Bicycle: 32 km
Bus: 15 km
Total elevation: 351 m
Riding time: 2:10 h
Weather: Sunny, 20C , very windy but tailwind
Today the plan was to cycle on to Kitsuki, about 40-50 km from my lodging of the night for the last two days of this Golden Week trip. I hadn’t fully decided if to cycle along the coast or halfway up on the “orange road”, but the lady from the accommodation recommended the coastal road at least initially, and yes, it was very nice. Probably the one yesterday was also nice, but as I was riding through the rain much less enjoyable. So to the first village and conbini I cycled down along the coast and even found after a few kilometers a cycling path.
On the side of the bicycle road they were also sun drying the local seaweeds we had for dinner yesterday.
From there I tried the “orange road”, but it was just a normal hillside / countryside road. No oranges and crucially no views of the sea. So after a bit I returned down to the coast.
There were some nice stone formations on the shore…
… one called “buttocks stone”:
After not too long however my gear cable snapped leaving me stuck in the hardest gear. I replanned my route to have as little elevation gain as possible and probably would have been able to make it to Kitsuki under my own “steam”… but I had an accident at the UFO sight. Yes, Oita airport has a real UFO and “red men”… and a sight of departing aircraft.
When I was just about to depart the chain got stuck between the frame and small gear and I fell off. Luckily it was on a very quiet parking lot, so no danger and a biker was at hand who helped me deentangle from the bike. At this point I had lost my confidence in riding with broken gears and had a bleeding knee, so I walked the about 500 m down to the airport where the friendly ladies at the information desk gave me disinfectant and wound tape.
I packed up my bicycle already in “Shinkansen” position, ie with both wheels removed and took the bus to Kitsuki. By pure luck, the beer is a bus stop right outside of my lodging and they let me in early. So really perfect place to fall from my bike. And perfect timing as I don’t need to move anywhere tomorrow before returning on Wednesday by train to Tokyo.
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