October 14, 2025
Day 42 — Ota to Takasaki
Well that was a weird day.
That was I think the first day we had where there was no component of the cycling that was enjoyable, and in fact a lot of it was downright terrible. The terrible cycling was bracketed by positives at the beginning and the end of the day however.
We were anticipating a short day of riding. Ota to Takasaki was 40 odd, maybe 50 km away, with minimal hillage. The stage after Takasaki was a solid climb up to Karuizawa, so it made sense to simply position in Takasaki, and set up the climb for the next day. And a former work colleague of mine (Hi Terry, if you’re reading this!) used to live there, so it seemed propitious.
We are at the stage of the journey now where things by dribs and drabs are starting to get lost, wear out, or break, or we need to think about how to deal with future issues of wear and tear. All part of the fun. Given the short day, we planned some minor side quests to deal with some of this stuff.
We had reported that Marilee had broken her sunglasses and needed new ones. Quest # 1. The strap holding Marilee’s handlebar bag in place had snapped, so the bag needed replacing. Quest #2. I am generally thinking about brake pads, given all the descending we are doing. Quest #3. One of Marilee’s bike gloves has walked away. Quest #4.
We found a huge big box plaza in Ota that had a Sports Depo (sp) in it, so that was destination #1. We did find good bike gloves there, but not viable sunglasses, but that took care of one quest. The big mall also had several walmarty big box stores strung together — it was absolutely massive — so we ambled around there like lost children for a while. And lo and behold in a store called Cains, were racks of cheap fashion sunglasses. Perfect. Another quest done. We celebrated with Takoyaki at the food court, feeling pretty pleased with our accomplishments.
And this is where we got cocky. Takasaki had a couple of decent looking bike stores, as well as a Mont Bell (MEC, but Japanese), where we knew there would be handlebar bags. So I dialled it all into the Garmin, why not, it didn’t add a lot of mileage…and we set off.
Well between Ota and Takasaki, there really is no end of city. It is the northernmost bit of the sprawling urbanity of Tokyo — we were like 100 km from downtown Tokyo all of a sudden. Ota flows into Iseasaki, which flows into Maebashi, which flows into Takesaki. So the route was essentially along super clogged fast moving two lane roads with minimal shoulder, and with crappy sidewalks, which had long stoplights every few blocks. It took forever to make progress.
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The search for bike store #1 turned into a wild goose chase of triangulating between different mapping apps, wayfinding across busy streets, circling around, etc., only to find it and … it was closed. Of course, the one random day a week they’re closed and it’s today. At this point even though mileage was low, we were getting tired and irritated with the chippy street by street hassle of biking, plus it was very gloomy out and threatening rain, which did not exactly buoy spirits. So forget bike store #2, and dial in on the Mont Bell.
And off we went, street by busy street, clunking over crappy sidewalks, stuck at stoplights, just endless outer urban grossness. And finding the Mont Bell turned into its own goose chase. The navigating apps seemed intent on prolonging the misery, and led us in circles. Eventually we did find it, both in foul moods, and there was an acceptable handlebar bag. Next up, getting downtown where our hotel was. And now it was starting to rain. Excellent.
Downtown Takasaki, when we eventually got there, was actually pretty nice, and we were relieved to be out of big box traffic hell. We found our guesthouse, and were ushered into a little hipster paradise of tinkly jazz, curated objets d’art and patchouli smoke. The owner let us know that the other guest was also a cyclist from America, so that was interesting. The place itself, the Karasuya Guest House, seemed to be a project of the young owner to create a chill space for himself and guests. The place was mostly decorated from thrifting and DIY, and was really the quirky mellow antidote we needed from the day we had had.
After quick showers and settling in to our comfy bunkbedded room, we went down to the lounge and found our American bike touring counterpart who had just come in. Jamie was maybe 5 years younger than us, had grown up in Buffalo, but now called Hawaii home (makes sense). We all seemed energized by the ability to talk to someone other than ourselves or our spouse about bike touring, and our experiences and plans. We chatted for a bit, got some recommendations for food and headed out.
We ended up down by the train station, which sounds odd to a North American, but here the station had an enormous 5 storey mall over it, full of fancy stores and restaurants and bars, and seemed the place to be on a gloomy weekday evening. It took us a while to find the place we were looking for — a spaghetti place of all things, but it was good fun just being semi lost in the mall, gabbling away the whole time. We found the place, got our spaghetti and beer and swapped stories for a good while, and just like that, a kinda crappy day turned out fun. And then it was back to our chill hipster dorm.
So there you go. Strikes and gutters, ups and downs.
Today's ride: 62 km (39 miles)
Total: 2,176 km (1,351 miles)
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