the ride today is the most scenic ride ever for me. it is called the shinamami kaido, a favorite among many travelers and locals alike. it consisted of riding across 7 islands crossing the suspension bridges connecting them. we started from the left side of the map (see bridge crossings 1-7). we follow the recommended route as much as we can as lined in the map. the ride was about 50-60 miles depending on the routes ridden, but tiring as bike entrance to each bridge is few hundred feet up. getting up each bridge requires us to ride up winding climbs. today we started riding at 7:30am. heading there from hotel, we saw a couple on bikes carrying backpacks heading the same direction. we decided to follow them as we werent sure how to get to the starting bridge crossing. after a short conversation with them to confirm their travel plan, they led us to the first bridge.
the views from the bridges were magnificent. steve and i took lots of pictures but right before we cross the last bridge, the camera showed errors. it turned out that the sd card was bad. im so sad that i may have permanently lost all the pictures taken so far on this trip. on top of that, steve's gps software on his phone crashed....rendering us with no clear direction to hiroshima. the only maps we have are printed out google maps which shows major roads but not detailed street map, and my long/lat way points on my garmin bike gps.
although we have maps, navigating these islands still require us to ask for directions. at about the 4th or 5th islands, we caught up with the couple who earlier had led us to the first bridge. although they werent too familiar with these islands, at least they read the japanese street signs. we followed them till we reach the ferry at the last island. the guy rides a carbon road bike with nice components, the gal rode a common steel bike with a regular tennis shoes. we were amazed this gal could go that fast that long. at times we were struggling to keep up with them with our loaded bikes, but we did. anyways, we talked to them further and turned out thet crossed these islands the day before gong from onomichi to imabari, and today they went the other way. thought about taking a pic with them but memory card's gone bad earlier.
UPDATE: Paid 30 bucks for photo recovery software and was able to recover the photos in the damaged SD card.
cool bridge!
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