日本語版はこちら。

I’ve tried to expose my six-year-old daughter, Lin, to bikes and biker culture as much as possible, and have been taking her on rides on the back of my bike since she was four. We’ve been building up to this for a while, with our short Father’s Day ride up Yabitsu pass and our camping trip to Nishi-Tanzawa, and last weekend we finally made the next big step: Lin’s first long-distance touring and biker rally at Matsumoto Camp.

As I’ve mentioned before, Matsumoto Camp is one of my favorite rallies. It’s smaller than many, with only 100-300 bikes, but both the location and the regular core of bikers that shows up are just the way I like them, and I thought it would be perfect for introducing Lin to the wider biker world. Unfortunately, most of the Takatsu-gumi group I usually ride with had other commitments, so only YOS was able to ride with us this time.

The weather forecast had been calling for rain all weekend, but I was pretty sure my usual understanding with the rain gods combined with Lin’s luck with these things would push away those clouds. Sure enough, the rain stopped by the time we woke up, and we headed out to meet YOS at Ishikawa under a gradually brightening gray sky, and by the time we got to Futaba, the halfway point of the expressway trip, we were riding under clear blue skies.

This was Lin’s first long expressway trip, and I wasn’t sure how she would deal with it, but beyond a few requests to stop and rest, she was fine. Of course, once we left the expressway and headed up the Venus Line into the mountains, she was more than fine.

I let her have the camera, and she got some good riding shots of YOS on his shovelhead, and even took a little video from the back of the bike.

We stopped for lunch, but Lin couldn’t wait to get back on the bike, and left most of her soba uneaten.

We rolled into Matsumoto Camp by mid-afternoon, finished greeting all our friends, and sat down to relax just as the downpour started. But who minds the rain once you’re safely under a tarp? It let up soon enough, and we went exploring around some trails near the campground, and then Lin went off to play with some of the other kids that local bikers had brought along with them. I went off to relax with beer and conversation, confident that I had successfully shown Lin how fun rallies can be, and that I could be sure she’d want to go to the next one too.

What I hadn’t anticipated was that Lin was about to take the next step toward bikerhood. The Heaven & Hell MC, who host the rally, had brought along a 50cc pocket bike to patrol the campground and run quick errands, but they were letting the bigger kids try it out when they didn’t need it.

One of the older girls showed Lin how to work the throttle, and after a few tries, she got the hang of it.
She and the other kids took turns on the bike for hours, and then started again first thing the next morning. By the end of it, she was riding like a pro.

It took me years on the road to learn to ride that naturally. Not bad for a kindergartener, huh?

So not only has Lin learned the fun of rallies, she understands the joy of riding as well. It’s too bad she’ll have to wait another ten years before she can get a license, but until then, it means I get a lot of biker-daughter quality time.

Map view of this trip

「秋のタイフーンツーリング」 SPLENDOR 平湯キャンプ2005

あさ7時、石川PAにて
予報は雨だけど、今のところぽつぽつ程度。

ほそっちといずみちゃんは楽して軽で参加。

全員揃った。

ニッシーの結婚パーティーで当たった「チャーリー君」が初参加。

八王子料金所で修ちゃんと合流して、行くぞ!

ハーレーは安心して走れる状態ではないので疑似Zで参加するオーエン

SPLENDOR公式ツーリング初参加のくっしー

双葉SAで休憩。カッパは防寒対策だけで、まだ降られてない。

皆が恒例の乗馬写真の為に集まらなかったことでちょっと淋しそうなウーチー

ちょっと寒いけど調子よく走る。

ほそっちが運転、いずみが撮影、パレード体制じゃん!

ウーチーを撮ってあげようとしてもいつも誰かにカブられたらしい

寒がりなノブチャン

ショベル二人組

高度が段々上がっていくと背景に色も入ってくる

修ちゃんとFXS

松本で下りたら結構青空が見えてたけど、今日はそれが最後だった。

松本から出たら、すり抜け出来ない道で大渋滞にはまっちゃった。

事故で車が全く動かない。ここで結構時間のロスがあった。

山に入ったら本格的な雨になって、しばらく走ると由佳ちゃんのCBが止まる。

フューズが飛んで、携帯でショップと相談しながら原因追求。

近くのお店のガレージを借りて、銀紙などの色々な手を使って調べたら、どうも問題はライトらしい。
つけなければ走れるので取り敢えず現地までいくことに。

雨が本降りになって、気温も下がっていくけど、やっぱり紅葉が綺麗。

現地について、乾杯!

