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Jerome rides toward the pot of gold ... somewhere around Komae-shi
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Dear Readers
Please accept my apologies for not maintaining the blog well in 2020.
2020 has been a bit of a different year, to say the least, for many of us.
Most directly, I have been busy with non-bicycle-related life and work. Yes, there is such a thing.
I got married, though due to the pandemic we have not yet had an actual wedding celebration, and we still don't know how or when we will be able to celebrate. We were making lots of plans, all of which have been put in abeyance for a year or two due to the pandemic.
I took on a new part-time gig on the side, though I have not yet put much time into it, due to the pandemic. And despite the time savings from less travel, and fewer academic conferences, it has been a pretty busy period as a law professor, teaching new classes using new methods (online), and with a bigger entering class in our LLM program this Fall than ever before.
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Peter W. at Shomaru Pass on a glorious day
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The Tokyo Cranks at Lake Shiroyama
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Nenogongen -- praying for strong leg since 911A.D.!
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So most of my rides I have just posted on Strava with photos – often many photos – and short introductions. That seems to work better than a hurried blog post. And photos plus a GPS track give a lot of help to any would-be riders who take the trouble to look, especially given how good the photos are with an iPhone 11 pro compared to the small pocket digicam when this blog started back in 2007. If you are on Strava you can see plenty of rides (no paid account required for that).
For a while in recent years, I was posting ride-related updates on Facebook. I still do put some photos there, many Audax riders use FB … but FB does not create a long-lasting record since only Facebook’s AI can find posts from a few years ago, when the AI reminds me of a “memory” to try and keep me engaged on the site long enough to see a few more ads. I hope that someday we can all get off Facebook, before Zuckerberg gets all the money and we get a civil war. (Yes, I do note the irony of writing this on a Google-owned platform. Wouldn't it be great if Facebook, Google or Amazon would buy Strava?)
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Jerome and David at Wada Pass -- we form the traditional pose
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John K. at Matsuhime Pass. I saw a bear, a way up there, a way up there I saw a bear.
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Kai Saruhashi, one of Japan's "three unique bridges"
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I meet expat cyclists in the Tokyo area from time-to-time who tell me they really appreciate the blog – that it helped them a lot when they started riding in the area. So this blog is not going anywhere. The "routes out of town" and "20+ favorite rides" pages are still very popular resources, as are the posts on dynamo hubs, some other equipment reviews, and a few of the trip reports.
Of course, the pandemic, and Japan’s “state of emergency declaration” (remember to call it “the Declaration”, not “the Emergency”) with its soft lockdown has affected cycling as well. No activities have been unaffected. For many months we had no overnight cycling trips, no organized events, not even minimally supported Audax rides. I did not hang up my cycling shoes, but instead took only rides with one or a couple others, and minimal stops. It was a great way to get in shape and stay sane this Spring as I could get up early and take maybe 3 x 3 hour morning rides each week, with minimal traffic.
One might argue that my rides to neighboring prefectures, even day trips (県を跨ぐ移動), violated the “request” for "self-restraint" of the emergency declaration. Well, Tokyo is all a single metro area, even if comprised of several prefectures. Even a Costco run requires leaving Tokyo and entering Kanagawa Prefecture. So I don't take that seriously.
But it was definitely not good form to be too public about going on rides, nor take longer multi-day rides, during the Declaration. My university had a well-publicized incident involving a big end of year party for medical residents at the hospital, where the party turned into a cluster of Covid-19 infections and ALL the residents needed to isolate for two weeks. What a disaster from a healthcare perspective when the healthcare system is under stress and ALL the residents are out in quarantine! And I'm no spring chicken, and from my gender and blood type I know that even if I am athletic and healthy, I am probably higher than average risk for a middle-aged man were I to contract Covid-19. So I did not want to take significant risks with the coronavirus. Still, riding outside in Spring weather seemed about as low-risk as I could imagine.
Months later, I enjoyed some really nice rides in Nagano while we were out there during the summer, rented a place for a month or so in Sanadamachi -- on a hill above Ueda. I got in lots of quick morning 2-hour workouts riding up to Torii Pass or Sugadaira Kogen. But none of my rides was really long. Nothing over 100km, nor over 2500m elevation gain. No “three pass” days. And still no Audax.
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On the Venus Line in the clouds
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Audax has restarted, from September, but I was not checking the club websites regularly, I did not sign up, and, for reasons that will become apparent later in another post I want to do in the next day, I will not likely get in any Audax rides before the new Audax year starts in November/December.
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Ayu cycles Miura Peninsula
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On the road to JuFuku no Yu hotspring in early September
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