Day 1: Tosu to Kokonoe

Today was the first of a five day credit card tour. I knew that today’s ride would be the most difficult as it had both the longest distance, and the most climbing. As it was, I’m not ashamed to say that I had to walk the bike up a few hills.

Here is the bike all loaded up, with most of my gear in the O bag, and a pair of sneakers and some tools in the saddle bag.

I’ll probably have more to say about routing software at the end of my trip, but the route was laid out by Komoot, and the software seems to go out of its way to avoid busy streets, and often routes me along small paths that criss cross farmers’ fields.

After zigzagging southwest for a while, I reach the Chiguko River, where the route can take advantage of the cycle track by the river bed.

I travelled along the river until about km 33.

Some wayfinding signs.

Now on top of the dyke that borders the river. You can start seeing the hills that I’m going to have to cross.

Just past Ukiha, the route turns away from the river and along this tributary.

I’m liking the gull wing covers on this transport.

Just past the truck, this pile of freshly cut cedar blocks was very fragrant.

The route had me crossing the river at this dam. The first of several unplanned deviations.

Starting to climb, so it was an opportune time to lose the jacket and to refuel at the vending machine.

This is the bridge I used to cross the river, a few km past the closed dam.

I thought I was being clever by choosing a route by a major highway, but has you can see that was no guarantee of a gradual climb. I was often well below or even above the highway.

Taking a break. The the climb in the picture was a 16% grade, and I had to walk up part of it. My Brompton could have used lower gearing.

Nice forest road with that middle of nowhere feeling.

Yes, I’ve done some climbing.

Getting close to the highest point for the day.

The actual highest point, at about 490 meters (I started at about 20 m).

Now descending into Kusu.

Surprised to see a bike lane pretty far from town.

But it ends after a kilometer or two, well short of town.

Not sure of the significance of this display of koinobori, but the sign says ‘let’s win against COVID”.

The prettiest bridge for the day.

Kusu is a really small town with few places that you can book over the internet. Given the limited choices, I decided to treat myself to a ryokan with a hot spring: Fukumotoya. It entailed an extra climb out of town.

The hosts were kind enough to let me stash the brompton in the foyer.

I got the “kaede” room, which means maple. Perfect for a Canadian.

Ready for a hot bath after a long day on the bike.

Food was also excellent, with many local ingredients. My Japanese is fragmentary, so I really didn’t know what I was eating for some of the dishes.

Tomorrow, a shorter day with more climbing, and then a long descent into Beppu.

postscript: Breakfast

Getting set for a short bike tour

For most of this week, I’ve been visiting the Kyushu Synchrotron Light Research Center in Saga, about an hour train ride south of Fukuoka.

This sight takes me back to my grad school days in the 1980’s where I did experiments at a similar facilitiy.

Of course there have been significant advances in both the light sources and the instrumentation available since that time. The sorts of experimental energy resolution available here are orders of magnitude better than what we could do back then.

The electron energy analyzer is pretty amazing as well, providing a 2D angular map of electron intensity.

I was amused that one of the references that they still use was the result of calculations done by a fellow grad student back in my day.

The guest house is very nice. Here is the shared kitchenette area.

For the first time this trip, I’ve been able to approximate my regular breakfast that I have back home.

I was also amused that of the reading material available in english, I have both books (the third one to the left is actually a Japanese manga).

Of course, Kyushu and the Fukuoka area is famous for its style of ramen. Tonkotsu ramen has a rich broth made from pork bones.

Today I did a bit of a warmup ride to make sure that everything on the Brompton was working. About 200 m of climbing, which is about half of what I’ll be doing on Friday.

Heading into the hills behind the lab, the feel is immediately quite rural.

Here I am at a dam about 3 km in.

A little further on is a park with this public washroom.

This is a cable stay bridge that crosses the reservoir.

A nice sunny day.

The trail is more of a walking path on the other side.

At the road, another rest stop with vending machine.

Now descending on a less busy road that zig zags its way back down.

Nice to get out for a ride. My tour starts on Friday and goes until the end of the month. The forecast doesn’t look great, though.

I’ll be living out of this Ortlieb O bag for five days. It’s a bit unfortunate that rain gear will take up so much space, but it looks like I’ll need it.

This is what the first two days of the route look like, from the lab to Beppu.

After that, the route will be easier, with a ferry to Yawatahama, riding through Matsuyama and Imabari, and then across the famous Shimanami Kaido.

My next post will probably be from Beppu.

Waste disposal and recycling in Japan

Waste disposal is complicated in Japan, but it is done in such a way that you can tell that they take recycling seriously. The details can vary by jurisdiction. Here in Osaka, here are the rules as posted for visitors where I was staying.

