Like many of us, I had intended to participate in the Goodnight 2025 campout that we’ve been organizing together with our friends at Bikepacking.com. Torrential rains in Seattle and the need to prepare a trip to Japan meant that I didn’t get out for a ‘night under the stars’ at the end of last year. Why not make up for lost time during my Japan visit?
My Firefly is now 10 years old! It now lives in Japan, waiting for me when I visit there. Every time I open the Rinko bag and see the soft glow of the brushed titanium and the tasteful gold anodized logos, I remember the excitement when I first laid eyes on the bike. Made by the wizards at Firefly in Boston, this was my first bike with ultra-wide tires, a proof of concept that 54 mm supple tires could actually work. (Back then, ‘gravel grinders’ still argued whether 35 mm tires were too wide for speed on gravel.)
Firefly is a small builder, and they can’t just make custom bikes on a whim. Our agreement was that I’d buy the bike if I really liked it—and I did. I certainly haven’t regretted it. The bike is on its third set of components—SRAM XPLR eTap has finally cured the durability issues with the mechanical shifters that I ran before. I remove the shifter batteries just in case when I leave the bike in Japan. Putting it back on the road takes just a few minutes: Put back the shifter batteries, install the chain that I’ve taken back to Seattle for re-waxing at Cascade Bicycle Studio and the re-charged derailleur battery, plus inflate the TPU tubes in the tires. Ready to go!
Tokyo is a huge, densely populated metropolis, but it’s got a secret: Along the rivers, bike paths run on the levees that protect millions of people from flooding. And to maintain those important levees, there’s what I call ‘Japan’s longest gravel road,’ right next to the river.
If there has been recent construction, new gravel has been placed to support dump trucks and other equipment, and the surface is coarse as in the photo above. In other places, it’s a smooth dirt road that’s getting overgrown, disturbed only once a week by a sentinel in a minitruck who checks that everything is in order. That makes for varied riding. Best of all, there is zero traffic.
For my ‘make-up’ Goodnight 2025 ride, I wasn’t going to camp. January nights in Tokyo are cold, and I didn’t bring camping gear on my trip. Instead, I planned a night ride, rando-style. First, I installed the light on my Firefly.
The way I attach the light is inspired by rally cars. They need multiple lights for night stages, but don’t run with those extra lights during daytime. Rather than install all the lights individually and then aim them correctly, the lights are grouped in a pod that’s installed as a unit, all at once. I read that some rally cars even have two front hoods: one without lights, one with the lights already installed. I like that idea, and so I found a similar way to ‘pre-install’ the light on my Firefly.
Bikes obviously don’t have a hood, so I permanently installed the light on the front rack, wiring and all. The UD-1 rack goes on with just three nuts. It takes all of 60 seconds to install, and the light is secure and already oriented correctly. I plug the light wire into the generator hub—which is always on the bike—and I’m ready for my night ride. I use the rack for all night rides, even when I’m not carrying a big handlebar bag (as on this ride). It’s simply the most convenient way to mount the light.
I headed out at sunset. Seeing the sun set behind Mount Fuji—all the way on the other side of the immense Kanto plain—is always special, especially knowing that it’s 130 km (80 miles) distant.
I missed the actual sunset by a few minutes, but the red sky did not disappoint. ‘Fuji-san,’ as the Japanese reverently call their biggest volcano, is usually hidden in hazy sky and appears only at sunset.
It’s always exciting to ride at night. I feels like a child suddenly being told they can get a bunch of cookies from the jar—like I’m suddenly allowed to do something that usually is forbidden. It’s a giddy feeling…
The cold air brings me back to reality. The sun has just set, and it’s already around freezing. I’m wearing three layers of wool—two woolen undershirts under my Merino jersey— plus wool tights over my bibs, but that isn’t quite enough. I hope I’ll warm up as I pedal, but quickly realize that’s not going to happen. My hands get cold, a clear sign that not enough blood circulation is arriving from my core.
I stop briefly to put on my rainshell, wishing I had done it sooner. That helps, and once my hands warm up again (somewhat painfully), I’m comfortable as long as I keep pedaling. Fortunately, the route along the river is flat—no uphills to get me sweaty, no downhills to chill me. Well, it’s slightly uphill (or better: upriver) on the way out, slightly down on the way back.
For me, good lights are essential for the enjoyment of night rides. I’ve written much about the Edelux and its layered beam—which works like a car headlight, illuminating the road ahead evenly. With simpler round beams, there’s a bright spot right in front of the bike, and only little light arrives in the distance.
After I pass a current construction site on top of the levee, I drop down onto the gravel next to the river. There isn’t much opportunity to ride on gravel at night in Seattle, and I (almost) forget how much I love it!
Gravel is always immersive: Scanning the surface ahead not just for rocks, but also undulations that require intuitive unweighing of the bike and slight adjustments to the pedal stroke. Putting down power on gravel is an art.
There’s always a little slip at the tire/road interface. It reminds me of telemark skiing. A skier friend had a T-Shirt that read: “Free your heel, and your mind will follow.” Maybe we should make T-shirts: “Free your tires, and your mind will follow.”
Night rides are also great for R&D. We’ve spent much time and effort on fine-tuning the position of our headlights. Mounting them low renders surface irregularities more visible, thanks to shadows created by the different angles of light beam and sightline. In the photo above, you can see the shadows in the grooves that I’m about to run over, making them as visible as they’d be in daytime.
However, the light shouldn’t be so low that the front tire casts a shadow onto the road surface during curves—which would have you turn into the dark. That’s especially important when you run wide tires that cast a huge shadow. As you can see above, the tire shadow is off to the right side, in exactly the same spot where the beam naturally ends on the left. That means the shadow of the tire doesn’t impact how well I can see when turning.
The gravel road ends where the Edo and Tone River diverge. Yes, that’s right, the Tone River diverts part of the waters of the Edo River around the Tokyo area to reduce the risk of floods. I’m still in the Tokyo metropolitan area, there’s some ambient light, and cars travel on the bridge ahead even late at night. Even so, I feel like I am in the middle of nowhere. Since I started my ride hours ago, I haven’t seen a single person. When I look up, I see the moon and stars overhead.
The valve of my waterbottle hasn’t been working for a while, and when I unscrew the lid to take a drink, I realize why: My water has turned to frozen slush, even though I added electrolytes, and the gravel road has been shaking the bottle vigorously. I’m warm enough that the icy water tastes great.
There’s an old shogun castle here—or better a replica of an old castle, since the original was destroyed by the emperor when the crown consolidated its power 150 years ago. It’s completely dark, but I stop in its shadow to eat an onigiri rice ball that Natsuko’s mom has made for me. Fueling is essential during long, cold rides. Then I head back, now aided by the downriver gradient and a light tailwind. It’s too cold and dark to take photos, so I focus on the act of riding. Riding at night is different. I’m immersed in the landscape, I feel the downhill and the wind, I smell the river, but I don’t see much except the road ahead. It’s a nice change from the visual experience of daytime rides.
It’s past midnight when I return. It’s been fun!
Head to Bikepacking.com to see other Goodnight 2025 adventures: