The Chase ... Today was always going to be a bit of a commute, the inland mountains follow the coastline and the coas tal belt is very built up with cities and motorways. I set off bang on time at 9:30 and immediately I hit a 20mph headwind ... hopefully it was just wind funnelling through the Kanmon Strait .... It wasn't I had another gale force wind in my face all day turning a 5 hour ride into 7 hour slog. For the first 15miles I was on the side of busy straight roads which fed past what felt like infinite numbers of outlets. I briefly diverted at 14 miles onto small roads crossing ricefields but by 22miles I hit another major set of triple cities .. Sanyo-Onoda, Ube and Kirarahama. I passed refineries and at the coast a promenade with a wall offered me some protection from the wind. I glanced over the wall and the coastline was an inlet guarded by thousands of concrete tetrapods. I crossed several estuaries and all were difficult as they were crossed by high bridges and exposed to the full force of the gale .. none more so than the Suoohashi bridge which was a white cable stay with one big central tower. I had literally passed thousands of 7-11s, Lawsons and Family Mart but as I passed one at 34.2 miles, which of course is 1.8 miles short of halfway and therefore I'm not allowed to stop for lunch... little did I think it would be 20miles to the next .. where I did stop for lunch. I had been back on the small roads and after Ube I saw some stunt planes which kept doing formations and buzzing me. At Hofu I passed another refinery and the chase was now really on, the forecast had rain coming in from about 4 to 6pm . It was 3pm and I had 14 miles to do ... My route into Shunan was excellent cycling through small streets running parallel to the main road - the streets were quiet and more importantly didn't have any Traffic lights.. Well I think I beat the Chase, although it went grey and did drizzle in the last 3miles I arrived without having to put waterproofs on .. and my gear was still dry. Tomorrow is wet in the morning drying afternoon but more importantly the wind is going to switch and should provide me a tailwind all the way to Hiroshima !