この天気じゃもう移動は嫌だから近くで飯&風呂コースに。

キャンプ場の隣の店

「平湯の森」の新しくなった休憩所でみんな爆睡。

この後、わしのカメラがダウンしちゃったので、以下の写真は全部クッシーのもの。

夜の宴会ではSPLENDOR、Heaven & Hell、Sexy Dynamites、BRCと楽しい仲間が大勢集まって、各地の美味いもんが次々と出てくる。遠慮せずに腹一杯になって幸せ!
(ちょっとは遠慮しろって? マサたちがわざわざ持ってきてくれた讃岐うどんを何杯食ったかわからん。)
皆さん本当にご馳走様でした!

焚火係がいい仕事をしてくれたよ。

こんなこともやってたの?

朝は嘘のような快晴!

わしはテールランプが消えてたのでばらしてみたら電球が切れてた。
まさか誰も持ってないだろうと思って笑われる覚悟で「誰か持ってないか」と聞いたら、H&H末さんが予備に持ってた!
本当に助かりました。

集合写真
(全員まだ集まってない時点だからマーシーの集合写真も見てね。)

SD香川支部のあやぱんまん
これからも凜ちゃんの応援をよろしくね!

今回こういうネタが多かった。

いいなぁ。

H&Hのカッチョいいバイク達

初日は雨で行けなかったので、新穂高の「深山荘」で朝風呂

紅葉の山を眺めながら混浴

由佳とオーエンのパレードが出会いの二人

川の水も意外と気持ちよかった。

紅葉は本当に綺麗だった。

外人バイカーズと山

あがったらクッシーが色々アート写真を撮ってた

YOSとFLH

ノブとFXSTC

由佳とCB750K1

野麦街道を走って、木曽周りで塩尻。
ライトを使わなくていいように明るい内に帰りたいので中央道を飛ばす。
双葉で取り敢えずもう一度銀紙でライトを点けて見ることに。

なんと大丈夫になった! フューズを変えてOK!

でもここで気づいたのは、YOSのナンバーは振動で折れてどこかへと飛んで行っちゃってた。
かなりすっきりした後ろ姿で帰ることになった。

車組は渋滞になったらついていけないのでここで第一解散。

ウーチーの回転灯で紅海のモーゼ風に長い渋滞を切り開きながらすり抜けして、八王子料金所で解散。
お疲れさま!

幹事のマーシーに感謝!
H&HやSDの皆さん、また会いましょう!

The last post was for all my Japanese biker friends. I apologize to any anglophone readers who weren’t able to read it, but this post is for you. (Yes, both of you!)

Last weekend was the first annual Matsumoto Camp, a new rally sponsored by Heaven & Hell MC, a biker club from Matsumoto city in Nagano Prefecture. I’ve known these guys for years, and we usually meet up a few times a year at other rallies like the Vibes Meeting, the Love & Peace Ride, the Brotherhoods Meeting, and the Hirayu Camp (which is run by SPLENDOR, the club I belong to.)

One thing I love about rallies in Japan is the moment of arrival at the campsite, when the bikers you know all yell out your name and rush up to shake your hand and welcome you. People you’ve maybe only met once before, people you look forward to seeing at every rally, people you haven’t seen in a year or more, bikers of all ages and from all over the country who rode all the way there to see each other—everyone is expressing the same feelings. There’s something we share that can’t be easily articulated—the joy that we’ve reached a place where like-minded people can gather, a place where bikers can be bikers. It’s more than just camaraderie; it’s true brotherhood.

You also feel this during the last few hours heading towards the rally, as you find more and more bikers heading the same way, and you know they’re all enjoying the same roads and feeling the same anticipation.

At the campsite itself, you can wander from campfire to campfire, knowing that you’ll be welcomed with food and drink and good times.

Last week’s Matsumoto Camp was perfect in all these ways. Because it’s a first-time rally, it was small—less than 200 bikers—so the sense of family was even stronger than usual. The site was on a mountain overlooking Matsumoto city, with enough space that you could park your bike by your tent and enjoy a beer by the campfire while admiring the view. I’m already looking forward to next year.

*Language geek stuff:
It bothers me that English doesn’t have a word as evocative as “brotherhood” that isn’t gender-specific. After all, many of the bikers I feel this way about are women.
In Japanese, it’s even worse because the Western concept of brotherhood is culturally difficult to express. In Japanese culture, the heirarchy between older and younger siblings is pretty strong, so the sense of equality expressed by “brotherhood” is lost in translation.
But hell, who needs a word for it when we’re living it?