A Close Call Flight
I'm Soichiro, a divorced father of one, a Kyoto University graduate, and a former mega-banker who recently graduated from a programming bootcamp and has decided to start working at a major IT company from May.
I've been on a bicycle trip since yesterday, so here is a record of it.
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▼ A Close Call Flight
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Since our interests in where to go for an overseas trip didn't overlap, we decided to go on a bicycle trip instead.
That said, I've been riding road bikes for over 10 years now.
I've ridden in Chiba, which is easy to get to from Tokyo, and I've even stretched my legs to ride in Shizuoka.
I've also ridden from Tokyo to Kyoto, cycled around Lake Biwa, and traversed the length of Kyushu.
Places I've already visited lack a sense of novelty, so the options are limited to places I've never been to that also have rewarding spots to see after cycling there.
So, the plan I came up with this time was to fly into Fukuoka, travel through Saga and Nagasaki Prefectures, and then take a ferry to Kumamoto.
While this route doesn't necessarily include any world-famous scenic spots, there is a sense of novelty in taking a bicycle on an airplane for the first time.
I've experienced taking a bike on the Shinkansen, but this is my first time with an airplane.
Unless you've thought about traveling with a road bike or a cross bike, you might not know that you can take bicycles on public transportation.
This is called "rinko," and as long as you cover the bike so that tire grease or dirt doesn't bother other passengers, it's allowed.
It's common to buy a rinko bag to cover it, which makes it easy to carry, but you can also just use a large plastic bag for a simple solution.
I knew you could take them on trains and buses, but I only learned through my research this time that you can do the same with airplanes.
Since it's been 4 or 5 years since my last rinko trip, I removed the tires and packed the bike into the bag the day before, and took a taxi to the train station in the morning.
After getting on the train and contacting my travel partner, he told me he was struggling with the rinko process and would be late.
I thought it would be fine, but it turned out he had misread the transit guide and would only arrive at the station 30 minutes before the flight.
Modern airports have introduced self-service baggage drops and other features to make boarding procedures smoother, but when it comes to bicycles, you have no choice but to use the manned counter.
In that situation, this last-minute timing was desperate.
He had to check his luggage and pass through security within 10 minutes of arriving at the station.
To make a long story short, the baggage drop was crowded, so even I, who had arrived 30 minutes earlier than him, barely made the flight.
And because of that, he was able to get checked in by staff at a different location while I was in line, and somehow managed to make it.
I say "somehow managed" because he ended up taking a different flight than me for another reason.
Since he is tall, his bicycle is also large, which required a special inspection when checking his luggage, so he ended up taking the next flight.
And I am writing this article on the plane.
Now, will we be able to meet up safely at our destination?
I might write about the results and my impressions of the first day's ride in tomorrow's article.
PS
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