Written by Dave

Tsuyama (Hotel R9) to Tamano – Ramen Overdose Day – (83k, 860M)

Our shipping container storage unit was mostly quiet overnight. Though it has to be said, either the trucks on the road next to our unit are huge, or the unit being off the ground magnifies how much they rumble. They didn’t trouble us when we were sleeping but we heard and felt them before going to bed last night and again this morning.

We turned the heater on in the container this morning, which was nice, but made for a chilly start when we first opened the outside door. It doesn’t take make much to make a small metal box feel all toasty and warm, too warm in fact given the shock when we stepped out in to the cool foggy morning. It was our first day with fog and not much fun riding to start with but we were on back roads within a few k’s and traffic was minimal.

The majority of the big climbs today were at the beginning which was most welcome as it got us warmed up. We were thinking we needed our jackets but those thoughts were gone after the first climb. We were really enjoying the back roads and even the climbs. The signs were funny with precise grades of 5.1, 8.1 and 8.3 – plus some with the usual rounded numbers as well. It didn’t feel like the 8.3 grade was a lick over 8.2, but maybe that’s just me – haha.

It was all going along swimmingly until we reached the junction to the steepest climb and found a road closed sign. The sign was relatively old, referring to a road washout and proposed road works in 2020 so we thought it might be fixed but a couple road workers confirmed that yes, the road was still washed out. We had to re-route, adding some k’s but maybe even reducing the climbing a little as the re-route went around the biggest climb.

Going off route gave us a chance for a quick morning tea at a conbini, so that was a bonus. Back on route, it was a nice ride, mostly back roads with fall colors just starting. We only made a few stops, one for photos of a persimmon tree. We’ve been seeing a lot of them and finally I have a photo of a tree and some persimmons for sale. The trees are so sad looking compared to the orange trees. It’s hard to imagine their fruit being as tasty as it is. We sample some a few days back at a rest stop, though it was fresh persimmon, not dried.

Some road works at a bullet train overpass got us off track but we got to see three bullet trains race past so that was fun. Just after getting back on track we decided that it was time for lunch. By luck, we stumbled upon a clearly very popular ramen restaurant and called it good. We almost didn’t stop as the queue was out the front door but it was moving relatively fast so we stayed.

They seated us at the counter right in front of the ramen maker and we had quite the show as he made steaming bowls of ramen from scratch. I wanted more than the normal 2 pieces of pork and ordered the large bowl, Nancy got the normal bowl. Both bowls came with about 6 slices of pork, I may have had more. And boy, was my bowl massive. I ate every drop but I was so full I thought I was going to explode for the first few k’s riding after lunch. And the show the ramen maker put on was fantastic. He could clearly tell that we were enjoying watch him and made sure we knew exactly which two bowls were ours. Absolutely delicious and yet another “hey, that’s why we do these bike trips” moments.

We left lunch with 26k to ride to reach our hotel. The first 12-13k were on a super busy road that had a parallel paved dike top road. The dike road petered out a few times where we had to use stairs or backtrack a little but it was so nice being off the busy road. The local council has really misses a trick on that road as with very minimal investment they could have a great paved sports track.

The dike road ended at the Kojima Bay Bridge. Back when we were planning today’s ride we sort of forced Komoot to take us over the bridge as it was about 15k shorter. As we approached the bridge, I had a sinking feeling that bicycle were not permitted on the bridge. If you push Komoot hard enough, it will do exactly what you tell it, even if the road doesn’t go through. Well, I lucked out today as bicycles were allowed but the route to the bike path was somewhat hidden and convoluted. I was so glad we didn’t have to backtrack or find an alternative route.

After the bridge, which had nice views, we had about 12k to ride to reach our hotel. They were the least fun 12k of the day. There were lots of big trucks heading to the port where we get the ferry tomorrow and we had to ride most of the 12k on the footpath. It wasn’t unsafe, just kind of stressful  and noisy. We were happy to reach Tamano and the end of the day.

Check-in at the Machicado Inn is not until 4PM so we killed some time at a small specialty coffee house that mostly roasts beans for local coffee aficionados. They have green beans from all over the world and roast it in cool open flame burners to order, small batches at a time. We had a little trouble finding the shop until I realized that we just need to follow our noises. They were roasting a fresh batch and the wind was blowing from the shop to us. They made us a nice Guatemalan pour over and we killed enough time for check-in.

We picked up some fresh fruit, yogurt and granola for dinner, still completely full from that massive lunch. Now we are at our Inn planning tomorrow’s ride to Noashima Island. Noashima has a bunch of outdoor art exhibits that we’ve heard about from several fellow travelers. They say you should spend a night there to really see everything but we couldn’t get a booking for anything reasonable so we’ll take the early ferry over tomorrow and see what we can see. We already travel with the mindset that we can’t see everything… We’ll catch an afternoon ferry tomorrow from Noashima to Takamatsu, on the island of Shikoku. More on all of that tomorrow night.