It's long since been a dream of mine to tour a country by motorcyle. I've always thought bikes were cool, I guess because none of the annoying people at school rode them - they drove around in little boxes on four wheels that they insisted were cool because they had a mini-disc player cellotaped to the dashboard, or some such peripheral nonsense. So if none of the jocks were zipping about with their hair down on a chopper, then bikes must be cool.
Very briefly, I sat pillion on a tiny motorcyle as someone my brother and I had befriended zipped about the Laos countryside visiting farms and waterfalls. It felt incredible going past people stuck in sweaty cars, or crammed on tour buses with a bunch of other foreigners; incredible, even though we were going at a speed only mildly quicker than a fast jog. I decided there and then that I'd like nothing more than to have a decent bike to call my own, and a month or so of free time to see a country firsthand - no glass windows or tour schedules forcing me onwards or separating me from something I'd like to feel a part of.
So I've begun researching motorbikes in Japan, and it appears you can get very decent ones for anything over 90,000 Yen (at the moment that's about £750). There're some driving schools that give instruction in English in Tokyo as well, also offering training materials, theory textbooks and tests for a reasonable price.
My goal is to get a test-trip (maybe about 10-15 days) prepared by March 2010 when I'll have my next big holiday (university holiday, so I won't be teaching). The weather will still be nice and cool around then, but not yet rainy season, so it should be a great time to go.
At the moment I'm considering a 250cc motorbike, mainly because Japan's speed limits render anything over 400ccs a little superfluous anyway - all that extra power but nowhere to use it. Plus as a first time biker, I think a 250cc bike ought to be fast enough and safe enough to try a mini-bike trip. I'm thinking of perhaps biking up to Hokkaido and back, so that would cover roughly half of Japan's North-Eastern side. If not that, then maybe a trip to Kyoto or Hiroshima, and spend a few days biking around any satellite towns in the area. Who knows?
So... that's 6 months to pass my test and get a reliable, but cheap bike. Next March, 250cc test drive to Hokkaido! Here we go!!
PS Just in case any of you are as un-savvy with bikes as me at this point and were wondering what a 250cc bike might look like, here's a picture... beautiful isn't it:
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