Monday, June 11, 2018

From Kyoto towards Mount Fuji

Leaving Kyoto for Mount Fuji, in my mind was the last leg of my trip.

I thought that I’d cycle for a few days, reach Fuji-San (the Japanese name of the mountain), stay a day or two and then make my way to the Tokyo airport and get a plane to Okinawa where my flight home awaits me.

All above indeed happened. But I was reminded of the joke about getting signs… The rear gears started to make strange noises. I did my best to fix them and I seemed to have managed. Then there was a thumbtack stuck i my front wheel. I have self sealing tubeless tires, so that took care of itself.
Then I heard another noise. It was the front brake pads and brake disks. This is a typical wear and tear event, especially after so many kilometres of up and down hills and mountains. I have spare brake pads but not the brake disk (rotor). Found a shop, and was good to go.
The big sign was the crack that developed on the top tube of the bicycle.




Bamboo is an amazing material. Any other frame would have to be scrapped immediately upon the discovery. Last year, I discovered a crack 7,000 km before the end the trip… So I was not worried this time.
My bicycle was not the only one to develop cracks. On the way, I ran into these guys...



After a night in a campground, I got up, started to cycle and this time the rear gears bent out of shape completely. The very nice campground manager drove me into town to the cycle shop. Gears fixed and I was on my way again….just to find yet another crack on the top tube. I will replace it when I get home.

The last 100 km or so to mount Fuji are in my next post.

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