Atami Trip - Part 7 Wrap Up, Technical Challenges, and Ideas

 Whenever I prepare for a trip like this, a lot of ideas flow through my mind.  Some of my friends also offered ideas this time as well.

"Something like this might be a lot more enjoyable on a motorcycle" - to be sure, the road part would be more enjoyable.  Instead of struggling to maintain 35, I could easily maintain 30 on a moped, or 40 or 50 on a larger motorcycle.  Even on a moped, I might have more presence on the road.  This would also prevent me from taking a lot of the back roads and cycling trails I that are part of the fun.  A road legal dirt bike would probably have been the best compromise if I wanted to go motored.  Part of the reason for the trip was to get some much needed exercise, however.  

"Wouldn't a lighter bicycle be easier?" - again this isn't wrong.  On the roads, a lighter bicycle with thin road optimized tires might be easier to maneuver - especially up hills.  The astute among you might know the bike I took is an eBike, but there are two caveats on that: 1. An eBike won't assist you at all over 24kph.  That means it's great for helping you get up gnarly hills, but not so good at helping you keep 40kph up hill!  I also didn't want to bring the charger or wast battery power where I didn't need it, so I used it sparingly.  2. A heavier bike actually helps you down hills.  Again, delicate thing tires would have been better on the road - but they prevented me from going a lot of the places I did.  

"You should bring a tent and go camping, instead of staying at hotels and net cafes" - this sounds fun, but where?  I am not sure there would have been a lot of places to set up a tent most of the places I went - at least I don't know where those places would be.  Also, my bike isn't exactly meant for bike-packing.  Sure, I could have attached various bags to the fork and whatnot in order to carry a small tent, sleeping bag, etc., but I was trying to make due with less stuff this time, not more!

Effectiveness of pre-planning routes

I brought a back-pack with me this time, a decent waterproof motorcycle backpack at that.  Still, I didn't always put what I needed in an easy to access spot, and as a result once I got outside if I couldn't quickly find what I wanted, I tended to say to myself "Eh, next time", and proceed on without it.  This included at various times:

- Radar - Only when I don't have this hooked up do I realize how much I rely on it.  

- Rear Camera - This was mainly for safety/evidence purposes, so not a big deal, but I did want to incorporate the video into my... videos as a sort of rear view mirror.   

- Aftershokz - No music for me, and hard to hear the navigation announcements.    

Camera Issues

- Front Camera - I had two main issues with the front camera

1. A spec of mud made it onto the lens part way between Atsugi and Odawara. This doesn't cover most of the video, but is stressful to look at.  Rather than waste the entire video, I used the rear view footage to cover it up.
2. To avoid having to change batteries every hour, I purchased a dummy battery for the camera, which I can power from my bike.  This works very well - until it doesn't.  Specifically, if I come to a stop and don't pedal for a while, my bike goes to sleep, suddenly powering down the camera.  Since the camera has no idea that it is going to lose power, it doesn't properly save the video file.  Due to this, I lost footage from Honancho to Machida.  After that, I started purposely turning the camera off every time I would come to a traffic light, etc.  This creates more video files, which makes syncing up video between the front and rear cameras more difficult, but so-be-it.  

- Rear Camera

1. The Cycliq Fly 6 rear camera uses an internal battery, so I don't have the ability to use a dummy battery, or even swap batteries.  This means I need to make sure it is fully charged every time before I head out.  This is no problem for the most part, as it actually lasts a long time and charges pretty fast.  On some of the longer journeys (over 3 hours before editing) it did run out of power before the ride was complete, but still, it's not too bad.  
2. Since the camera automatically deletes old footage to free up space, I had to copy the files to my computer every time before heading out again to make sure I would have them later.  One time, though, I made the mistake of copying and then deleting them (instead of using the "move" command).  This resulted in the files still being on the MicroSD card taking up space, just in the "Trash" folder.  Unsurprisingly, the camera doesn't know about this folder, and so did not automatically delete these files.  From a practical card, that meant that the MicroSD card's capacity had been reduced to only around 30 minutes of video, and so the beginning of my next ride was not left on the memory card.  

Flat Tire - The day after I arrived in Atami I checked my tire, only to find out it was losing pressure.  

- Insurance - I have insurance which allows me to call and report that my bike has broken down.  The insurance company will then come pick me up and take me and my bike anywhere within 50km that I should wish to go.  I always envisioned needing this when I am miles away from any town and my chain breaks or something.  Interestingly, when I found out that my tire was flat, I was in a town.  It's just that the town had absolutely no bicycle shops (nor electronics shops with bicycle departments, etc).  So I considered that if I couldn't fix the tire myself, it might be time to call in the insurance!

- Quick Shot - Quite a while ago, when my XM-1 got a flat tire and I had to take it to Bic Camera Akasaka to get fixed, I saw that they had cans of essentially tire goo.  (Think Fix-A-Flat). Although it wouldn't have helped with the problem I had at that time (The stem was ripping out from the tire), I thought "What a great idea!".  I asked the shopkeeper, but he said that no such product existed for my valve type, as it would clog the valve.  Since that made absolutely no sense to me, I searched until I found that such a product does indeed exist (Link).  Although I converted my other bike to tubeless, my Yamaha still uses tubes, so I always carry this little can with me, "Just in case".  This time I got to use it.  It's supposed to be a temporary quick fix, but in fact, it's been days since I used it, and my tire is still holding pressure.  At a price of something like $7 US, it's probably some of the best money I've every spent.

