Bad Boy On Tour

Stuart Ablett

Member
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15,917
Location
Tokyo Japan
One of the MANY reasons I've not been doing much woodworking of late is I've been helping to send a buddy on his way home to Australia.

I had a good send off for my buddy Tim on Sunday, we rode only 42 Km together but he earned every single kilometer, let me tell you the story.

Tim is a great guy, has been a good friend now for a few years, easy to talk to and always willing to lend a hand, he is 37 and from Australia, he had lived in Japan for 12 years, he taught math and science at the Korean school up the road. This last Christmas he went home to Oz and for the first time felt like he should be there not Japan, so he decided when the school year ended at the end of March he would not re-up his contract but instead head home to Oz. The he decided that he would ride his bicycle home to Oz :D

His bicycle is a Cannondale Bad Boy that he bought a few years ago, basically a flat bar 700C wheeled urban bike, not really the bike you want to go on tour with.

cannondale-bad-boy-2010-city-bike.jpg

This bike is a good city bike, but turning it into a touring bike....? I suggested that he sell it and buy a real touring bike, but that was not in the cards. We then spent the better part of a month transforming it into a touring bike.

badboy_tour_2-1.jpg

That is what we came up with. His plan is to tour Japan from Tokyo down to Okinawa (using a ferry or two of course!) then over to China, and down through SE Asia, next a hope over to Cairns in Australia and home to Melbourne, quite the trip, and he hopes to be there by Christmas this year. He is kind of between lives now, having finished up in Japan and not yet committed to anything in Oz yet, so why not an adventure? :thumb:

The bike... We changed from the tall skinny so so 700C wheels to hand-built super tough 32 spoke 26" wheels, and we went from rim V-brakes to cable pull Disk brakes. The 26" wheels should be better for finding spares, and they are much tougher, a friend built them, and they are heavy duty. We built the front wheel around a Shimano Dynamo hub. We also got a Tout Terrain "The Plug II" electrical doodad that boosts the power coming from the hub. Now he can run the very good lights he has, Philips SafeRide 60 up front and the great rear SafeRide light out back, he can flip a waterproof switch and power the charging system. He has a 5000 mAh cache battery that is charged while he rides, and this can charge his iPhone, iPad, Garmin GPS unit, or a charger will charge the rechargeable double and triple A batteries he has for things like the head light you wear on your head around the campsite or other flashlight batteries. This is a big deal, as on the road using these electronic tools is great, but you are always looking for some where to charge them up, now you don't have to stop to do this. The racks are Tubus racks, they are all chromoly and very good, but as this bike is NOT a touring bike it does not have the threaded hole in the middle of the fork leg to accept the bolt from the rack, Tubus has a kit which is basically a pipe clamp. I did not have any confidence in this so I made a strut for each side to make sure the rack could NOT collapse under weight.

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The silver part in the pic. You can also see the pipe clamp, which now does not hold any weight but keeps the top part of the rack close to the fork leg, much better!

We went over every thing on the bike, replaced poor quality bolts with good quality stainless steel bolts, put either blue Loctite or never seize on them, depending on the application. Everything was adjusted, and a new chain was fitted. I gave Tim a good mini seminar on fixing things, from flat tyres to installing a new chain. I set up a decent tool kit with some spares, but not too much stuff. We did fill his tubes with tyre sealant as well.

Tim left Tokyo on last Saturday....

ready_to_to_go.jpg


Boy his bike was heavy!

The plan was for him to go from Tokyo to a place called Odawara, unfortunately he left rather late and had to push really hard to get there on day one, he should have stopped sooner, as he ended up stressing one knee, well that and his bike was at least 80Kg loaded (176lbs!!).

I met up with him on Sunday, I Rinko bagged it down to Odawara (Rinko is a bag you put you bike into, you take the wheels off and the bike becomes a package you can then take on the train) and we set off.

From the start I could see that his knee was bothering him, I kept up a constant banter telling him to use a lower gear, up his cadence etc. Soon we were stopping at least twice an hour and icing his knee, then we were walking up hills as his knee could not take it.

