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.