Words & Photos By Masanori Nishikawa
I was a young man with no confidence in myself and no dreams for the future. But ever since I discovered bicycle travel, I have kept riding the world alone.
Through meeting the people who live in each place, I came to think about what it means to live with a rich heart.
I came to want to tell the children of Japan about the world I saw through travel and the way the people I met live their lives.
Then I came to live with travel as my work, and when armed robbers in Mexico stripped me of everything at gunpoint and the local people helped me so that I could continue my journey, I learned that there is really nothing you can do alone, and that people are supported and kept alive by others.
And with the free-coffee bicycle journey dailylife that I told you about last time, I came to believe that just one cup of coffee can connect person to person and create a society where hearts meet, and that the state of your own heart creates the world. In this way, finding my own path within my travels, I came to live by picturing the world I want to see and giving it shape.
There's nothing like a life plan in that. Being tested each time, running into big walls, struggling on and sometimes being swept along, I find myself in a “now” where, come to think of it, I'm living a future I never imagined by so much as a millimeter.
And so, continuing to travel by bicycle even as its shape changes, I begin a new journey once again.
For many years I had been telling children, in talks and classes at schools, about what I experienced on my travels and the world I encountered. But if I'm honest, what I wanted was to travel together with them and help broaden their own possibilities and the world they can see, and in that way help children walk through life as themselves. A journey where, with only the bare minimum of support, they build the days of the trip by their own strength as they aim for the goal.
And if I was going to do it anyway, I wanted to create a journey that would become a great source of confidence, one that would make anyone who heard about it exclaim, “Now that's amazing!” That is the adventure bicycle trip Mountain Bike Journey with children.
The “Mountain” in Mountain Bike Journey is partly because I wanted the bikes the children ride to be mountain bikes, but the other reason is: from the lowest mountain in Japan to the highest mountain in Japan. I hit on the idea of a journey linking mountains, and gave it the name as a play on words.
A bicycle journey from Mt. Tenpozan in Osaka (4.5m) aiming for the summit of Mt. Fuji (3776m). The image was already perfectly formed in my head, but taking charge of children's lives is something that must never be thought of lightly. Sharing the idea with all sorts of people, I began the trial and error of how to give it shape.
A company that had supported me until then told me, “This time, I'm afraid support might be a bit difficult. In case something were to happen.”
A friend who had been traveling the world by bicycle and was going to help out as staff turned me down, saying, “I just can't take on the responsibility for children's lives after all.”
And most important of all, the children to take part weren't coming forward...
Maybe I was selfishly trying to force this into shape. Asking myself such questions, I still went on preparing, as if drawing in a thread hand over hand.
I went to pay my respects to an older friend who has looked out for me, and said, “Please let me take your son into my care.”
From my friend Kasumi-chan, who was traveling the world by bicycle and about to come home to Japan from Africa, and whom I had emailed feeling as if I were clutching at straws, I got a reply about being staff: “Gladly!”
And so it came about that I could set out on a bicycle journey together with three children.
Looking back now, there really was nothing certain there at all. I'm reminded once again that it could only happen because the kids who took part and their families, and Kasumi-chan who served as staff, believed in me. Truly, truly, thank you.
Where we'd stay each day wasn't decided.
All that was decided was the date and place of the goal.
The Mountain Bike Journey, where each day of the trip is created together with the children, had begun.
It's tough. You can't see what's ahead. It's hot. It's raining.
On a journey there are lots of things that don't go your own way.
And ages and stamina differ. How they move changes with their mood alone.
A journey with children doesn't proceed at the convenience of adults.
The things I had done up to then. They were certainly all challenges that brushed against my own limits.
But those, too, were about “myself.”
Until I tried it, I never imagined that staying close to “someone else” and moving forward while supporting them could be this difficult.
Protecting the child's life is of course the most important thing. While doing that, you stay close to the child's feelings, and when they seem about to be crushed by the hardship in front of them, or grow anxious, you run alongside them, looking a little further ahead together. You take what you yourself have done over and over, unpick it again, and convey it from scratch in a way the kids in front of you can understand.
For me, that was unmistakably something you could call a challenge. I was constantly conflicted, pressed to make decisions in places I never expected, walking on even while feeling unsettled.
Just like the wavering hearts of the children in front of me, though from a different point of view, there was a me who was nervous and anxious.
It was unmistakable. It was a new adventure, stepping outside the world I knew.
I raised my voice many times. I couldn't do this for them back then. I put myself first.
