The continuing adventures of a couple of American bikers
in the Land of the Rising Sun

As thrilled as I am that we can now go camping as a family on two bikes, I’ve really missed just riding with Yuri these past few years. So for our 11th wedding anniversary, we decided to leave the kids with friends and take a spin out in the mountains, just the two of us.

This was Yuri’s first trip on real mountain roads on her new bike without being loaded down with camping gear and a kid on the back, so it was her first chance to fully experience freedom on the new bike. And I just got my bike back from the shop after replacing damaged tappet rollers, dismantling and overhauling the heads and valves, replacing the battery and primary chain, and overhauling the carb, so my bike was also purring along with a steady confident power it hasn’t had in years.

It has rained every day for weeks, and up until the night before, the forecast had been calling for pouring rain all day, so we hadn’t really made any plans. But we woke up on our anniversary to find clear blue summer skies, so I made a call to a restaurant at the foot of Mt. Takao I had been meaning to visit, and then we just randomly headed up to the mountains in that general direction to see what would happen. We stumbled upon a pretty nice onsen resort called Akiyama in the hills above Uenohara and took a relaxing bath to clean off the sweat and exhaust fumes from the grueling trip through the congested Chuo Expressway.

We then had a pleasant ride through the mountains to Ukai Toriyama, a truly amazing restaurant designed to make you feel like you’ve slipped back in time to an idealized version of medieval Japan as you walk through the gardens to whichever isolated cottage contains your table. The architecture and design of this place is just exquisite, and every course of the meal was indescribably delicious.

Even the parking lot was beautiful.

Other than the hot, congested expressways, this was a pretty perfect day. Beautiful weather, great roads, good food, and good times with the woman I love.

I’m a lucky guy to have been able to spend eleven years married to such an amazing woman, and I look forward to decades of further adventures with her.

Since Yuri first got pregnant with Lin more than eight years ago, I’ve been dreaming of going on touring trips with the whole family on two bikes, and now we’re finally doing it!

This is only the second time Yuri’s had anyone on the back of her bike, much less loaded up with camping gear, and Mai’s never done a long ride before, so we picked a relatively close campsite in Susono, at the foot of Mt. Fuji.

So the ride itself wasn’t too exciting, but there was comparatively little traffic since it was the weekend after the Golden Week break, and the weather was great. The girls even got to surprise Yuri with a Mother’s Day gift of wildflower bouquets they gathered at the campground and a chocolate bar Lin bought the day before and hid in my saddlebag.

Even though this was mostly a practice run for later camping trips and rallies, we had an amazing time, the girls had lots of fun, and Yuri got a good chance to put her Sportster through its paces. Here’s to lots more to come!

Another great ride, even though we faced a few more obstacles than usual.

I got an email from Go the night before, saying that the security system on his Harley had drained his battery. He then charged it overnight and was able to join us for most of the ride, but that set the general theme.

On the morning of the ride, I was just about to head out when I got a call from Ami-chan, saying that she had made it partway to my neighborhood and stopped at a convenience store to find that her bike wouldn’t start. I grabbed my jumper cables and rode to the rescue, and at first it looked like a jump was all she needed, but then the bike died again, and it was clear that it wasn’t charging even at high rpms. We managed to juice it up enough to make it to my house, when all of a sudden gasoline started gushing out of my carburetor. It turns out I had damaged the fuel hose when I adjusted the carb float the week before.

So for a while there it looked like Ami’s bike had no electricity and needed a new regulator, and mine needed a new fuel hose, which you can’t buy at 7AM. We were beginning to resign ourselves to the idea we wouldn’t be able to make it, when I noticed that the regulator plug was hanging free on Ami’s bike. Some idiot mechanic had disconnected it to change the oil filter, so she was running without generation. I then found ways to jury-rig a fix for the fuel hose while we charged Ami’s battery, and we left a little less than two hours late. Knowing how slowly large groups move, we figured we might even be able to catch up, and we were right.

We met up with everyone at the entrance to the Izu Skyline, one of my favorite roads anywhere, and I set up my new secret weapon, the gorillapod flexible camera tripod.

For the rest of the trip, I experimented with various ways to mount the camera, and got the low-quality video I’ve embedded above. I think it shows some of the flavor of spring riding in Izu, though.

