Right to the Edge: Sydney to Tokyo By Any Means (37 page)

After a few hours’ sleep, I spent the morning looking around Core Machine, a Triumph custom shop in Kobe. The owner told me he only really got into motorbikes after using one to deliver food to people made homeless by the Kobe earthquake in 1995. He could get to places that other vehicles couldn’t and the respect he developed for the machine gradually evolved into a passion for bikes and his own custom shop. The quake was the worst to hit Japan since 1923 - four and a half thousand Kobe citizens were killed.

I found his story really inspiring. I could just imagine him on some old bike with panniers and top box, picking his way through the rubble to get vital supplies to the survivors.

Knowing that I was making for Kyoto that night, he offered me the loan of a bike. It helped confirm my gut feeling that I had been right to end the trip in Japan. At heart I am a biker, bikes are what I do and I like to begin and end each trip on one. As I had hoped, there had been a few more along the way on this journey, and there would be at least one more before we finished. I would ride into Tokyo on a bike, alone this time, and perhaps that was how it should be.

The motorcycle culture in Japan is totally different from anywhere else in the world. Despite being a relatively recent development, it’s become ingrained in the society. The competition between the big four manufacturers - Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki - is intense. Honda won six world titles in a row, from 1994 to 1999 (an amazing five on the trot by Mick Doohan, riding their 500 cc two-stroke). They won another three times (2001-03) with Valentino Rossi, before he defected to Yamaha (with whom he has since won another three titles). The rivalry is everything and it filters down to the street bike market, with the big models changing every couple of years. For a long time the Honda Fireblade was God, then the Yamaha R1 and after that the Suzuki GSXR 1000. Right now it seems to be the R1 again, with their new generation of cross-plane crankshafts. I knew all about the factories - the big four brands and how they had come to dominate the world market - but I knew less about were the smaller outfits, the bespoke chopper builders, and hopefully before we left I’d be able to rectify that.

On Sunday I would be taking the train to Nagoya to meet up with Taka, a Japanese kid who works for Dare Jennings at Deus Ex Machina in Sydney. I’d spoken to Taka in Dare’s shop and it turned out he would be in Japan at the same time as us, so he offered to be my guide for a couple of days. He knew the bike scene in Japan as well as anyone, and for the last few days of this journey that would be a real bonus.

We hooked up at Nagoya station, before taking the bullet train to a bike fair at Hamamatsu down by the coast. The train isn’t actually called the ‘bullet’ in Japan; it is the Shinkansen, which means ‘new trunk line’ and refers to the track itself but has become synonymous with the trains. Four different rail companies run four different areas, and - this being Japan - each is as efficient as the others. Generally you find six trains running every hour. Since 2003 they have been ‘maglev’ (magnetic levitation) trains, which were first used in Shanghai. In the most recent speed tests, they surpassed 360 miles an hour.

Hamamatsu is a sprawling city on a flat plain known as the Mikatahara Plateau, about fifty miles due east of Nagoya. The Shinkawa River runs through the downtown area, and was so straight it looked more like a canal to me. Taka and I spent the day taking in the bike fair - it was a Kawasaki event with lots of stalls, a few stunts being performed and people selling everything from leathers to bike parts to bike memorabilia. Most of the bikes on display were second-hand sports bikes, but then racing is in the blood here and the All Japan Superbike Championship is very competitive. Having someone with me who was as into bikes as Taka made all the difference. Not only could he interpret, but he shared my enthusiasm.

Japan was turning out just as I had hoped. It was bikes, bikes and more bikes and I could not think of a better way of edging towards Tokyo. In fact, the whole trip had been a blast. Together with Lucy and Liz back in London, Sam had worked really hard setting this up and both Robin and Claudio had gone above and beyond to make sure we covered everything. The three of them had been brilliant - great company and always coming up with interesting suggestions and new ideas every step of the way.

 

 

The following day - a Monday - Taka suggested we check out just how diverse the biking culture is. I was all for that. First off he took me to a shop selling second-hand bike clothes, then across town to Stuntgear, a small shop that sells everything from crash cages to handlebars and stunt stays. The owner was a very cool guy called Keisuke and he was more than happy to show me around. If you’re into making your bike as trick as it gets, Stuntgear is the place: they can alter the subframe of your bike to cope with the more outrageous stunts and they sell all the protective clothing you could want. It’s heaven for the would-be stunt rider.

We mentioned we’d been to the bike fair in Hamamatsu and Keisuke told us he was riding down there himself tomorrow. He planned to stay the night with one of his friends and I was more than welcome to join him if I fancied it. I had nothing planned for tomorrow, so I told Keisuke I’d be glad to ride with him.

It was just perfect: riding a V Max with a mad-keen guy like Keisuke. These were great roads. Lake Hamana, just west of the city, was a basin of crystal water, and from some vantage points you could see the slopes of Mount Fuji. I was absolutely in my element now.

We spent that night having a barbecue with Keisuke’s friend Suzuki and in the morning another of his mates came over in a Nissan QX56 Infiniti that he had imported from the United States. I had never seen or heard anything like it: the paintwork, the sound system, it was awesome. The guy’s nickname was Jack Hammer and his Infiniti had started life as a people carrier, although virtually nothing but the basic shape was recognisable now. It was custom-painted a lurid, Kermit the Frog kind of green, with massive tyres and chrome wheels. The whole boot section was devoted to the sound system: there must have been eight speakers back there. There were more speakers in the front doors, which Jack had redesigned so they tilted up instead of opening outwards. He had fitted a hydraulic suspension system that at the flick of a button would lift the front or back or both. Under the bonnet was a 5.7-litre V8; the head cover was painted the same fluorescent green as the rest of the car. I asked him how much he had spent on it and he reckoned about $200,000. God, I thought, you could buy a house for that.

Before we returned to Nagoya I had to say goodbye to Taka. He had been the best tour guide and I would really miss him. Having met him in Sydney where it all began, and then hooking up again in Japan where it was coming to an end, it was a personal way to wrap things up for me. I gave him a hug and told him to tell Dare I’d be back, then I climbed into the green monster so Jack could drive me to Zero Engineering.

The guy who owns the Zero name is Japanese but lives in San Francisco. There is a very particular style to their bikes and an artistic philosophy that goes with it. In a quiet suburb of Nagoya we found the nondescript-looking workshop run by a long-haired aficionado called Kosaki. There was no smoked-glass showroom and no massive sign. Instead the place was given away by the number of old Harleys parked outside. I cannot speak highly enough of these bikes and as I jumped down from the green beast I was tingling with excitement.

I first came across Zero when I was riding the Pacific Coast Highway with Peter Fonda, just before Ewan and I left on
Long Way Down
. We stopped to take a look at a Heroes and Legends bike fair, where some of the Zero creations were being exhibited. We’re talking Samurai choppers, whose trademark look is stretched and low and rakish. Over the years they have perfected their own goose-neck frame that gives the whole bike a narrow appearance that is both classic and futuristic. Zero talk about the engine and transmission being the heart of a motorcycle, but to find its soul you have to look at the frame.

As I say, they’re not merely motorcycles, they are works of art. Kosaki works with the customer to get an idea of the kind of thing they want, and then his creative juices kick in. Before he begins, he has visualised the finished bike in his head - there are no technical drawings.

It’s hard to describe just how good Kosaki is without actually seeing the bikes in the flesh: each one is lovingly brought to life and the incubation period is at least three months. He’s doing well if he completes three bikes in a year; hardly surprising when every part is hand-crafted.

The workshop was full of motorbikes and, spotting one in particular, I asked Kosaki to bring it out. This was classic Zero, very long and very low with café-racer-style clip-on bars and a ‘suicide’ gear change - that is, a foot-operated clutch and a hand-operated gear stick. The suicide part is the fact that you have to take your hand off the bar to change gear. The bike was painted gun-metal grey with the tank hand-beaten and incorporated into the frame. The engine came from a completely reconditioned 1938 Harley Davidson. When Kosaki fired it up, it thumped away as only a V twin can. I didn’t dare ask to ride it - this was a customer’s bike and what with the suicide shift and everything, even if he had let me I really did not want to risk dropping it.

