After an inauspicious first night in Onomichi at a run-down hotel that inexplicably filled with a sewage smell right around check-out time, as if chasing us out of its narrow stairwells, we set off on Saturday morning to rent our bicycles and get started on our 77-kilometer ride along the Shimanami Kaido. Luckily the bicycles -- heavy, dented and completely unglamorous mamachari (old-lady bicycles) -- came equipped with three gears. That's two more than my own mamachari at home. Whee!

The twenty of us wore matching t-shirts for the ride, bright blue, unmistakable and completely nerdy. They proved handy for spotting each other from afar and for alerting passersby of our group solidarity. Everyone in Japan can appreciate a good uniform.

After a ferry ride and a short time biking along a busy street, we hit the coast and from there, the path rarely ever left it. The Inland Sea was a sparkling turquoise, the road mainly flat and easy to bike, the weather -- despite predictions of rain -- sunny with a mild breeze. Perfect.

We crossed five bridges over the course of the day, and each one was prefaced by a short uphill ride, really the only difficult part of the day. (The picture in my last post is from the hill leading up to the second bridge.) By the third bridge, my friend Liz and I would take turns announcing, "It's time for a treat!" and then simultaneously throw our granny bikes into second gear. When it got really bad, we would additionally treat ourselves to third gear, but it was always a risk, as there was nowhere else to go from there but walking. Which we did, I am not ashamed to admit.

We made a lot of stops to take pictures, buy citrus fruits (which the area is famous for), eat lunch on the beach and look at local sights, like the vibrantly colorful Kosan-ji temple. By lunchtime, we were two hours behind schedule and in danger of being too late for the local paparazzi who had promised to meet us at our destination. But I don't think anyone really minded.

Fueled by peanuts and raisins, I crossed the last bridge as the sun was setting. Jelly-legged, saddle-burned and completely content, I met the others at the final meeting point and found out the paparazzi had failed to show, so everyone was getting ready to head to Matsuyama for dinner and a dip in Japan's oldest onsen. "Do you want to ride your bike to the station or take a taxi?" one of the trip's organizers asked me. He didn't have to ask twice.

Best 600 yen I've ever spent.

For the how and the why of this bike trip, see this post. For those who are interested, our group of twenty people raised a total of $4,000 for Building Communities!

And all my photos from the trip can be found here.