Selfie Ride in Iwate - A Home Away From Home

The best way to discover little-known sights and make even familiar places feel brand new, is to go exploring by bicycle.

The mountains are that way.

To keep bringing you these cycling adventures during the "new normal," we devised the "selfie ride."

Our cyclists film themselves as they introduce interesting spots near to home.

James Hobbs from England is our guide for this episode.

James has been living here in Iwate for 30 years.

We met 28 years ago,
and I’ve lived in Iwate 30 years.

Cheers.

James is going to show us why he loves this part of Japan so much.

We'll also meet some of his cycling friends.

Come with us now, to explore Iwate.

The city of Morioka is surrounded by deeply forested mountains.

With a population of 300,000, Morioka is the capital of Iwate.

And it's where James has chosen to have his home.

Okay, right, hi everyone, I'm James.

And welcome to my home.

It's my regular workday and I'm getting ready for a long ride into work.

And in the kitchen, here's my wife Junko.

Morning.

Morning.

Okay, making my lunch.

Thank you very much.

What's my lunch today?

Onigiri as usual.

Okay, a couple of rice balls.

And can I have a carrot as well?

Okay, thanks.

They look like pretty big rice balls.

James' wife Junko is a native of Iwate, and a high school English teacher.

They have two children, both now grown up and independent.

However busy they are, James and Junko always try to have breakfast together.

- I'm off!
- Take care!

Oscar, bye bye.

Be good.

These "selfie rides" are our way of coping with the pandemic.

For safety reasons, it's not ideal to send our usual camera crew along to film the ride.

Instead, there'll just be James and his good friend Sato Masatoshi, who everyone calls "Roki Pan."

Both of them have cameras mounted on their bikes.

An important part of James' training schedule is his daily cycle to work.

If you want to race, just riding hard at the weekends really isn't enough.

Twice a week, he takes this longer route - a 50 kilometer ride over the hills.

Right, so onward to work.

Work is Iwate Medical University.

And I'm teaching, well mostly specialist English.

And now for a day's work.

OK, right! Showered and changed.

And ready to do some work.

Okay here we go.

There is my rice ball.

That one's sujiko.

It's got salmon roe inside it.

On weekends, James gets together with a group of friends for some serious training.

There are seven of them today.

Some of these guys are good enough to be professionals.

They're all hill-climbing fanatics, but since James is clearly the best at it, the others have nicknamed him "The Headmaster."

Iwate is full of steep mountains, so there's no lack of hilly roads to train on.

Now the road is going up, and their spirits rise to the challenge.

The autumn colors are at their peak, but these riders are enjoying the race more than the scenery.

As support rider, Roki Pan needs to stay in sight of James, but he's having a hard time of it.

James! You're going too fast!

The younger riders are barely keeping up with James.

And now he's pulling away.

He'll show them he's still the man to beat.

At the top, James is well in the lead.

The Headmaster earns his nickname again.

- Well done. That was a good race.
- Too fast!

- Did you win?
- No, Yuji beat me.

Ah, so you pulled it off.

You're in good shape today.

Great cycling routes, great cycling friends - James is in heaven.

Iwate's beautiful mountains are a big reason why James loves living here.

He's now taking us to a favorite mountain campsite.

Okay, here we go.

I can see some tents down there.

And Mt. Hayachine up there behind a few clouds.

The campsite is deep in the forest, next to a river.

Okay, and there we go.

And here comes my wife, here's Junko.

How are you? It's been ages.

The campsite is run by an old high school friend of Junko's.

Time to wind down, and enjoy some time together in the great outdoors.

This is the first time I've done this recipe.

We've got some pumpkin with olive oil and cumin, and it's been left overnight.

Meanwhile, Junko's in the kitchen...

I have a question.
What are you making tonight?

Today we're having my take on bouillabaisse.

So what's the secret ingredient
in the Hobbs family bouillabaisse?

The secret? Love, of course!

And here we go with the main, the lamb.

I can hear another deer.

- I've never heard deer before.
- You often hear them in the forest.

The changing skies over Mt. Hayachine are always lovely, but it's at its most beautiful as night falls.

Cheers.

To what, 25 years married?

25 years.

28 years since we met.

Okay, that's my lamb chop.

It looks good, smells good.

Really smells of seafood.

Here we go.

That is delicious.

We've got a new name for a dish, haven't we?

Bouillabaisse-ish.

We met 28 years ago,
and I've lived in Iwate 30 years.

It's been a long time.
Did you plan on staying so long?

Not at first.

In my third year here I met you.

We were so lucky.

If we hadn't met, I might have left after three years.

- You'd have gone back to England?
- Probably.

When James came to Iwate at age 22, his first job was teaching English in high school.

He and Junko met at a training course for teachers.

The young couple loved to explore Iwate's countryside, especially after their two children came along.

