About a year ago my wife and I made the trek to the Chiba Zoo. Getting there was pretty involved - bus to the local station, train for about 15 minutes, then the monorail. So I had the impression that the Zoo was quite far away from our place. Then, one beautiful weekend morning, I was trying to decide where to kick to, and she suddenly suggested, "Why don't you visit the Zoo?"
If our relationship was rocky, which it isn't, I might of thought she was telling me to take a hike, or take a long walk off a short pier. As it turns out, a quick check of the maps showed that the Zoo is actually only a little over 9 km. from where we live.
This map shows Tokyo Bay, with the central part of Tokyo on the left, and Chiba on the right. Tokyo Disneyland, which is actually located in Chiba just across the Edogawa River from Tokyo, is right on the bay about one third from the left edge of the map. We live fairly close to the bay where the blue line on the right side starts. The Chiba Zoo is at the other end of that blue line that marks the route I took.
In this close-up view, the green area in the lower left corner is a beautiful beach side park and marina. My destination, the Zoo, is the green area in the upper right corner. The gold line running diagonally down across the map is Route 14, and marks the old beach line. Everything on the left side of that line is landfill. The whole area was filled in by dredging the bay over several decades, then building roads, office buildings, and homes. The result was a perfect environment for kickbiking and cycling. Sraight, wide, almost completely flat roads laid out in a rectangular grid.
But, once you cross Route 14, the terrain becomes much more natural, and of course, vertical. I was pretty concerned about making it up some of the grades, but was surprised to find that they didn't present much of a problem. I had to stop to catch my breath a couple of times, but all things considered it when much better than I had expected.
There were only two real challenges. First, the road close to the main zoo entrance is fairly narrow and has a lot of traffic. Luckily I was able to find a route that used back streets, but dumped me out within about 200 meters of the entrance. Second, the zoo is situated in a large, and pretty steep hollow. Going down the final grade to the entrance I had my brakes on almost constantly, and was very careful not to loose control. The last thing I wanted was to go flying over my handlebars and front wheel. At the end of the day, climbing back up that grade was a major undertaking. I almost got off and walked it up, but somehow managed to make it without stopping.
My afternoon at the zoo was absolutely perfect. It was cool enough that the animals were active and didn't hesitate to pose for my camera. Except for climbing the steep grade near the zoo, most of my kick back home was either downhill or flat. By the time I reach home I had kicked right around 20 km, and had a wonderful time doing it.
Will I do it again?
Yes - no question!
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