That’s an analogy I came up with last night in a cramped hostel in Ueno, Tokyo.
I’ve been travelling for two weeks now. First in Italy. Between Bologna and Ljubljana, visiting Luka, a friend I met during the Great Alleycat in Slovenia’s capital last year, and later my grandfather in Campolo, a mountain town 3 hours from Bologna.
My luggage is maximal. I’m pioneering the Ultra-Bogged-Down discipline.
I’m travelling with my bike in a backpack. Once both wheels are removed, with the dismantled frame jammed between, there’s just enough room for my Skream Magnum22 fixed-gear to fit into the bag I had custom-made in London.
What a fucking slog. For a weekend trip, even a weeklong trip? Sound. But, while it’s mobile, it’s a serious ballache to navigate transport with.
Not to mention my primary backpack (worn over my chest when moving with the bikebag), packed like a brick with clothes, my camera, laptop and travel essentials. It’s up for debate which is heavier.
Busy stations are nightmares and walking further than 15 minutes is torture. This trip was ambitious from the start.
︎︎︎ Golden hour in Meguro city.
I left London on the 13th of July. Setting out on what is planned to be 6 months of backpacking through, Europe, Japan, Vietnam, Mexico and Chile beyond.
As of today, I’m a week into Tokyo. And here’s the kicker.
At the heart of this bikebag-packing trip, was this mammoth of a challenge.
The hallowed Cannonball from Tokyo to Osaka. 500+ kilometres of mountains and headwind, riding flatout along the long beach of Oiso until some sheer ups and downs as you come into Osaka. A whole 25 hour journey if the cards are in your favour. Suprise suprise they were not...
A bit of history on this run:
There’s whisperings of a legendary time, set by the mystical character Yuki, of 22 hours. For reference, over the entire ride, you’d have to average 25km/hour or more for the entire time. No breaks. Don’t stop.
The conventional ride, the more popular route, is naturally from West to East. Osaka to Tokyo. With the tailwind along the coast, and ending in the bigger, more popular city. But what’s conventional about fixed-gear? Leave that shit to the weekend roadies.
Enter Shogun Toro, Alleycat titan, track bike superstar and Bronx native, Toni. On a whim, hearing of Yuki’s run on the wind, Toni took to trying this Cannonball, backwards. Tokyo to Osaka was born. He did it in 28 hours on a brakeless track bike. Savage.
No breaks. No brakes. Don’t stop.
Toni and I have been friends for a few years, meeting in London at the Great Alleycat in 2022. At the time I was already involved with the organisers, shooting races and working on the event marketing side. So my meeting Toni would repeat in Mexico city at the end of the year, a wild week in its savage streets, to the tune of Hispanic rap and the flavours of good Mexican weed.
We would meet again in London, Berlin, New York and recently Barcelona, where the plan to challenge his time was put in a handshake.
︎︎︎ CDMX with Toni, Mat, Pancho and others.
Fast forward a few weeks, Saturday 26th, Barcelona been and gone. I’m in Tokyo. The run is on. I’m preparing to take it on, the route established and refined. It’s efficient and achievable, eliminating the gnarly climbs of Toni’s run in Hakone. My legs are itching to go, my mental is nervous and my hands shakey (I’ve been drinking heavily in the wild streets of Shinjuku I’m staying in). But here’s the problem. The sun. Rising at 6am, and streaking with the urgency of a cigarette on a full stomach. The constant 35 degree heat bakes the life and salt out of you.
Water bladder, strapped to back with a runners pack. Pocari sweat on left shoulder, electrolyte mix on right. Frame bag crammed with food, gels and suncream. No going back, all that set me back some serious Yen!
6AM: 0KM. The run was off and cooking, starting early to avoid the heat, I had my focus on a 25km/h average speed which would put me in Osaka anytime before midday the next day. Start cautious. The Japanese police won’t take ‘foreigner’ for an answer when I’ve run a light and whipskid the morning school-run. I’m stopping, but pushing in-between, the traffic flow is starting to grease, and before I’d even checked the time I was flying through Kawasaki. 50km down.