Do you remember our first time camping?

- At the seaside?
- That's right.

- We had that lantern then too.
- That was when we bought it.

Yeah, we didn't have any money back then,
so we always bought cheap camping gear.

Except that lantern.

- It's a really good one.
- True.

We've been using it for 28 years now.

James took up hill climb racing after the children were old enough that he was no longer needed at home all the time.

None of it would have been possible without Junko's support, of course.

You're the type that takes everything to extremes.

Even when you do something as a hobby,
you always aim to get as good as the pros.

Most people would hire a builder to make a deck
for their house. Not James...

Yes, before cycling I was really into DIY.

- Do you still dream about buying a camper van?
- Yes, I really want one.

- Where do you want to go in it?
- I'd love to tour America.

We'll do it when I retire. I'll start saving.

- Across America by camper van!
- That will be great.

- OK, it's decided.
- Yeah!

James and Junko, sharing their dreams.

Another side of Iwate that James is keen to show off is the extraordinarily beautiful Sanriku coast.

You can smell the sea again.

The sea's a beautiful color today.

It's a really beautiful emerald green.

The waters of this rich fishing ground are usually calm and peaceful.

Cycling this coast road is never boring - it's always winding up and down, there's always fresh things to see.

The Iwate coast is extremely beautiful, but this sea has a darker side.

Here, the ocean's beauty is now hidden from view by a towering seawall.

The wall was built to protect the town after the great tsunami in 2011.

In that disaster, 4,675 people died in Iwate, and another 1,111 were never found.

There's a spot here that evokes powerful memories for James.

Standing alone by the shoreline is a single pine tree.

Now, back before the tsunami, all along this coast line was a pine forest.

There were pine trees everywhere.

And you'd walk through the pine forest to get to the beach, something I did many times with my kids, with my family.

I have many fond memories.

The incredible power of the tsunami simply washed the whole forest out to sea.

Only one tree had the strength to withstand the immense wave.

And it just seems very fitting that it's a reminder of what happened, a reminder that we must never forget about it,

but it's also a symbol of hope for the future, and that's really the message I've got on today's ride.

One of James' cycling friends experienced the tsunami first hand.

A fellow cyclist who is in the same age group as me, and does mostly the same races as me, so we always meet each other at the races.

But because he lives quite a long way from where I do, I've never had a chance to ride with him socially.

So that's what I'm gonna do today.

It's the first time for James to actually visit his friend's home.

Good morning!
Haven't seen you in ages! How’ve you been?

Kumagai Mitsugi works for a local newspaper.

He's James' nearest rival in hill climb racing - always vying for the top place on the podium.

- What's your elevation gain this year?
- Over 800,000 meters as of October.

Elevation gain is the cumulative total height a cyclist has climbed.

Kumagai climbs tens of thousands of meters every month - a ridiculously high figure.

Your gain is ten times higher than mine.

On the cycling website that logs this data, Kumagai has twice topped the all-Japan leaderboard.

They're tackling one of Kumagai's favorite routes - a non-stop seven-kilometer ascent, rising 420 meters.

Hello!

- This is the route I usually take to work.
- Unbelievable! You ride this as your commute?

This is serious hill climb training.

What transformed Kumagai into such an extreme hill cyclist was the tsunami.

For a year and a half after the disaster, he had to live in emergency accommodation.

The tsunami hit my house and moved it 50m.

Cycling was how he coped with the stress of it all.

Cycling helps you forget your troubles.
The steeper the slope, the easier to forget.

Obsessively powering his way up these mountain roads at all times of the day, Kumagai slowly took control over his life again.

20 grueling minutes have brought them at last to the top.

- I'm beat!
- But you made it up.

- You don't look tired at all.
- It doesn't show in my face, but my whole body is sore.

That was quite a hill.

- You picked a good one.
- Coming from you, that's high praise.

After the tsunami, Kumagai rebuilt his home, but many of his old friends chose not to return.

Cycling not only helped him find meaning in life again, it also brought new friends.

If I'd never taken up cycling,
I guess I would never have got to know you.

I've made so many new friends through this sport.
And the faster I ride, the more friends I make.

Going new places and making new friends everywhere.
That's a big part of the fun of cycling.

By throwing himself wholeheartedly into cycling, Kumagai gained a whole new circle of friends.

For James too, cycling continues to bring new friends into his life.

Now of course, when I first came here, for what I thought was just one year, I had no idea what that was gonna lead to.

I didn't know that lady I met was gonna become my wife and my soulmate, and I had no idea that many years later cycling was going to become such a huge part of my life.

And if I could go back and live my thirty years here all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.

And I can't wait to see what the next thirty years are gonna bring.

Thirty years on, and James shows no sign of slowing down.

And he'll never stop loving Iwate, this place that welcomed him like a second home.