We stopped for a late lunch at Spice Dog in Shimoda for the best curry on the Izu peninsula.

It started to get cloudy, so rather than taking the usual route around the coast past Irozaki, we took a chance with a road none of us had tried before that turned out to be a fun ride over Jaishi (Snakerock) Pass. Unfortunately, none of the video I took there was usable, but the memory is plenty.

Then up to the campground for barbecue, booze, and brotherhood. (Of course, this being Izu, the campsite also has an onsen bath to relax and wash off the road dust.)

That’s some good shiitake.

And I can never resist taking a few shots of my bike with cherry blossoms, especially with the color of Noji’s Z2 in the background to set it off.

The next day, we got in more great riding, only to have Yos’s front tire go completely flat at a gas station. Luckily, I was able to locate a tire shop willing to help us out—iPhones come in handy in unexpected ways—and we were able patch the tube and get back on the road without too much delay.

Just to cap it off, my rear turn signal cover flew off on a mountain curve, and while Ami was able to find the lens, the mount escaped somewhere, and I had to make do with electrical tape.

But in all, the problems we had on this trip all came with pretty good timing: Ami’s battery died in range of my house, where we could charge it. My carb leaked in front of my garage, where I had the tools to fix it. Yos’s tire went flat sitting still at a gas station in one of the few towns we passed through big enough to have a tire shop, rather than at high speed on one of the mountain roads where we spent most of the trip. And who cares if I’ve got tape on my turn signal?

All these little complications just added to the adventure, and couldn’t keep us from having an amazing ride with good friends in great weather under the cherry blossoms.

This post is actually not by Big Ben, but his mostly absent partner The Stinger.

Unbeknownst to the biker community at large, I’ve been spending the past four months or so completely customizing my Harley. The result is what you see in the photo below.

From Owen's Chopper

Here’s a link to my Picassa web album:
here

and to my entry on my ol’ lady’s blog about building the beast:
here

Now that Lin’s on her way to becoming a full-fledged biker, and Yuri’s back on the road, it’s time to complete the circle.

Mai turned four last month, so she’s now almost as old as Lin was when she took her first ride around the neighborhood.

When Yuri got her bike last month, I gave Lin a ride on the back, and Mai had been bugging me ever since about getting her turn. We had a spot of sun this weekend, so we decided it was time.

Mai’s not as fearless or adventurous as Lin, so we were worried that she’d get scared and decide she never wanted to ride a bike again, but sure enough, she’s the daughter of bikers. She reacted pretty much exactly the way Lin did, laughing and screaming with excitement the whole time.

It’s hard to believe this is the same little girl who was toddling around when Lin had her first ride three years ago.

(Speaking of Lin, Lin and I went to the bike shop to pick up some parts for Yuri’s new bike, and Lin immediately noticed the 50cc offroad bikes. Now she won’t shut up about how I need to buy her one.)

Now that Mai understands the joy of the road, we’ve completed our biker family, and we’re on our way toward my dream of taking family camping trips on two bikes.
Welcome to our world, Mai!

日本語は凜＆舞ブログへ

Yuri and I have been together for more than 15 years now, and some of our best early dates were on my bike. When we got married just over ten years ago, Yuri suddenly decided to get her own license, and we spent a few wonderful years on the road together, with Yuri on her trusty Vulcan 400.
Then, eight years ago, Yuri got her big bike license, and a month later got pregnant with our first daughter, Lin. This put an end to her biker lifestyle, but we always knew this was a hiatus, not a true ending.

Now that our youngest, Mai, is nearing her fourth birthday, it’s about time for Yuri to get back on two wheels. But with mortgage payments, educational expenses, and all the little drains on the wallet that come with life with kids, Yuri was resigned to buying some cheap old clunker. Unbeknownst to her, I had started saving $100 a month from my beer and lunch allowance a little over five years ago for this occasion, and now it’s time for all that to pay off.

I found the perfect bike for her, a wine red 1200cc Sportster Custom, in December, and hid it in the Stinger’s garage until her birthday.

(I make any regular sized bike look silly, but this is the only time I’ll be riding it.)

I had Stinger ride it over on the happy day, and we got the reaction we were hoping for.

Happy Birthday Yuri!

日本語版はこちら。