“ It was the worst of days and the best of days “
Well this is a slight exaggeration but who is to let a good quote go to waste. It was perhaps the worst of days because it rained for half of the six hour ride to Kyoto. And it was the best of days because it didn’t rain for half of the six hour ride to Kyoto!
It was the first bit of serious rain riding on our trip. As per the sign I find it immensely helpful to be told it is raining.
The ride into Kyoto was a long slog in the rain with lots of slippery white paint on the roads as lane markings etc. The roads were quite confusing as to direction and matter were not helped with these choice instruction from Ms Elizabeth of GPS fame -
If you think that is bad wait until you hear Elizabeth trying to pronounce it as a direction !
And thus in reasonably wet conditions we arrive in Kyoto. Did you know that Tokyo is an anagram of Kyoto? I wonder if it is in Japanese as well? And it is significant in light of the fact that last century the Imperial palace moved from Kyoto to Tokyo (as part of the Meiji restoration apparently )
Once we are cosy in our hotel I do a bit of work on the practical aspect of motorbike tyre maintenance. When I did our original trip calculations I calculated that the mileage from Tokyo through to Bishkek in Krygistan would be about 11,000 km. The plan was then to bring some new tyres back from New Zealand after our mid trip break and then that set of tyres would get us through to the start of Europe where tyres would be more readily available. Tyre management is a critical part of planning for a long motorcycle ride through distant foreign parts and the motorcycle blog sites are full of tales of woe from long distance riders who got tyre replacement badly wrong and were badly stranded as a result.
Since we have done about 1500 km more than I had planned for the Japan / Korea leg I therefore looked hard at the tyres to see if I should prematurely change the tyres in Kyoto even tho they still had lots of good tread on them. I was very pleased with what I saw of the tyres and they looked almost new with hardly any wear in spite of having over 4,000 km on them. This is due I think to four factors.
Firstly there has been very little overtaking with the sudden acceleration ( and braking) required for this being hard on tyres. Secondly we seldom go over 90 Kph. . 100 km is absolute max on the motorways and many stretches of road are only 50kph to 70 Kph. Thirdly Japanese road surfaces tend to be very smooth. Last but not least I deliberately over inflate the tyres a bit and this significantly reduces tread wear. I was told of this by Uwe Schmidt - a famous long distance motorbike traveler who I met in Cape Town on our last trip down thru Africa. He reckons he can increase tyre life by a least a third by carefully doing this. He maintains that it is heat build up that causes most tread wear.A bit of over inflation - particularly with a heavy load on - reduces side wall flexing which is the main cause of heat build up in tyres.
The disadvantages of over inflation tyres a bit is that you don’t have quite the same traction if you are riding hard and fast and secondly on bumpy roads the ride can be uncomfortable and deep pot holes could even increase the risk of a rim distort. However there are no holes in Japan roads! I would bet that there is not a single pot hole anywhere in Japan and probably there is no need for a word for “pot hole” in the Japanese language.
And that leads me to the second subject - Japanese roads. They are superbly maintained and when they repair a bit of road they only do one lane at a time so there is always tar seal under you. In our 4,000 km journey thru Japan I have not yet had one piece of gravel under the bike. As a result the bike looks pristine clean and new and exactly how it was after I thoroughly cleaned it before leaving New Zealand
Anyway enough about motorcycle maintenance.
Today is the tourist thing as we explore Kyoto. We visit the old Imperial palace
And it’s gardens
We are told by our tour guide through the Imperial place that the royal thrones have been moved to the royal palace in Tokyo for a while
I wonder to myself if they have been shifted to Tokyo for use by Emperor Trump who is currently visiting Japan !
As we pass thru the place gates I notice a possible replacement idea for the Redhead -
Tomorrow - it is off to Hiroshima for a day trip on the bullet train. Then Friday to Sakaiminato from where we catch the boat to Vladivostok.
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