Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Greetings, my excellent friends. It’s a been a while.

Well…don’t just stand there. Come on in. Pull up a chair.

If you’re sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin.

Last time we spoke was in 2019. I had just quit my job and was riding my bike around Norway. Fast-forward a bit to 2024, and Rachel and I are sitting in a hotel in Hokkaido, Japan. So, how did we get here? Let’s get you brought up to speed.

The last 4 years have been all work and no play. We all know that covid sucked, and for those of us that work in the live event industry, we were hit particularly hard. I probably picked the worst time in modern history to quit my job and go freelance. That being said, I survived. Now, with the lockdowns over, Rachel and I were both overdue for an adventure. The only question was, where should we go?

In 2021 we were fortunate to have worked at the Tokyo Olympics. Due to covid (and the nature of our jobs) we didn’t see much on that trip other than our hotel and the stadium we were working at. Still, I thought Japan was interesting and wanted to come back some day, so why not now? And why not on our bikes? The cool thing about bicycle touring is that you’re moving fast enough for the scenery to change and not get boring, but you’re also moving slow enough to get a real sense for the country you’re passing through. You see things. You smell things. You get rained on. Sometimes you end up taking a poop under a highway bridge. It’s a great way to explore a foreign land. So, it was decided, and we started making plans for Japan. Actually, the decision was made on a Tuesday afternoon at a place called Leopold’s Tavern, after we were on our 4th pint, and it went a little bit like this:

“Hey, we should take our bikes and ride around Japan.”

“Fuck, yeah! I’m in!”

At least, that’s how I remember it.

Now, all we had to do was get our bikes and ourselves to Japan, and we could get the party started.

Just to be clear, travelling by bicycle is easy. You just swing your leg over the seat, point the front tire towards something interesting and away you go. Travelling with bicycles, however, is a pain in the fecking arse. We wanted to start the ride at the northernmost tip of Japan. Why, I’m not really quite sure, other than it sounded like a bad-ass way to begin a trip. Actually getting there, though, involved multiple airplanes, buses, a train, and a rather expensive Uber ride.

Our first flight would be from Calgary to Vancouver, where we’d then connect for a flight to Tokyo. We’d change airports in Tokyo and grab a flight to Sapporo. From Sapporo we’d hop a train to Wakkanai, which is about as far north you can go in Japan without using a boat.

The day finally arrived. Things were looking good. Our bikes were all boxed up and checked in with Air Canada.

As we were waiting to board our Vancouver flight, I could tell by the body language of the gate staff that something wasn’t quite right. Sure enough, the lady grabbed the mic and said something along the lines of, “Yeah, so this flight is like cancelled, and stuff. They’re going to unload all your luggage and you’ll have to claim it downstairs. Good luck everyone and thanks for flying Air Canada!”

Fuck…..Now what? We have connections to make. We’re going to Japan! Normally, this would be the prefect time to panic, not that it would have helped. There are certain things in life that you have almost zero control over, and commercial air travel is one of them. Rachel and I both travel extensively for work – we should be used to this – but even with over a thousand flights under my belt, I could feel that knot of panic building in my stomach. What saved us in this case was that Rachel and I both hold 100K “Super Elite” status with Air Canada, and one of the perks is their concierge service. Before we’d even made it down to the baggage claim, the concierge had re-booked us on the next flight and it still looked like we’d make our connection in Vancouver. We stopped in at the concierge office and personally thanked them for their help. They really saved the day.

We sat down on the plane and watched all the chaos that typically unfolds every time you try to load an aircraft. People trying to jam bags in the overhead bins. People undressing in the aisle. Babies screaming, etc, etc. This is all very normal. I wasn’t even really worried when one of the passengers almost got arrested for  refusing to take his seat – something about a reservation mix-up with the tour group he was travelling with. No, what really concerned me was when the captain came on and said that Vancouver ATC had issued a ground delay and that we’d be another hour sitting on the tarmac before taking off. Oh, man….there goes our connection, I thought. This is just not our day. In the end, our Vancouver to Tokyo flight was delayed by 3 hours while they changed a couple of tires on the airplane, so we made it with time to spare, and were eventually settled in for the long haul across the Pacific.