You can see that trash is separated into six categories:

• Burnable waste (which includes food scraps, and most plastics aside from PET bottles)
• Non-burnable waste (including large items and e-waste, which has to be picked up by special arrangement)
• PET bottles
• Glass
• Cans
• Paper (and the left hand page goes into the different subcategories of paper)

What makes things even more complicated is that different categories of trash are picked up on different days, and sometimes it is required to have different coloured transparent trash bags for the different types as well.

The overall impression is that there is still a huge amount of plastic packaging waste that is incinerated. I assume that they have appropriate scrubbers etc so that this does not release dioxins and other hazardous chemicals into the air.

At the same time, it makes it much more economical for PET, glass and metal to be recycled.

Here is my trash for the week, all in the burnable category, aside from a few PET bottles that are not shown.

Contrast this to what we do in Toronto, where recycling bins are chock full of all sorts of stuff, some of which does not belong, and it is up to the recycling vendor to sort things out. There is going to be a transition in this process as the city has said that new requirements from the government cannot be met by their current processes. There is also a fight between the grocery industries et al and municipalities over the costs of the changes in the recycling regulations.

In the end, if Canada was serious about recycling, they would put deposits on all beverage containers, and more or less give up on plastic recycling which is extremely uneconomic the way that it is currently done, with all sort of unsorted plastic in the waste stream. Instead, the focus is on things that don’t have as much impact, such as banning single use plastic grocery bags (that are not necessarily worse than the alternative), paper straws etc.

Sharrows and bike lanes in Osaka

Just a few more photos from the area around Osaka University (Suita Campus) which is well north of downtown.

Cycling on the sidewalk is the usual shitshow. This street near the University is particularly busy. When you are walking on the sidewalk, there doesn’t seem to be any rules about passing on the left or right.

The bike lane symbols show a shopping bike. Note the car parked in the bike lane. At least the cars here are not as wide.

This street had protected bidirectional bike lanes on both sides (actually an MUP). Note that I’m on the right side, and so the symbols are showing that I should really be on the other side of the street to go in this direction.

Not that anyone pays attention to the painted markings anyway.

And I posted this picture of sharrows yesterday.

I’m not having any issues going with the flow of car traffic on the other side, but it would have been handy to move my bike mirror to the other side of my helmet.

The only thing that consciously requires rewiring of my brain is passing slower bikes to the right.

Osaka to Kyoto

Today was a gloriously sunny day so I took the opportunity to take a bike ride from Osaka to Kyoto. I’m staying at Osaka University which is well north of the centre of town, so the distance to Kyoto was less than 50 km. Additionally, I was advised that if I went east to the Yodo River, then there is a riverbank trail that goes all the way to Arashiyama which is west of Kyoto. A quick glance at the map showed me that I could probably go to the eastern part of town by riding along the Kamo River as well.

Here I am skirting the Expo 70 fairgrounds. The monorail above really adds to the 70s era vibe.

Crossing one of the tributaries of the Yodo River.

Now crossing the main river itself.

Heading north parallel to the east bank.

Now I’m down closer to the river.

Foliage on this section provided a nice wind break.

About halfway to Kyoto, I encountered a fellow Brompton rider with his shiny P Line. He said he was riding back to Kyoto, and he suggested that I continue onto Arashiyama.

A map of the trail, showing that you can take it all the way to Arashiyama.

However, I split off to the east. Here is where the river branches off just south of Kyoto. I will follow the eastern branch, which is the Kamo River.

The pavement became a little rough, but not a problem.

Now in town, I see that the river acts much like the ravine system in Toronto. It provides a bit of an escape from the city.

My original route had a bit of a detour that I skipped, but it directed me along Higashioji Dori, which was not much fun to ride. Here is Gion. So many tourists!

This is Konoe middle school where I spent part of Canadian grade 9. I was put in Grade 7 which was age appropriate, since in Canada I had skipped two grades in elementary school. I didn’t know much Japanese, so the two subjects I enjoyed most were wood shop, and soji, which was not a class, but a post school day activity where there students did janitorial work.

Just around the corner was the site of the building where my grandmother lived. The building has been completely rebuilt since that time.

Time to load up on the local equivalent to gatorade.

I love the playfull nature of this pedestrian infrastructure: something you would never see in North America.

The northern part of the river bank is a really nice linear park.

I reached my goal for the day: Loro Cycleworks Kyoto. Loro Cycleworks is a chain of shops that specializes in small wheeled bicycles (and some recumbents).

Can you tell that they are a Brompton dealer as well?

I saw these postcards advertising a Brompton lovers’ meet up. Unfortunately I will not be available that day.

An interesting detachable pedal system on this Tern.

Umbrella folders.

Interesting headlight setup on this Birdy.

