Another not uneventful Arakawa Ride on a Sunday when the weather finally collaborated to make the ride more pleasant. A baker's dozen of us met at the Grand Hyatt and got on the road when the last of the laggards arrived - must have been close to 11:30 at that point - and made our way up to Ueno Park and the tightly knit back streets of Yanaka (watch out for the rooftop kangaroo ornaments!) and into Adachi-ku (let's see, Shibuya, Minato, Chiyoda, Chuo, one day I will get around to counting them all). The first pit stop turned into a wine stop for once, and the second at Kasai Rinkai Koen more of a refueling for the adventure that Ray and Don had proposed - a short loop just off the man-made golf course (no smoking, methane gas eruptions) leading out to the Tokyo Heliport at Yumenoshima. From there a fast run to Odaiba for lunch and a chance to watch the Dragon Boat racing and beach volleyball. (Thanks to Renald for taking the picture - he is the only rider not in the frame at this point).
Ray, fourth from the right, was the bump and grind guy for the day, having smashed the window of an unsuspecting Honda driver along the river, the driver realizing he could never explain what happened either to the Tokyo or to the Saitama cops who eventually showed up, or to his wife, and agreed as did Ray to leave it as "just one of those things." Pure hip-check and low-quality window glass.
