were made to take the long way around. This time that wasn’t an option; we were so close to our destination already having ridden over 60 miles for the day. So far, we noted as we stood contemplating by the tunnel’s entrance, no one had yelled at us over the tunnel’s loud speaker as they did before, so we decided we’d better get to it before we were seen. This time we would hope to pass through undetected, in the spirit of Iga’s own Ninja tradition.

The plan was to keep a tight line and blast through at top speed, with our camera van taking up the rear for safety. We just had to hope that cars wouldn’t pass our van since the narrow tunnel lanes had no side margin to escape, just an unforgiving concrete wall. All we could do was take a deep breath and go for it. We started off together, but in this eerie abyss, our line quickly fell apart. It was every man for himself. Bathed in the dark yellow glow of the tunnel everything was suddenly very still and all I could hear was my heartbeat. After pressing on at top speed for what seemed like an eternity, I finally escaped from this dark foreboding cave, and in a moment of rebirth, emerged into the daylight. Now surrounded by the misty mountain peaks, I raced victoriously downhill towards the village.

All of this happened before we even had a proper meal so as we reconvened and rolled through the outskirts of the village I looked out for an eatery of any kind. The first place was a little mom-and-pop restaurant that turned us down because they didn’t have enough rice to feed the 12 riders and three crew members in our group, but luckily the next spot could handle us. The accommodating Oshokuji Kokoro Kawahara cooked us up some delicious donburi which we ate in a pair of tatami rooms, and they even directed us to a campground by the river which turned out to be the pinnacle of our accommodations for the trip.

We were directed to pass through town and head to the outskirts towards Nara where this amazing riverside campground lies. But as we rolled up, the place appeared to be deserted. The gate was locked and owners were nowhere to be found. To us though, after riding all day, nothing looked better than a swim in the refreshing mountain river that awaited us inside the campground. So without much hesitation we swiftly hopped the gate, set our stuff down and dove into the water. A few hours later all the guys had a chance to swim, set up camp, and get ready to enjoy some cold beers from the vending machines conveniently located on site. Of course it was right at this time that the owner showed up to what appeared to be 15 foreigners tresspassing and partying on his land. So now it was up to me, as our group’s main Japanese speaker, to talk to this man and try to keep us from going to jail.

At first he was irate and told us to leave immediately, understandably freaked out by our locust-like mob of bike-riding hooligans blowing up his spot. He clearly wanted nothing to do with us. I tried to explain the situation, telling him we tried to call and asked around when we showed up, but no one was to be found. This got little sympathy from him. Finally I told him I was pretty sure I had a reservation at some camp ground around here (not actually true) and with this his face took a calmer tone as this was clearly just a misunderstanding since there was another campsite just up the road. These situations can be tricky in Japan and take a special kind of finesse. Now that he knew someone in the group could speak Japanese and that he wouldn’t have to remove us forcibly the owner was much more relaxed. Eventually I convinced him that by now our other (fake) reservation had probably been cancelled and that since we were already here maybe he could just rent us two campsites and let us stay. He finally agreed, situation smoothed over, no cops called, we were safe.

That night I slept amazingly well, comforted by the sound of the nearby rushing river. By the next night we’d be in Osaka. If we only knew about the next day’s unforeseen hill climbing on empty stomachs, the perilous downhill bombing accident, or getting lost in the rain outside the Osaka suburbs, we might not have slept as well, but on the road you have to take it one day at a time.




The film premiers Summer 2010. For more information visit www.tokyo2osaka.com


東京から大阪へ
１２人のピストライダー達が日本に行き東京から大阪へ４００マイルかけてライドするプロジェクト。CJDunnによる写真と日記のエントリーをシェアしてもらった。これは伊賀での話、「前の日に、競輪レースを見に行ってみんなスピードを出すのに興奮していた。トンネルを通っていかないとキャンプ場へ行けない、しかし、そのトンネルは自転車禁止、奈良の川の横で寝ることになった」日本のピストアドベンチャーはすごく勉強になったみたいだ。