- AirBone Pump - No problem with this at all, I just thought I should mention it.  Many people don't want to bring pumps, because it's just one more thing to carry.  More weight in the bag, or one more thing to lose.  While I have several pumps, the AirBone is the smallest one, and so I always put it in my bag.  Just like "The best camera is the one you have with you", the same is true for pumps.  Despite its diminutive size, it really isn't much work to fill up even my 27.5v tires.  

Navigation

- Invalid Routes - Google Maps offers only one type of route for bicycles when searching.  Once the search is complete, sometimes multiple routes will appear, with one being the "best" route, and another being the "Low Traffic" route, etc. - but there still isn't much choice.  Bicycle Navitime, on the other hand, offers a "best" route, a "Main roads" route, a "back roads" route, a "more hills", route, a "less hills" route, and a "Cycling roads" route.  I tend to use the back roads and cycling roads routes.  Now "Back Roads" can mean a lot of things, but it seems that Navitime takes a rather extreme view of the term, routing people though not only the suburbs and trails, but also the middle of fields, places your bike will barely fit, and the middle of the woods.  This would be okay, but some of the routes just end before they are supposed to.  The Cycling Road option sometimes will seem to route you through quite a distance of highway just to get you to a cycling road.  I don't expect Navitime to know about every site under construction - but more than once I climbed to the top of a mountain, only to have to come back down.  What's more, since it would stubbornly try to direct me back to the invalid route, I had to wing it, or switch to Google Maps.  There should at least be a way to mark a certain trail or road as invalid so it stops trying to send you there.  

- No Signal - When I was near the top of one of the mountains (and lost due to an invalid route caused by a closed road), I was trying to search a new route only to find that I had no mobile signal.  This stops both Navitime and Google Maps from working.  My Karoo 2 at least has maps for all of Japan downloaded to it, but doesn't let you plan new routs offline.  I started to wish I had brought my old Panasonic navigation unit.  (The problem there is that the maps are out of date).  I ended up just trying different trails until I found one that lead me out of the mountain in the right direction.  

In addition to the navigation not working, there is a sense of danger when you know that you can't just dial emergency services.  I was probably only out of signal range for 15 minutes, but a lot can happen in 15 minutes if you aren't lucky.  At least two people I talked to suggested I should either travel with someone else or buy a satellite communicator.   I do know other people who like to ride long distances, but I am not sure they would be up to ride in some of the crazy places I do.  Would they also be willing to ride to my schedule, stop where I want to, stay where I want to, etc?  Seems like a difficult thing to work out.  Also, part of the reason I like riding is because it gives me a chance to be alone with my thoughts.  In my job I talk to people nearly all day every day, so some alone time is a nice thing for me.  As for a communicator - I am not sure if it's worth the money for something I would probably only use 1-2 times per year.  I suppose it would be nice for skiing too, though.  

Bike

- Mud Guard - Every once in a while, you hear something snap, crinkle, pop, etc.  I usually look back, and it almost always turns out to be a plastic bottle, bag, or something like that.  No big deal when you have fat mountain bike tires.  On the way back, though, I heard a sound and looked back, only to see that it was a part of my bike.  The rear part of the top mug guard had fallen off.  The screw had been rattling loose for days.  I suppose Yamaha should have used Loc-Tite.  Since I was on a big road with lots of cars, I couldn't stop suddenly.  I had to pull to the side and slow down.  Luckily, nobody had run over the part, so I snapped it up, shoved it in my pocket, and was on my way.  I'll just have to replace the screw.   

Weather

- I checked the weather before I left, and luckily there was a low chance of rain for the next few days.  Although it rained while I was in Atami, it was only a little bit, and only in the morning.  It was also only the one day.  It was also warmer than I expected.  

Gear

 - Down Inner - I wasn't sure how warm or cold I would feel, so I brought a number of layers.  HeatTech inners, an track suit, thick and thin socks, an outer shell meant for skiing, and a down inner.  The down inner ended up to be extreme overkill.  On the way back, I didn't even use the shell.  When inside, I usually just used the HeatTech inner, as even the track suit was too hot.  

- The only time I was ever cold was when I left right after sunrise one morning.  Not only did the thick socks come in handy, but I ended up wearing the ski gloves instead of the cycling gloves for amount an hour.  

- Palladium Boots - I bought these boots a while back since they are waterproof, and I figured they would be okay for cycling.  Although I did not have to deal with the rain much, they did not disappoint.  

Parking

- As I have mentioned before, mountain bikes and fat tire bikes sit in a kind of no-man's land with respect to parking in Japan.  Many, if not most, bicycle parking spots use steel racks that simply can't accommodate fatter than standard tires.  This means you have to look for spots that don't have the steel racks - preferably before you leave.  I used mainly two tools for this, Minchu, and Google Street View.  Minchu has photos of all the parking spots they operate, and so it's easy to check, but they only operate spots in certain areas.  Failing that, you can search on Google Maps or Navitime for bicycle parking spots, and then check out those addresses with street view.  

Summary & Conclusion

Although I didn't make it to my original intended destination, I saw a lot of things, visited places I had never been before, got to spend some time in the hot springs, and got in a lot of exercise.  I went over budget in terms of time and money, but it was overall a nice time, and I hope to do something similar next year.

If I would change one thing, it is that I should have exercised for a few weeks before heading out on such a long trip to build up my stamina a bit.  

Back to Atami Trip - Part 6 (Machida to Suginami)