The roads I’d chosen were direct. They had to be to make the run a world record, we’re talking about Elapsed time here, not Moving time. The seconds are gold, so when the trainline level crossings are closing, best believe I’m diving through. So, once I was out of the city, the roads were big, the cars are flying and the bike lane is a strip of paint in the left-most lane.
Where is the shade?
Good joke. There is none. It’s now midday and the sun is directly overhead. The Senbonhana beach is a gentle curve, offering some sort of heat relief with the sea breeze, anything but cool. The surfers can bugger off, maybe I’m just salty they get to dip in. Maybe I’m just salty because I’m sweating to fuck.
Keep yer chin up pal! Otherwise you’ll get sweat on the Garmin.
The green mountains on the horizen pretend to retreat, ‘atmospheric perspective’ I’m told that’s called. I’m crossing bridges, gravel bike paths, keeping a strong average while blowing by old folks on beater-step-throughs and kitted-out time-trialists alike. Study their face through the glasses. Are they impressed? intimidated? Just another blur of bike and legs?
Into the hills, the scenery more dense and the temperature cooler as I started climbing. A look at the parcour of the route, the first is worst when it comes to elevation. In planning, I’d chopped off 400m of the 850m in Toni’s route, with a sweeping loop around the terrains of Hakone, rather than over its peak. The Izu peninsula stretches South, hacked off and hidden by rich terrain. It stunted Toni’s time with sideways rain, but spurred me on into the shaded canopy of trees, out of the sight of the rising sun. Up we go.
9:30AM: 80KM in. The heat is unbearable. As much as I drink, seeps through my skin along with my will to continue. The mental battle against stopping is playing out on my shoulders, the angel and devil wearing wellies on my sopping Wateraid kit.
Don’t look back Jack. No joke man, the barrier between this road and the sheer cliff is lower than your bottom bracket. I can’t watch.
Around hour 5, kilometre 100, I start to crack. My brain’s curling at the edges, salt stains have spread to my frontal cortex and I watch myself pull over at a vending machine. Coffee. Me want it cold. Shaking fingers unzip frame-bag and rattle through coins. I sit, with the weight of a dead man on the low wall between two flower pots, my pockets emptied in a sad collection of snacks, cans and pennies. I’ve hit a wall, I’m nodding, eyes heavy, head heavier. Thought is impossible, words spill out, as if the gravity of my upright foetal position pulls them from my heart.
I can’t go on. I’m in pieces.
Every minute my time gap elapses, I’m at war with time and body, battered on all fronts and sides. Legs are okay but the brain is in danger. You know, when you’re brain can’t form ideas, and it still decides it’s a bad idea to go on, you better believe it’s a shit idea to push-on. But what else can I do?
I need a sign Lord, anything!
I stagger to my feet, some energy restored in the shade, and wobble to the vending machine. A cold can of Pepsi? I can taste it throught the perspex window. My hand is possessed. Coins in. Button, button, beep.
Thud-d-d. A heavier sound than I thought was possible to buy with 120 yen. I dive into the machine. Holy shit. An entire pint-sized can of Pepsi, ice-cold, sweating and gazing up at me, one big blue and red eye. Did it just wink?
I crack it, sinking to my knees. I neck it. Fuck that shit is good. I’m on the floor, alternating between drinking and holding it against my neck. This is a sign. Pepsi carry me on.
11AM: 100KM. Second wind is a thing of beauty. The sails have caught a gust, I’m tearing up the elevation, playing that delicate game of momentum and effort. After my last stop at the vending machine, my bottles full, I have canned coffee on deck and energy is up-up-up. What could go wrong? The valleys seem to grow as I pass through them, bridges open up to views of giant walls of forest, the Japanese woodland a deep, scaley green. Trees likes puffs of matcha popcorn, make for a spongey looking surface, bridges string across at angles. Cars, trains and trucks alike, move steadily as if on rails across the spiderweb of raised structures. I feel organic.