Of course I couldn’t leave this shop empty handed. I got a shop branded Rinko bag, as well as a waterbottle holder made by Wotancraft.

The Wotancraft bag has a triangular cross section which makes the side pockets more compatible with holding a phone.

Here is proof that the rinko bag works. I needed it since I planned to return to Osaka by train.

Sharrow madness seen on my way back to Osaka U.

Almost 60 km of riding for the day. As a reward, I had this nice udon dinner. All of this with the beer and side dishes was about $18, i.e. less than a bowl of ramen in Toronto (after tip).

Also, being used to frozen udon in Canada, these noodles were a revelation. The link to the restaurant (Kawafuku) is here.

my Brompton goes astray

I’m going to be spending about a month and a half in Japan, with the first portion for work. However, I’ve pencilled in a five day credit card tour, and so I’ve brought my Brompton along. More precisely, it was left behind in Toronto, and took an extra four days to arrive here in Osaka where I am at the moment.

Air Canada is not covering itself in glory so far on this trip. Firstly, the original flight was delayed by about two hours. As a result, I would be missing a connection in Tokyo, so I got on the phone with AC and rebooked my second leg. Something else went wrong during that process because when I arrived at the airport after checking in online, the kiosk wouldn’t print my bag tag, and I had to stand in a very long line to check in manually. This is the point where I think my checked bag was finally close to the 90 minute cutoff for international flights (it’s an hour, except at Pearson, thereby solidfying YYZ’s reputation as one of the worst large airports in North America).

At any rate, I had a long wait for luggage at HND, at which point it finally became clear that my bag wasn’t going to be here. I finally remembered that I had an airtag on that suitcase, and sure enough, it was still sitting in Toronto. As a result of the wait for luggage, and the fact that I had to do extra paperwork to clear customs (since I now had an unaccompanied bag) I missed my connection again. Worse still, I missed the last flight to downtown Osaka and had to be rerouted to Kansai Airport. In all it turned out to be a 24 hour trip, and I still had no idea when I was going to get my bag.

As it turns out, the bag was routed through Vancouver on the way to Narita. Here it is sitting at YVR.

I got some emails demanding still more customs paperwork, and it took another two days for the suitcase to be cleared. Finally on late Tuesday I was told it was clear and that I would get it today (Thursday). It was a bit of fun tracking the bag as it was trucked from Narita.

Here it is at Narita, waiting to clear customs.

Finally on the road.

Now at a Yamato depot close by. I’m at the blue dot to the left, at Osaka University.

Screenshot

and finally this afternoon:

I’m going to fly to Saga on Monday, and after another four days of work, I’ll start my tour. I’ll be living out of that front bag for five days. In the meantime, I’m going to bike up to Kyoto tomorrow to make sure that everything is working properly.

Wish me luck. (at least better luck than what I’ve had so far)

Memorial Ride for Vlad Zotov

Vlad Zotov, a member of the Morning Glory Cycling Club, was killed on Monday, April 8 while he was riding on Bayview Ave. He was remembered as “a sensational human being“. Today was the ghost bike ride in his memory.

There was a huge turnout. Alas, I was not able to attend as I was out of country at the time. However, the pictures are rolling in, and Rob Zaichowski will be reporting on his blog.

Rob estimates that there were over 400 cyclists present. Here is a thread, starting with his video of the cyclists coming down Rosedale Valley Rd.

Thanks to the over 400 people who rode with us tonight for Vlad Zotov of @MGridetoronto. Here's a video of the ride going down Rosedale Valley Road which is sped up 2x. #BikeTO #TOpoli #VisionZero #YouNeverRideAlone @RespectTO (1/5) pic.twitter.com/yH7ch4QjMQ

— Robert Zaichkowski (rzaichkowski.bsky.social) (@RZaichkowski) April 16, 2024

Bayview Ave was shut down during the installation.

Here are some photos from Joey Schwartz.

Rob’s post is now up.

Although we will never know the exact circumstances, it appears that he was riding northbound on Bayview and was hit by a SUV exiting the DVP on the offramp marked by the circle. There is a northbound bike trail shown in green (red arrow) that parallels Bayview at this point, but my understanding is that it is in very poor condition so that it is not uncommon for faster cyclists to bypass it by riding on the road in this section. This has been confirmed by the report in the Star.

I hope that the city takes corrective action so that this will not happen again at this particular spot. Needless to say there are many such on and off ramps all across the city that are highly dangerous for cyclists.

Deepest condolences to Vlad’s family and friends.

Update:

Toronto Star coverage: ‘It made my heart hurt’: Hundreds of cyclists partake in ghost bike memorial ride to honour man killed on Bayview Avenue

CBC: Hundreds of cyclists pay respects to man who died after being struck by driver

CP24: Toronto cyclist Vlad Zotov remembered with memorial ride, ghost bike installation

Big US cities bingo

Someone on Pinterest posted this bingo card, encouraging people to mark off the cities that they have visited.

