Kanichi Fujiwara is a Japanese long-distance motorcycle rider and

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

Journeys

Between May 1987 and August 1999 he journeyed several continents with a number of small motorcycles including a

Honda Super Cub The Honda Super Cub or Honda Cub is a Honda underbone motorcycle with a four-stroke single-cylinder engine ranging in displacement from . In continuous manufacture since 1958 with production surpassing 60 million in 2008, 87 million in 2014, an ...

, 50 cc Honda Motra and Honda Gorilla utility minibikes, and a

Honda Dio The Honda Dio is a scooter manufactured by Honda and was introduced in 1988. It was originally built in Japan, as a 2-stroke model until 2001. It is now assembled by Sundiro Honda Motorcycle Co., Ltd. in China. It is composed of four-stroke li ...

scooter. His 1995 trip around Japan was documented in his 1997 book ''The Original Bike Bastard Starving Around Japan''. Between March 2004 and May 2008 he made a journey circumnavigating the world on a

Yamaha Passol The Yamaha Passol is an electric scooter manufactured by Yamaha Motor Company beginning in 2002, and sold only in Japan. Weight is and claimed range . It was described as the first mass-produced electric motorcycle in Japan (the Peugeot Scoot'El ...

electric scooter, on a route including Australia from Sydney to Perth, Thailand, India to Lisbon, South Africa to Kenya, and America from New York to San Francisco (44 countries). It may have been the first global circumnavigation by electric two-wheeler. Fujiwara visited and documented the sites of

sacred tree A sacred tree is a tree which is considered to be sacred, or worthy of spiritual respect or reverence. Such trees appear throughout world history in various cultures including the ancient Greek, Hindu mythology, Celtic and Germanic mythologies. T ...

s in various countries to spread awareness of green transportation. The scooter he used in the 2004–2008 circumnavigation, sponsored by Yamaha, weighed , had a 30 km/h top speed, and an endurance of 20 km on a battery charge. Even with six batteries giving a 100 km range, his partner had to shuttle charged batteries to him in order to cross Australia's

Nullarbor Plain The Nullarbor Plain ( ; Latin: feminine of , 'no', and , 'tree') is part of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi-arid country of southern Australia, located on the Great Australian Bight coast with the Great Victoria Desert to its ...

. Between April 2009 and November 2013, he rode 100,000 kilometers across Japan's major highways on a 50 cc Honda Cub, sponsored by motorcycle apparel supplier Rough & Road, and supported by serializing his journeys in the Japanese magazine ''Tandem Style'' and on his own blog.

Online journalism

In addition to various blogs covering his motorcycle travels, Fujiwara is also a

food critic The terms food critic, food writer, and restaurant critic can all be used to describe a writer who analyzes food or restaurants and then publishes the results of their findings. While these terms are not strictly synonymous they are often used int ...

. His "Tabigohan" column covers

road food Road food is a cuisine concerning food prepared especially for hungry travelers who arrive by road. Most road food establishments are casual dining restaurants. American road food is associated with "comfort food" such as hamburgers, hot dogs, fri ...

at roadside stations and other Japanese venues for BBB-Bike, an online publication of large Japanese auction house BDS.

Bibliography

Notes and references

Notes

References

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External links

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Long distance rides
at World Touring Network—Japan Long-distance motorcycle riders Motorcycle touring writers Japanese motorsport people People from Iwate Prefecture 1961 births Living people Japanese food writers {{Improve categories, date=August 2021