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A nice peaceful road through a small village

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a pic of my Lrrb (Long Ride Road Bike) with some cherry blossoms.

We finally made it into Gotemba, well short of our original goal, but it was hard fought just the same. The last 5 Km or so Tim was pedaling with only his right leg! That night he booked himself into a hotel and just rested the next day he moved to a campsite just down the road and then rested, today he said he move another 20 Km or so, slowly, to another campsite and rested. His knee is feeling much better and he is going to now take it easy, maybe only 50Km a day max for the next week, and he is going back to the coast, with a lot fewer hills to climb. He put his bike on a massive diet too, got rid of nearly 20 Kg of stuff!!

On his first day he did an amazing trek out of Tokyo with a very heavy bike and still managed 92Km!

All in all it was a great day, long, we left at 9:30 AM and stopped at 6:30 PM but we must have walked at least 5 or 6 Km as I had a blister on my foot from walking that much :doh::rofl:

I know he wanted to get more miles in but really in two days he did 134Km with a stupid heavy bike and he is not close to being bike fit yet.

I got in a total of 75 Km by the time I got home, I did a blast down to Mishima station to catch the Shinkansen home, then a few more kilometers from Shinnagawa to Shinjuku.

One reason we saw a few hills is because of where we were......

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Mt. Fuji is so very impressive as you get closer to it!
 
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Stu, I'll bet part of you wanted to keep going with him. It sounds a like a wonderful adventure. Have you estimated what his total riding mileage will be when the trip is over?
 
Stu, I'll bet part of you wanted to keep going with him. It sounds a like a wonderful adventure. Have you estimated what his total riding mileage will be when the trip is over?

Hard to say Bill because his route is not planned out much, but I will say the Japan leg should be about 1500 Km and the Oz leg will be at least 4000 Km.

I would like to go with him, but I don't know if I'd want to camp every day, getting a bit too old to be sleeping on the ground for 9 months :D
I might hook up with him next Sunday, I'd take the Shinkansen down to where ever he is, ride the day and Shinkansen back.
 
Stu thanks for sharing this info and all the details. I learned a great deal i did not know about progress in the biking world. I just love the innovation.

I think your buddy is riding for more than just himself. I hope he has plans to do some kind of blog or website etc of his trip, it could be a great source of inspiration for him to get info and comments and support from the greater community out there.

What an adventure especially the places he is going through. Wont be no easy feat to tackle crossing Australia. But just getting to that starting point will be a very interesting trip.

Whats his language skills like with regards to non english languages. I presume he can get by in Japanese and probably from what you say Korean but any mandarin or other language.

I bet you gonna miss him a great deal when you turn around and find he aint there to have chats to anymore. There is no subsitute for face to face chats.


Hope Tim has not done any damage to his knee with overdoing it in the beginning that is going to set him back on his trip. He probably should have started out a little slower but thats easier said and done when you face that kind of distance especially when there is a time deadline.

I admire a guy that can cut free from the normal shackles and go ride/walk about. Send him our best wishes for a safe and succesful trip when you next connect with him.:thumb:
 
Rob and anyone else, here is Tim's blog.....

http://timsbiketour.wordpress.com/

I've been iMessaging him all day, here is a little update.

He has cut his stuff down a lot, I got a box of stuff in the mail today, and he sent a box home too.

As Tim had time to kill I got him to weigh stuff so he knew what was what.

Tim 95Kg
Bike 20Kg

Large dry bag 8Kg
Backpack 6Kg
Handlebar bag 3.5Kg
Front Left Pannier 4Kg
Front Right Pannier 3.5 Kg
Rain Gear Bag 2 Kg
Clothes Bag 2Kg
Rear Left Pannier 7 Kg
Rear Right Pannier 7Kg
Cables and locks 1 Kg
=======================
Total gear 44Kg of gear

He says that 8Kg of that is consumables, the energy bars he bought and the extra can of white gas he bought. So when that extra stuff is gone he will be down to 36Kg of gear 20Kg of bike, that is getting into a reasonable area for touring, I bet he will get rid of more stuff as it becomes obvious what is of use and what is not. He will also bet much more bike fit and lose some weight himself.

