Shikoku Bike Tour - Part 7
Uwajima → Shimanto · Ehime & Kochi
We woke up in Ozu this morning and, honestly, slept in a little. We thought we had more time than we did and ended up running out the door. We had a train to catch from Ozu down to Uwajima, so we packed in a hurry and cycled over to the station, me on a bike with only one working front chainring after snapping the big ring the day before.
Taking bikes on the trains here is its own little ritual. The way we’d been doing it, you pull the front wheel off, strap it to the frame, and slide the whole thing into a rinko bag so nothing on the bike dirties up the train. It was our second time and I’d definitely gotten a bit quicker, but it was still a scramble, bag off, wheel off, everything packed, over to the left side of the tracks, and we made the train with not much to spare.
The ride itself was lovely. The train cut straight through a string of valleys, and after the last few days on the bike it was a treat to cover that kind of distance without pedalling for it.
The other job for the day was getting my chainring sorted, and there weren’t nearly as many bike shops around as I’d hoped. I found one in Uwajima that was open and rode over hoping for the best. I Google-translated a conversation with the owner, and at first he said he’d have to order the part in and could I wait a few days? I explained I was hoping to head out in the next few hours. He couldn’t have been kinder about it: in the end he took the chainring off his own nice bike and fitted it to mine, sold it to me, and said he’d order the replacement for himself later.
While he worked he even lent me a hefty loaner bike so Tom and I could go get lunch across town. He reckoned it’d take about two and a half hours, so we had a nice long lunch, some really good tempura and fish.
Tom set off first to start riding toward Shimanto, and we’d meet up down the road. When I got back, the bike was perfect. He’d not only sorted the chainring but trued up all the spokes too, so the bike was in good shape again, chainring, wheels and all.
I headed out somewhere around 2pm, and the riding was gorgeous.
One thing I really wanted to see along the way was one of the long, low bridges that cross the river, the kind that submerge when the water gets too high. It looked just as good in person as in the photos I’d seen: a flat concrete span perched between two big mountains, no guardrails, just about wide enough for one of those little Japanese trucks.
There were loads of people out camping along the river, canoeing and rafting their way downstream, but the whole valley still felt very peaceful and quiet. Lots of gorgeous cycling and plenty of cool bridges.
There were fun little surprises by the road too, like these hand-painted Pikachu tucked into a garden wall.
I rode into town around 5, right as the sun was setting. I met Tom back at the hotel, since he’d arrived first, and we headed out for dinner. There seemed to be some kind of fair on around town, with a bunch of food vendors set up, so we wandered through and grabbed some grilled squid and takoyaki as we went.
Tom’s very tall, and a lot of the kids we passed couldn’t get over it, “tall, tall, tall!”, which was pretty funny. There was nothing touristy about it, it just felt like a nice night market in a small town, everyone out enjoying the evening, and the food was great.
We ended up at another little place for dinner. Like a lot of spots here, there was a spread of dishes laid out along the bar and we just pointed at the ones we wanted: a tofu soup with beef, good vegetables, some taro root, all really tasty.
We wandered around town a little after that and then headed off to bed. There was a lot of cycling waiting for us the next day.
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