Hokkaido

By the end of our spectacular downhill ride, the clouds started to gather darkly, being lit up intermittently with bright flashes that were followed by low rumbles. As the wind picked up, it was clearly escorting the once distant storm to our doorstep. We headed to town to seek cover, but again, it's not so easy to quickly get 16 riders at different paces on the same page, even when we're all witnessing the coming storm. At literally the very last moment, we found a place to stash our bikes, avoid getting drenched, and felt slightly more protected from the loud thunder claps that made us jump.

Since hopping on the bikes, there have been a number of glitches in their performance. On day one, the motor on Gary's e-bike stopped working and hasn't been functional since. Others have experienced dropped chains, all varieties of squeaks, a broken gear shifter, and worst of all, handlebars that malfunctioned (jerked violently to one side), causing the rider to crash into the bushes. After the storm passed, Gary and I, along with another couple and one of the guides, decided to ride back up the long downhill stretch we'd completed in the morning to return to the ryokan while others were shuttled back in a van in small groups after shopping in town. Gary and I borrowed the e-bikes of other riders and were prepared to fly up the hill based on our experience in Greece. Well, let me tell you, these bikes are far different from the ones we had in Greece. As expected, Gary did zoom ahead, but I huffed and puffed and still couldn't keep up with anyone despite maxing out the pedal assist at level 5. Meanwhile, Gary had his on level 1. Now I know Gary's a fine athlete, but even he shouldn't be able to outrun an e-bike at max speed. To test it, we switched bikes. Yahoo, I'm not a pathetic wimp after all. It was indeed the bikes. One was marvelous, and one was a dud. I think the bike vendor did a very poor job of ensuring the soundness of every bike on this trip. This is really surprising because in every other sector here, we're finding business owners and workers to be extremely service-oriented.Läs mer