It's official: JJxJ is ON!

Once again, the title of my post is a quote from Jody.

What caused him to say (or rather, type) "It's official: JJxJ is ON!" was the fact that both of us bought plane tickets to Wakkanai today, meaning now there's no turning back!

We're going to meet at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on the morning of September 13 and we'll be flying to Hokkaido together. I was hoping to be there for Home Slice when he arrives in Japan for the first time, but his flight from LA lands really early in the morning, so it's pretty inconvenient for me. The poor guy will just have to take on Tokyo (well, the airport, anyway) by himself. I'm not worried about him, though. He's a big boy, figuratively speaking at least (doh!).

As you can imagine, there's still a ton of planning left to do for our ride. Some of what we still have to figure out includes our exact route, how many kilometers we want to (have to?) cover every day, where we are going to stay, what to do with our bike boxes after we arrive in Hokkaido, and how we get (back) to my place after the ride.

Luckily, there's still plenty of time to figure all of those things out. We're also well aware of the fact that no matter how well we plan the ride, some curve balls are bound to be thrown at us. For instance, we might encounter bad weather, we might get horribly lost, and one or both of us might get sick. That's why we are going to try to make a Plan B and even a Plan C to go along with Plan A.

The two of us are pumped, however, and really looking forward to a fun, though lightning-quick ride through Japan.

Speaking of lightning-quick rides... This isn't exactly the Race Across America, but I'm really curious if there's an official record for fastest bike ride from Soya to Sata.

Maybe there isn't one.

Maybe Home Slice and White Rice will set it.

Wouldn't that be cool?

Wakkanai? Wakaranai?

As of right now, Epic2 (a.k.a. JJxJ) is just a thought, a plan, a hope.

You see, as of this moment, Jody is scheduled to fly from LA to Tokyo to Kumamoto. What we need to happen to make Epic2 a reality, however, is for Jody to fly from LA to Tokyo to Wakkanai. Once Jody takes care of that, I'll get my ticket, too, and then there will be no turning back.

For those of you who don't know Japanese, Wakkanai, the town that Epic2 starts from, may not be more than a name. For those of you who do know Japanese, Wakkanai probably brings to mind "wakaranai." For those of you who don't know Japanese, "wakaranai" means "I don't know."

I can't think of a better starting point for our ride.

Question: "So, Jeremy... Where are you guys starting your ride?"
Answer: "Wakkanai."

Question: "And... um... Why are you going on such a crazy ride?"
Answer: "Wakkanai."

Question: "OK, well... How long is it going to take you to finish?"
Answer: "Wakkanai."

Question: "Do you really think you'll make it?"
Answer: "Wakkanai."

Question: "Will this ride be easier or harder than Epic?"
Answer: "Wakkanai."

Question: "Are you going to be able to update your blog during the ride?"
Answer: "Wakkanai."

Question: "Will you be able to visit some of your friends along the way?"
Answer: "Wakkanai."

Question: "What was the name of that town again, where the ride starts?"
Answer: "Wakkanai!"

Something Epic Is Brewing

That was the title of the e-mail. The e-mail I got from Jody. Eight days ago.

Jody, or Home Slice, as I call him, said he was going to visit me here in Japan someday before I left the country, which might be in a year (Note: Today is the 4-year anniversary of my arrival in Japan), but I really didn't expect him to come here until next spring at the earliest. He had been keeping his eye on the airfares from Los Angeles for a while, however, and when the price was finally right (i.e., less than a grand), he got in touch with me immediately.


We spent some time chatting back and forth online, looking at our calendars, and figuring out the best dates for him to come visit. What we settled on was September 13-27, a 15-day trip.

Once Jody bought his ticket, we started planning a bike ride.

At first, Jody's master plan was to cycle from Miyazaki City to Fukuoka City, all of about 300 km (not even 200 miles). After I convinced him that his plan sucked, we decided that what we'd do was probably either a Tour de K (Kyushu) or a Tour de K/S (Kyushu/Shikoku).

That was certainly more along the lines of the B2B than just Miyazaki to Fukuoka, but still not all that "epic" (Jody's favorite word).

Part of me was a bit disappointed that we weren't going to be doing something a lot bigger like riding across the whole country, which we had talked about on other occasions, but another part of me kind of liked the idea of doing a relatively modest ride rather than another express tour.

Just when I had settled on less, the email arrived: "Something epic is brewing."

The epic brew means we're going to be cycling from Cape Soya (up north in Hokkaido, near Wakkanai) to Cape Sata (down south in Kagoshima), after all.

The crazy thing about the idea is that Jody already has his plane ticket, so now we have to plan around that.

Good job, Jody. Way to think ahead.

Thanks to you, we have about 14 days to ride cape to cape, which will be about 2500-3000 km of riding, depending on how we do it.

Then again, I should have seen this coming. After all, one of Jody's favorite sayings is: "Go Big or Go Home."

If you are reading this, you might want to consider placing a bet on "Go Big."

The odds are in your favor.