The Mountain Bike Journey marked its ninth year this year. When I look back on the early days, it's nothing but “if only I could have done more for them.”
I was facing it with everything I had at the time. But there were things the me of that time couldn't yet see, and a heart that hadn't yet got there.
Even so, to everyone who traveled with me. To the friends who walked alongside me as staff. Truly, thank you. And I'm sorry.
Along the way. Friends who had looked out for me over the years rushed to cheer us on. They put us up in their homes, too.
And on the road as well we received more encounters and support than I could count. On this bicycle journey with the children, too, I think what lit up our hearts was, after all, these encounters and connections with people.
In tears from the hardship, they ride up to Mt. Fuji's 5th Station at an altitude of 2200m, leave the bikes there, and head for the final goal, the summit of Mt. Fuji.
Toward the end of the journey. What kind of conversations did I have with the children, I wonder. My memory is already hazy, but I do remember thinking, is it really about to end?
And so we all reached the goal at the summit of Mt. Fuji together, and at the 5th Station, which we walked down to from there, we were reunited with the families who had seen us off.
I'm sure, quite sure, that the parents sent them off with tremendous resolve. I understand that clearly now.
And I, who at the time was filled with the feeling of “We did it! We all saw it through together!”, looked again at the commemorative photo of the children with all the family members who came to meet them, and thought, “The kids really were relieved, weren't they.”
Of course. It may have been only 12 days, but for all of you it was a real great adventure, wasn't it. For traveling with me, for riding to the very end without giving up, truly, truly, thank you.
(Daichi, who took part in this first Mountain Bike Journey, joined the exploration club at university and, as I write this, is traveling alone by bicycle through Central Asia)
The children's faces, growing sturdier as the journey goes on.
Smiles that get more and more tanned, and bigger and bigger.
And the days of traveling with children, when all sorts of troubles and unexpected rewards alike arrive every day.
The fact that people watched over all of this on social media led on to the next, like a baton.
From the following year, I began to hear from many families and children saying, “We want to take part in this journey!”, and it's now held three times a year.
Members from past years began rushing to cheer on the newly arrived members of each journey, and the number of companies supporting us grew, too.
The girl who traveled through three Southeast Asian countries with me as staff is now my wife.
And from the second year, I began taking children on bicycle journeys overseas as well, to places I had traveled myself.
These days the staff roles are taken on by kids who have graduated from the Mountain Bike Journey.
I ask the kids who take part to make this Mountain Bike Journey a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
Of course, if they could join any number of times, it would spread deeper and wider as a community, and the time I get to be involved in each child's life would grow.
But because “there is a limit,” we can travel together while feeling that there truly is only that moment, that it will never come around again.
And so the kids who, on this journey, walk alongside their companions, travel as themselves, freely, with the very best smiles, and then graduate.
That they carry in their hearts what they experienced and the world they saw on this journey, and walk through the life that follows.
That, though it's presumptuous of me, is “hope” itself to me.
“If things get tough, come back any time. I'll be waiting.” Telling them that, I send them off into their own lives.
So that when they find the thing that is truly it for them, it leads to the confidence to boldly step into it.
So that the sight of them after finishing the journey influences the kids around them, and in that way the baton of hope is passed on.
Presumptuous as it is, those are the wishes I hold.
And to the parents who send them off.
I ask them to please watch over them through social media until the moment they are reunited with their child at the goal.
To believe and wait. To let your thoughts go out to someone.
And I think it's the same for the kids who come on the journey. I'm sure they feel lonely, too.
Even so, each lets their thoughts go out to the other, and they walk on believing in one another. I think that is prayer.
So the one who's overcome with emotion at the goal every time is me. Because I feel that at every goal.
On social media, too, we receive support from many people every time, and after the journey they send us their impressions.
Thank you for moving us again with this journey.
To all of you, they're kids you've never even met. Even so, I believe that the sight of children throwing themselves wholeheartedly into something, taking on a challenge, shakes the hearts of adults deeply and gives them strength.
A world where all adults can cheer on young people taking on challenges.
Through the Mountain Bike Journey, I want to give shape to that kind of world.
This is the story of the Mountain Bike Journey, which continues to this day as my life's work.
Next time, I hope to share some of the dramas from the Mountain Bike Journey.
Thank you for reading once again.
“Tabi no Oto” by Masanori Nishikawa
Vol.1 / Vol.2 / Vol.3 / Vol.4 / Vol.5 / Vol.6 / Vol.7 / Vol.8