Here is my card.

Too easy, so to make it more of a challenge, I only crossed off cities where I have biked.

Here are some associated blog posts:

San Diego: in town for a one day meeting.

San Jose: checking out some bike infra downtown, and then taking Caltrain back up the peninsula to the Palo Alto area.

Seattle: I’ve been there many times, including two rides from Seattle to Portland, but here is an early report, along with a post about my favourite bike shop there (now sadly closed)

Baltimore: again in town for a conference, but I hung out one evening with some local cyclists.

Los Angeles: that time when there was a shooting at LAX.

I could have listed San Francisco, but despite living in the Bay Area for almost a decade, I don’t think I actually biked in the city itself. Here’s a picture of the San Francisco Bay shoreline near Mountain View.

All of these travels were greatly facilitated by folding bikes. Even without, with the rise of bike share in many cities, I imagine doing some biking in DC, NYC, etc in the future.

In the meantime, I’m packing up my Brompton once again, and I’ll be headed off to Japan very soon. I’ll squeeze in some biking while I’m there.

Eclipse viewing by Brompton

Today was the day that a total solar eclipse was to pass annoyingly close to Toronto. Buffalo NY was dead centre in the track, and of course cloud cover was always something to contend with in southern Ontario. My original plans to go to Hamilton for the viewing didn’t work out, so I went with Plan B: taking GO to Bronte and then cycling to the lake. Of course this meant using the Brompton.

Here I am on the way to Bronte. I met a fellow Brompton rider who was headed a little further west to Burlington. The GO train was not full at all.

Street parking was all full at least a kilometre from the lakefront.

At Coronation Park with hundreds of others. A festive atmosphere.

It was overcast when I got there, but then there were some thinner patches of clouds when we would get a brief glimpse of the sun. Here is a bad phone photo of the mostly obscured sun through my eclipse glasses.

With the occasional slightings of the sun, everyone now knew which direction to look.

My trusty steed.

As totality approached, you could see shadows sharpen, although it is difficult to tell from this photo.

A view of the corona through a thin layer of cloud. Quite the experience. I didn’t want to spend much time trying to take photos; I wanted to see everything with my eyes.

I did leave my camera running during totality. Not great quality, but it captures some of the atmosphere. I don’t often burst into spontaneous laughter very often, but this was a once in a lifetime experience.

Of course the skies were clear half an hour post totality.

A glance at my phone made me glad I wasn’t on the QEW.

The train was much more crowded on the way back. I’d say that more than half of the people were headed to the Jays game. Apparently today was the home opener. There were some Leafs fans as well, so three events contributing to the crowding.

I hope that many of you got to have a similar experience. I know that several groups of my friends were planning to bike back and forth. Wishing them all a safe return trip.

Ward 3 online meeting on the Bloor St. West complete street western extension

Tonight, Councillor Morley hosted an online presentation on the Bloor St. extension through her ward. The tone of the meeting was set at the very start. Quite the difference with the previous community meeting held by Councillor Holyday.

Granted, given the webinar format, there was no opportunity for anyone to give unmoderated input. At the same time, there was a lot of information delivered by city staff from different departments. Unfortunately this left only about 10 minutes out of the hour for questions.

Just a few things that I noted in passing:

• Phase 2 between Aberfoyle and Kipling will go forward starting in May as planned. At the same time, there will be adjustments made to what has already been installed during phase 1. The project website has a list of changes planned or made in response to feedback.
• Among these changes will be an increase in the width of parking spaces along the Kingsway, facilitated by a slight reduction in the width of the bike lanes.
• There will be an additional consultation in the fall focused specifically on the Bloor/South Kingsway/Mossom intersection.
• There will be “special barriers” coming on the bike lanes on the bridge over the Humber.
• Usage data collection post construction is underway.
• The TransformTO goals for GHG reductions are very aggressive. For example, by 2030 they want 75% of all trips under 5 km to be by walking, biking, or transit. At the same time, although there was much talk about electrifying cars, there was no mention of subsidies to encourage e-bike usage.

In particular, the data from the projected development applications was really sobering.

Although I have no idea how the sums shown on the right side make any sense, the bottom line is about 16K new households, and more bike parking spaces than car spaces planned. It was also stated that there should be 1-2 bike share stations put in per 500 households.

One other item where I would like more information was offered in response to a question about traffic enforcement. It was noted that some of the transportation budget is used to fund police enforcement of issues related to vision zero. One would think that the police already had enough money to properly enforce traffic laws, and to improve traffic safety.

At any rate, thanks to Councillor Morley and city staff for their presentations. There will be another consultation in October, this time in person.