🎶What’s Yo Name? Who’s Yo Shogun?🎶

Meet & Greet, bike fit and warm up ride – Distance: 50km / 31 miles | Elevation 225metres / 738 ft

Watch Relive video here: https://www.relive.com/view/v7O9ZDZAxL6

Lo 2C, Hi 12C, wind 5km E gusts to 12km/hr, sunny

Early night last night a few of the riders and guides met to assemble our bikes, the rest will be here today to do the same. Bike bags then will be transported to Mt. Fuji waiting for us to re-pack at the end of the tour.

Once everyone was ‘put together’, we all gathered at midday for a Welcome Chat over a 3 course light lunch.

So the question around the lunch table was,”What’s yo name and who’s yo daddy?”
To answer that question, a little background first. For over 700 years Japan was ruled by supreme leaders, the Shogun. They traversed the country warring, ruling and dominating the spectacular landscape and culture.

The samurai, whom the Shōgun ruled, are often depicted as stoic warriors whose legacy rarely extended beyond the battlefield. Yet their period of feudal history is remarkably recent and therefore intimately linked to all things modern and Japanese. Only 150 years ago, Japan was in a state of transition as foreigners were first let into the country and the feudal system dominated by the Shōgun collapsed (comparatively feudal Europe ended roughly 500 years ago).
OK OK, here’s my answer: there are 29 people in our entourage, 1 Emperor/lead guide Sean, 6 Shogun/guides who are Henrick, Mikey, Daigo, Tina, Gypsy and Kusaba.
The remaining 22 of us are the Samurai!! We hail from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Austria and USA. We will kick as and take no prisoners! Two support vans, one is a bike shop repair van.

The afternoon was spent on our bikes for a warm up loop that gave us a taste of many things Japanese. We are in the middle of this bustling city, so roads were busy, but we found drivers in Japan extremely considerate and slow moving. We meandered through the city towards the waters edge where we jumped on a ferry

to cross over and to loop Shika Island (Shikanoshima). Interestingly, ferries will only carry 5 bikes, but if a bike is covered up then it is not considered a bike and more can be brought in. So some us covered our bikes with a thin stretchy bike cover for the short ferry ride. ( we will have to do this again a couple of times.

We landed and crossed a 1km isthmus only metres wide where we could see on one side out to the Sea of Japan and the other across the bay back to the city.

Looping the island we decided not to take the ferry back to the city, and instead went a longer way back by riding.

Dinner in the hotel restaurant, a 6 course Japanese cuisine; shrimp, onion soup, bonito fish w rapeseed, pork belly brochette w foie gras, scorpionfish, wagu beef and citrus tart.