We landed in Tokyo and needed to get downtown to Haneda airport for our flight to Sapporo. We took the rather posh sounding “Airport Limousine Bus”, which was really just a normal bus. No sunroof, no strippers, no poppin’ bottles of Dom P…it wasn’t much of a limousine, but it got us (and our bikes) where we needed to go.

After stashing the bikes and the panniers overnight at the luggage storage place at Haneda, we dialed up an Uber to take us over to the hotel. While we were waiting for the Uber, a van pulled up next to us. The door slid open and Mom and Dad jumped in, but their little kid was not having it and an amazing tantrum ensued. The kid just started screeching like he was possessed and dropped spreadeagle (splat) onto the pavement. If you’ve ever seen the show “Cops”, you’ve seen this kind of behaviour, except it’s usually a drunk 40 year old that’s resisting arrest, not a 4 year old kid in the Uber line at the airport. Then, in a textbook manoeuvre lifted straight from the pages of Good Parenting magazine, Mom grabbed the kid’s ankles, Dad grabbed his wrists, and they flung the kid into the van the same way you’d toss a sack of fertilizer into the back of a truck. They pushed the kid’s head out of the way, slid the mini-van door closed, and away they went. It was ridiculous. This obviously wasn’t their first rodeo.

The flight to Sapporo went well. ANA had no problem with our boxed up bikes and the bus transfer downtown to our hotel was uneventful. We’d booked a couple of days off in Sapporo to take care of business: We needed to put the bikes together and deal with any damage that may have happened during the flights. We needed to buy compressed gas for our stove, since you can’t fly with it. And we also needed to drink some beer. I mean, it’s Sapporo. It’d be almost sacrilege not to sample the local hops.

With the bikes all put together and a belly full of Sapporo lager, we then had to take our bikes apart again. See, Japan has this rule about bikes on trains. You can bring them, but they have to be partially disassembled and zipped up into a protective bag. “Rinko” is the anglophonation of the Japanese word for these bicycle bags. We’re riding Surly Long Haul Truckers. These are solid touring bikes made from cro-mo steel. Our pannier racks are from the German company Tubus, again, made from steel. There is nothing lightweight about these bikes. These are not the Lance Armstrong chariots you see in the Tour du France, but, they are the right tool for the job. You want a bike that can take the pounding of thousands of road miles, whilst schlepping around 40 pounds worth of luggage. To fit the bikes into the bags we had to pull the front wheels off, the handlebars and the pedals, and then zip them into these oversized nylon “Rinko” bike condoms.

I think in the minds of the Japanese rail authorities, you have your rinko slung over your shoulder, your helmet in your hand, and you make a svelte ascension into the train. I can just picture it in the glossy pages of a railway vacation brochure. In our case, however, it was more like a couple of sweaty bear cubs trying to fuck a greased football. With our bikes in one hand, 3 panniers zipped into Ikea bags on our backs, another pannier in our other hand, our handlebar bags, our helmets, and our train tickets, it couldn’t have been more awkward. Rachel actually got wedged in the train doorway. She couldn’t move forward. She couldn’t move backwards. A line-up of really grumpy looking Japanese people was building behind her. “Just go”, she said. “Leave me here”. “Tell my parents I love them”.

That was the last I ever saw of Rachel…

That’s not true. We got her un-stuck, dumped the bikes in the vestibule of the train and sat down for the 6 hour ride up to Wakkanai.

And that, my friends, brings us to the end of week one. A few twists and turns but we made it. Next, we can get down to the dirty business of actually turning the pedals and riding!

Chat with you soon,

Rachel & Steve