I was fascinated by how Kosaki worked, and asked him where he found his design ideas. He said that after seventeen years it was a mish-mash of experience. He would take something from this bike and something else from another, then something else again from yet another. That way there was an element of all the bikes he’d ever built in every new one. I liked the concept, it gave the development process a wonderful sense of continuity. Kosaki personified the Japanese motorbike culture, something that is as instinctive in people as getting up and eating breakfast. These guys live and breathe their motorbikes - they aren’t mechanics, they’re artists, pure and simple.

Back in the Infiniti, Jack took me to the bullet train for the trip to Hiroshima. I had been waiting for this moment ever since I’d set foot on Okinawa - tomorrow was 6 August, the sixty-fourth anniversary of the day they dropped the bomb. A peace ceremony had been arranged in the Memorial Park and the President of Japan would be attending. We would be there, of course, but before the official ceremony I wanted to get a feel for the place, so we had got in touch with a local guide, a lovely woman named Tomoko Nishizaki.

The actual memorial is known as the Genbaku Dome (or Atomic Bomb Dome) and is the remains of the building that took the primary impact of the bomb. Designed by Czech architect Jan Letzel, it was originally built to house the Hiroshima Commercial Museum and was completed in 1915.

It is now a UNESCO world heritage site - something that caused a lot of controversy when it was declared in 1996. The Chinese weren’t happy and neither were the Americans, who pointed out that it was not Japan but the countries they attacked that suffered the worst casualties of the war. But Hiroshima is where nuclear weapons were used against mankind for the first time, and because of that it will always be remembered.

The whole affair was steeped in controversy, not least because of what happened to the USS
Indianapolis
, the ship that delivered crucial parts for the bomb. After it made the delivery, the
Indianapolis
was hit by a Japanese torpedo off the Philippines and it sank inside twelve minutes. Three hundred crewmen went down with it, and of the nine hundred remaining men who went into the sea, only 321 survived. Their mission had been so secret that no one realised they were late to their destination, so it was four days before any search teams went out. By then almost six hundred men had succumbed to dehydration and exposure, many of them eaten by sharks. To this day it’s the biggest single loss of life in US naval history.

It’s hard to describe how I felt being at Hiroshima, particularly the day before the anniversary. There is an aura about the place that is like nothing I have ever felt before or am likely to feel again. The river passes under the T-shaped Aioi Bridge, which had been the Americans’ actual target. The Genbaku Dome perches on the headland - roofless, grey stone walls that are partially collapsed, empty windows, exposed steel struts that are all that’s left of the dome. A permanent and very vivid memorial to the day they dropped the first atomic bomb.

Walking the pathways with Tomoko, it was impossible not to sense the terrible history imprinted in every stone. We paused for a moment in silence as she pointed to the bridge.

‘That was the target,’ she told me. ‘But instead of hitting the bridge, the bomb detonated above the dome itself. It was eight-fifteen in the morning.’

Listening to her, I found myself thinking back to the museum in Tacloban and the stories of Japanese occupation. I thought about MacArthur promising he would return, the image of him rising from the sea. I thought back to Okinawa and the mass suicide in the tunnels. In silence again I stared at the dome - empty and sombre, jarring with the brilliant sky above. I tried to imagine how it must have been that day. The mushroom cloud, the ash and smoke and the unbelievable heat. I imagined the buildings collapsing and how people must have thought the world had ended.

Tomoko took me to the statue erected to the memory of Sadako Sasaki - a young girl holding a folded paper crane. Sadako was two years old when the bomb fell and had been at home with her mother, a mile from the dome. Initially she showed no signs of having been affected at all. She wasn’t burned, she hadn’t been struck by anything, she was one of the lucky ones. Only perhaps she wasn’t. Nine years later she developed what the doctors thought was a chicken pox rash on the back of her neck. That was in November, and by the turn of the year she had purple spots on her legs. Sadako was diagnosed with leukaemia, though her mother referred to it as ‘an atom-bomb disease’. In February 1955 she was taken into hospital and given less than a year to live.