Today he went down hill towards Numazu, starting out early and taking it easy, he says his knee feels fine, so he did a full day mostly flat or slightly down hill,then along the coast for 72Km. His bike is a lot lighter and he says he has given up mashing gears and is spinning as much as possible. He is stealth camping tonight somewhere near Shimizu in a park near a raised overpass.

He'll get on a WiFi sometime tomorrow and update his blog.

Cheers!
 
OK being one not familiar with the metric system, I had to do the conversion, 5500 Km between Japan and Oz land equals 3417.541 miles :eek::eek::eek:

Yep, and if it is 5000 mile total, and you do an average of only 40 miles a day, that is 125 days, or about 4 months or so, he has given himself until Xmas, which is 258 days away, so he has the time. Forty miles a day is nothing, if you plan to get up and get on the road by 8 AM and put in your 8 hours of traveling, you will do about six full hours moving that is less than 7 miles an hour to hit your 40 mile mark. Realistically 50 miles a day is not going to be hard to do, sure you will have days off, he is planning one rest day a week once he gets in bike shape, for now two full days and one half day repeat is what he will do for the first 2 or three weeks.

Really this is not, on paper an impossible task, it just has to be tackled one day at a time!
 
Sounds like a fun adventure. Did your friend consider a trailer instead of loading the bike? I knew a guy who really loved his BOB trailer for cycle touring.
Is that a Brooks saddle? I keep hearing about them.

Give the guy two weeks to get into some cycling shape, and I bet things will start to feel better. Until then, keep up the vitamin-I! (ibuprofen!)
 
Art makes a good point, when you were building the L store trailer Stu did you not show or come across trailers that were convertable to beds. Just thinking alound it would make bedding down more comfy and practicle without the ground and one could just pull a canopy over.
 
Sounds like a fun adventure. Did your friend consider a trailer instead of loading the bike? I knew a guy who really loved his BOB trailer for cycle touring.
Is that a Brooks saddle? I keep hearing about them.

Give the guy two weeks to get into some cycling shape, and I bet things will start to feel better. Until then, keep up the vitamin-I! (ibuprofen!)

No he did not, a trailer in traffic sucks, I know :rolleyes: and the real advantage of a trailer is you have less to carry on your bike, you can load it up and go, and when you get somewhere you can ditch the trailer and go around with just your bike, that is not really practical here, as he will be doing few campgrounds, mostly he will be stealth camping.

Yes it's a brooks saddle, the only way to go for long days on the bike, I've spent full 8 hour days on a Brooks saddle and I do not end up with monkey bottom :D They are not cheap, and they are heavy, you have to make sure they don't get wet, as they are made from leather, but for my money and behind, nothing comes close.

Yep, in a couple of weeks, he will be bike fit and he will have tossed more stuff as he figures out what he needs.

Cheers!
 
Art makes a good point, when you were building the L store trailer Stu did you not show or come across trailers that were convertable to beds. Just thinking alound it would make bedding down more comfy and practicle without the ground and one could just pull a canopy over.

Here in Japan he can get away with a tent, it keeps the rain off you too, but once he gets to a warmer place, I think he might ditch the tent and go with a hammock and a fly sheet, lighter and it keeps you off the ground, which is good as there are all kinds of things on the ground that can be nasty!

A trailer that can convert to a bed is a luxury that is very heavy to pull up hills.
 
...once he gets to a warmer place, I think he might ditch the tent and go with a hammock and a fly sheet, lighter and it keeps you off the ground, which is good as there are all kinds of things on the ground that can be nasty!...

Yeah, when he gets to Okinawa, if he sleeps on the ground he might wake up with a mongoose, or worse, with a Habu (poisonous snake). Not to mention all the six and eight legged creatures.
 
Glad to hear he's underway Stu, even with those early challenges.
He seems like a determined, good natured guy. I'm sure he'll soon get in shape and in the rythm.
Sounds like you had a good send-off ride too.
Keep the updates coming.
Peter:wave:
 
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