Japan

As I pedal along the mountainsides of Honshū, Japan, looking across the grape and pear orchards at the densely populated Kōfu basins of Yamanashi, I can’t help but reflect on how much has changed, and how much has stayed the same.

When I first lived in Japan from 1999 to 2001, teaching English at Kushigata Junior High School (the sister school connection between Marshalltown and Kushigata), I was 32, filled with adventure and curiosity. I brought along my Schwinn Moab aluminum mountain bike. Back then, carbon frames were rare, electronic shifting unheard of, and there was certainly no Google Maps or cycling GPS devices. My navigation system was a Japanese atlas—photocopied pages with no English writing—taped together during my lunch breaks at school. With those, a motorcycle generously loaned to me by my friends Masa and Yuki, and a little card written in Japanese with phrases like “Help me, I am lost. Can you point me toward Kushigata?” I pieced together my cycling adventures one road, one direction, one kind stranger at a time.

Not long after arriving in Japan, I found a climb from my house up to Lake Inagako. It was about 50 minutes of steady uphill pedaling, but the return home took only 10 or 15 minutes of pure downhill joy. It was on that ride that I first fell in love with cycling in Japan, and how much the landscape and architecture here could capture my curiosity.

Often, I would find myself lost in the mountain backroads, stopping a farmer or passerby and asking in my best Japanese, “Sumimasen, Kushigata doko desu ka?” (Excuse me, where is Kushigata?). I rarely understood the reply, but a kind smile and a pointed finger would send me rolling down the next lane until I stumbled upon something familiar. I was young, brave, and adventurous. The beauty of the countryside and the kindness of the people made me feel welcome.

One memory that still makes me smile came near the end of my time in Japan. I was bombing down a steep unfamiliar descent when I clipped a guardrail, bounced back into the road, and blew out my front tire. A construction worker stopped his dump truck, leaned out the window, and asked gently, “Daijōbu desu ka?” (Are you okay?). Bleeding, I answered with an embarrassed grin, “Daijōbu.” It was then I learned that perhaps I should be a little more cautious on the Japanese descents.

Now, at 58, returning to Japan to fulfill my dream of a longer cycling adventure, the contrast is remarkable. With an eSIM card and an iPhone, I can zoom in on maps to see every trail, road, café, or convenience store. Reservations that once felt impossible to arrange are now just a click away. On the fly translation with AI, Google translate, etc. Only seemed like an unbelievable sci-fi Dream on Star Trek.

I doubt this trip would have been possible 25 years ago without the technology we take for granted today. Back then, my time was limited, weekends short, and planning routes was an exhausting puzzle. I often wondered recently why I had not explored more in those days, but the answer is clear: I simply did not have the tools or the time.

Yet, in all that has changed, the most important things have not. The ridgelines of the Minami Alps still rise like they did when I first saw them—in particular, the comb-shaped mountain called Kushigata Yama, and Mount Fuji in the distance, like she is overlooking and protecting Yamanashi. Rivers and waterfalls still carve their way through green valleys, and the small villages are still surrounded by rice fields that glow golden in autumn. The temples, shrines, and stone Buddhas tucked along quiet roadsides remain. And most of all, the people: endlessly kind, endlessly generous. Their joy that we are here, appreciating their country and culture, is the same joy I felt 26 years ago.

Best of all, this time I am not riding alone. I am sharing this journey with my best friend and the love of my life, and together we have navigated over 20 days from the east to the west of Japan, reliving with her why I fell in love with Japan. Together we are experiencing sights and kindness too difficult to explain, and are enjoying every moment. We have shared the joy of touring side by side, turning the pedals, sharing the views, and collecting stories that will warm our souls forever.

As I reflect, I realize this love for other cultures and people was planted long before Japan. My parents taught me by example: my father, who welcomed international students as a director at our community college, and my mother, who volunteered teaching English as a second language. Our home was always open to foreign exchange students, and kindness to others was never optional—it was a way of life. I was raised to believe that every person deserves the freedom to live authentically, as long as it does not harm others.

In a world that often feels divided in fear of others, travel reminds me of what truly matters: sharing cultures, building connections, and discovering kindness in unexpected places. The road teaches you humility, gratitude, and a sense of belonging that transcends borders.

So today, on my 58th birthday, I ride these mountain roads not as the young man discovering Japan for the first time, but as someone deeply grateful to have returned. Time, technology, and age may change me, but the beauty of this land, the kindness of its people, and the love of traveling remain timeless.

It’s hard to look back on this journey without giving thanks to the many influences that nudged me deeper into cycling. Long before touring, racing, or overseas adventures, my bike was my freedom in Marshalltown. I rode it to deliver papers, to see friends, to get across town—long before I had a driver’s license, and even after I got one, I still often chose the bike over the car. It wasn’t just transportation; it was independence.

Mike at Mike’s Schwinn first took me under his wing, letting me assemble bikes for a few dollars an hour. That’s where I bought my first “real” machine—a Schwinn Voyager 11.8—and where I felt the pull of something bigger than just getting around. My parents didn’t dismiss me when I spent nearly $400 on that bike in 1984; instead, they supported me. Then there was Ken Riggle, a family friend from Ohio, who pedaled across the U.S. and stopped by our house. Watching him roll in on loaded panniers lit a spark: I wanted to do that someday.

From there, the miles stacked up. RAGBRAI X opened the door when Mark Hoober and I rode over 530 miles across the state of Iowa in 7 days. Then came epic rides with friends: with Mark, riding back from California to Iowa in a month; with Scott Lund, starting in Canada and rolling home through Minnesota to Marshalltown; with Pat McKay, my childhood best friend, riding coast to coast from Seattle to D.C. (the longest tour of 3,500 miles and 50 days); with Kelly Ruddick and Matt Doyle, from Spokane to Niagara Falls, and later from Wisconsin to Maine with Matt (as he had to bail out earlier on the other trip to Niagara Falls). There was a tour in New Zealand, a rides home from Salt Lake City to Iowa (my only solo tour), a week long loop in Colorado, and countless days cycling in Iowa—well over 150,000 miles by now.

Racing, too, became a big part of my cycling days: road races, criteriums, cyclocross—each discipline sharpening my legs, lungs, and love of the sport in different ways. The competition pushed me, but it was always the camaraderie, the community around the bike, that mattered most.

By the time Lisa and I took our first mini tour to Anamosa in 2007—with her brake rubbing for half the ride—I already knew cycling wasn’t just a pastime for us. But that trip sealed something even deeper: the start of sharing this life on two wheels together. Looking back, nearly all of my friendships, adventures, and even the turning points of my life seem to have been framed by the simple act of pedaling forward.

And now, as I connect these reflections from Marshalltown to Kushigata, I can see more clearly than ever: every road, every friendship, and every mile has been leading me here … deep in the mountains of Toyama Prefecture, on the way to visit Kakeru, now in his 40s with a family of three children—long ago my weightlifting companion, before I helped him off to Marshalltown for high school.Les mer