Every year or so, I spend a month working in Japan in the Tokyo metropolitan area (Sagamihara). The last couple of Sundays, I have been exploring the area by bicycle and I wrote up a couple of ride reports.

This morning it was raining quite heavily so I thought it was going to be a miserable Sunday. But the weather really cleared up this afternoon and the day turned out to be very nice. The rain cleared out all the smog so it was very fresh. Since the day was so nice, Greg and I decided to go for a bike ride. We ended up riding along the Sakai river that parallels the Yokohama line until we were about one station past Machida. There is a path along the river which is used by the locals for walking, riding, etc. We left ISAS about 1:30 this afternoon and stopped for a quick lunch at Denny's. I had a mushroom and cheese omlette which sounds good, but wasn't. Unfortunately, the eggs were not fully cooked. Not too surprising I guess since they eat so many things raw. Well, I ate, all the while thinking, "I sure hope I don't get salmonella or something!".

After lunch we rode off toward the Fuchinobe train station, but didn`t quite get there. Greg knows a short cut through the residential areas to the river. It was interesting riding through the somewhat upper class residential area as I had not been there before. The streets were very small and wound all over the place, but there was no traffic. Once we got to the river, we turned downstream towards Yokohama and Machida. As we rode a long, I warmed up from the exercise and had to stop and take my jacket off. It was the first time I felt really warm since I got here! By this time the sun was out and the clouds were dissipating so it was a very pleasnat ride along the river.

The river itself was a bit yucky. I'm not sure if it was polluted, or if the water waa just muddy from the rain, but in places it didn't smell all that clean! After about 45 minutes or so we got to Machida. The train station is right along the river. All the times I've been to Machida, and I didn't know it was so close. The river is on the other side of the station from the shopping area we frequented. There is a little pedestrian/bike tunnel under the station that brought us out on the other side where all the stores are.

We parked our bikes in a little alleyway and then I followed Greg to an electronics store (!) where he had just yesterday bought a new answering machine. He was hving trouble getting it to work (the instructions were in Japanses) and wanted to ask some questions about the operation. With that complete, we left the store (I didn't buy anything, believe it or not, but there were some pretty cool looking gadgets).

Back on our bikes, we went back through the tunnel and back to the river path. We continued on past Machida station for a bit since it was such a nice day. After 10 or 15 minutes of riding, the path by the river was closed off because they are patching the surface, so we had to divert onto some side streets. That was kind of interesting, as we didn't know exactly where we were going. However, we found our way back to the river route by following a jogger who obviously knew where he was going. No doubt there were detour signs posted, but of course, we couldn't read any of them. We soon thereafter came to a palce where the river route crossed a big highway. This was our goal, as there is a map posted there which shows the river path; it turns out that you can ride the river all the way to Kamakura. As I recall it took us several hours to get there on the train, but Greg claimed it was actually faster by bicycle. After examining the map for awhile, we turned around and headed back on the same route.

Of course we had been headed downstream and were now headed upsteam, so we had a gentle climb all the way back. It was a bit slower, but not too bad. We headed straight back, rather than stopping at Machida again, but otherwise just reveresed our route. I had been a bit concerned about how my knee was going to fare through the ride, and I was very pleased when I got back to ISAS and the knee felt *great*. My enthusiasm may have been a bit premature, since after dinner it started feeling a bit tight and now is getting a bit sore. It's not too bad though, so I think that is a big improvement over the past. I could never have ridden so far previously without a lot of soreness. After we got back, I drank almost 2 liters of water/orange juice. I guess I got a bit dehydrated without knowing it.