Senkai Motor Works

Bedtime stories from Japan: Quadzilla and Dr. Crankenstien make a sunrise bombing run to Tomakomai.

(Aaron) I awoke in my smelly bivy to find myself sleeping next to a cigarette vending machine in a gritty neighborhood in Muroran; It was 5:15 am, freezing cold, and we had 4 hours to ride 70 k if were were going to catch our ferry. I pried Tris out of his sleeping bag, and by 5:40 we had packed up, broken our fast with bread, cheese, and vending machine coffee, and ridden back to the main road. It was so cold that for the first time on the trip I was riding in mittens. Our dérailleurs were frozen in our highest gear, but that was O.K. Because we had agreed to rally until we ran out of energy, electricity, or both.

I am happy to report that we rolled into the ferry terminal 4 hours and 70km latter, with tired legs and tired batteries, but our motors were still kicking. I had thumb cramps from holding the throttle down for the entire ride. Unfortunately we had missed the ferry by 25 minutes, but we were happy to have covered the distance so fast, and excited that our batteries had held up to 70k of constant high rpm use in the freezing cold with almost no solar power. We spent the day napping and looking for food (of course); darkness found us with our hands curled around warm cans of coffee, qued up for the all-night ferry to Hachinohe, out of yen in a burgeoning snow storm (some things never change).

Bedtime stories from Japan: Down and Out in Muroran

(Aaron) I just need to say that Tris and I HATE McDonalds; So, it was with a grim sense of irony that I found myself shouldering open a McDonalds door in the brilliant mid-morning sun on Hokkaido’s southern coast. I desperately wanted to be riding to Muroran in the most intense sun we had seen since leaving Oaria, but we were way behind on our blogging, we hadn’t figured out an exit strategy yet, we were running out of time, and the Date McDonalds was the only place within 40k in either direction with WiFi. We confirmed the Internet connection, plugged our Haulers in outside the drive-through, and got down to business, promising ourselves we wouldn’t eat anything.

10 hours latter we stumbled out into the icy darkness, sick with self loathing and sodium poisoning from McDonald’s food (hey when else will you get to try a McKatsu?), and headed to a nearby ramen joint to fuel up and take the foul McNasty taste out of our mouths. During our double-life-sentence in McD’s we had formulated an exit strategy; we would ride the next 30k to Muroran and catch an overnight ferry to Hachinohe, on the mainland, then ride the 30ish k to my mother’s house in Misawa, where we would catch up with her and try to figure out what to do with the Haulers. We hadn’t been able to find a recent ferry schedule online, but that was nothing new and we figured we could get to Muroran and sort it out. Halfway through our ramen Tris’s face suddenly took on a look of horrified fascination, and, putting his finger to his lips he motioned for me to listen to the speaker above our booth; it suddenly dawned on me that they were playing the exact same McPop CD that we had been listening to for 10 hours in McDonald’s, and based on the song, they were almost exactly in sync… That was just to much for us – we bolted to the register, payed our bill, and while running to our Haulers agreed that tonight we wouldn’t make any effort to ride prudently, it would be full bore and full throttle all the way to Muroran and the Devil take battery-conservation; it was long past time to get the heck out of Date.

All I have to say about that ride is that A) we made the 35ish k to the train station in 45 minutes, and B) I was high-siding out the cockpit of my Hauler on the screaming descent into Muroran, steering with my upper body projected over my outside wheels as I tore through the switchbacks with frozen fingers, making no effort to brake while howling to the night and rallying into the blackness and the unknown. Promise fulfilled.

By midnight we had had a close run-in with the very nice, very drunk staff of what we assume to be a small hostess-club, letting them feel Tris’s thighs and remark on their girth, but escaping before they got a chance to feel anything else. Unfortunately, by midnight we had also established that the ferry had stopped running of out Muroran, and, the next ferry was leaving out of Tomakomai at 9:15 am the next morning, some 70k up the coast. Freezing cold and slightly dejected we found a vending machine in a dark corner, plugged in, and crashed next to the sidewalk, ready to get some sleep.

In tomorrows episode Tris and Aaron cover the 70k to Tomakomai in four hours in the pre-dawn cold.  Stay tuned….

Stay tuned for a few more bedtime stories from our trip to Japan

(Aaron) Things have been pretty crazy here at LMW as we prep for our first Hauler production run at the end of the summer. Between designing parts, negotiating with suppliers, building jigs, and working on our web-page a few blog posts from the end of our Japanese Hauler ski-mountaineering trip fell through the cracks. I have queued up the rest of our posts detailing the end of our time on Hokkaido and our return to the mainland and back home. If you missed the backstory just scroll back through our blog to find stories, pictures, and videos from our entire trip. We posted in chronological order, so if you want the full story you may want to start reading from the beginning of the blog.

To set the stage….

Our last blog post found us waking up in our tipi (named “the goat” after its manufacturer, Titanium Goat), which we had pitched in the dark the night before in unfortunate proximity to a JR rail line! We were on the southern coast of Hokkaido after exiting the mountains the day before, trying to figure out the best way to get back to the mainland and end our trip. After fueling up at a Mister Doughnut (good thing our rides are cake powered!), we set off for the main town of Date to find an internet connection….

Hello New Friends

Thanks to Wend Magazine in Portland and TreeHugger (and now Fast Company) for featuring us in two posts in the past 2 days!  We’re excited for the press and are hoping that are webservers can withstand it :-)

http://wendmag.com/greenery/2009/06/zero-emissions-hauler/

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/lorax-900-mpg-hauler-the-solar-tricycle.php

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ariel-schwartz/sustainability/oh-places-youll-go-lorax-motors-solar-tricycle

We’re going to personally get back to everyone that’s emailing, twitting and writing but it might take us a few days (there are only a couple of us).  If you want to join our mailing list (very low volume):

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Hope to hear from you soon!

-The Lorax Motors Crew