Day 2 Ride out of Incheon

I was mostly dozing in and out of sleep all night and by 3:00am I was just watching YouTube to kill time. I found a pretty cool YouTube video of a clip this guy made of the Incheon to Busan ride he did...he is pretty hardcore, one of those super budget travelers that rode it with a used bike and sandals. Here is the video if you want to watch it for amusement.

Around 5:00am I was moving around and looking for things to do...I ate a sandwich and then headed down to the train departure area and got some instant coffee there as well to kill time. I watched a monk next to me drinking instant coffee as well while eating food out of a bag tucked into his tote bag. I also exchanged $400 to 415,460 won for the trip. I figured I could always exchange more money later and I also had my credit card with me that doesn't charge foreign transaction fees.

We had made plans to meet at 10:00am at the start line of the course so I made my way to the All Stop Train platform around 6:00am. The ticket machines are very user friendly and so I had no issues at all. Chognea Int'l City is the stop you want to get off at to reach the starting line. It was a bit overcast as I made my way to the outside of the station. I bought some bread at the bakery in the station, it was a small station located in an industrial part of town. The bike assembly took a bit longer than I imagined but it went smooth minus the derailleur hangar bolt which was stripped. I tightened it down as much as I can and figured I would be gentle with it until I could fix it. I rode to the starting line at Ara West Sea Lock to wait for Tori and Sally. There were many people out riding as it was a holiday in Korea. The cycling scene is pretty popular here, and for some reason MTB seemed to outnumber the road bikes...maybe because they are cheaper?

Tori and Sally arrived a little after 10:00am and we exchanged greetings. We went to the inside of the center there to buy our cycling passports so that we could collect the stamps for the ride. We took the usual pictures, got our first stamp in the passport and then we were off! The cycling path is very well marked and easy to follow. We ran into more cyclists and people as we rode more into Seoul following the river path. It seemed like everyone from Seoul was out and about enjoying their day off. Parking lots were full of cars and the parks and exercise areas were full as well. There were pretty big outdoor rock climbing walls as well which was impressive. There were also outdoor stalls selling bicycle stuff and food, I stopped at one of them to see if they had a bolt for my derailleur hangar. The guy was smashed and couldn't help but told me to go further down the road. Sure enough, we ran into more street vendors fixing bikes and I was able to find a quiet no nonsense old man who fixed it for 10,000 won. It was mostly flat easy riding minus the bridges we had to cross; then we had to ride or push our bikes up and over the bridge to the other side.

We had trouble finding one of the stamps near Yeouido Park and we killed time going back and forth through a busy section of the route, but it was further away then where the map showed it to be...I really did not want to miss a stamp so early in the ride so it was a good feeling to find it. Sally also got some fried chicken as a snack here and it also started to rain a bit in the afternoon.

As we rode on it got worse and we were soaked. Stupid me didn't bring a rain jacket so I was drenched. Right around Ttukseom we decided to get some coffee at a spot in town and with the free wifi we scouted out a guesthouse nearby called Michael Scott BNB. We caught him just as he was about to leave and we had a place to stay for the night. Michael was a nice guy and told us that he owns 2 guest houses in Seoul. It was 31,000 won a person. Shower felt great and we warmed ourselves up. For dinner, we went to a restaurant right around the corner that Michael recommended and it was amazing! Luckily Michael ordered everything for us because there was no English menu. We got kimchi hot pot, soon tofu hot pot and marinated pork all for 27,000 won. What a deal! As we headed back to the guest house we got sleepy and got a good nights rest for the ride out of Seoul tomorrow.