Long Term Road Test -- Japanese Punctureless Tire Tube

There was an era, back in the 1960s and early 70s, when American cars had a very short lifespan.  The manufacturers did not mind -- in fact, they wanted it this way, since customers would want to buy a new car every 2 or 3 years.  Planned obsolescence.

The only problem with this strategy was that American cars got a reputation for being very poorly made.   Japanese cars won a place in the U.S. market because they lasted a long time.  A Toyota, Nissan or Honda would run trouble free for a decade or more.  The Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla with over 100,000 miles and 10 years was a standard "graduate student" or even "junior faculty" car at many U.S. universities.  U.S. manufacturers eventually got the message, and their quality improved, eventually closing in on the Japanese manufacturers.  Today, the average car on the road in the U.S.A. is something like 11 years old -- the oldest ever.  Even as population increases, the U.S. does not need as many new cars each year.  Little wonder that GM and Chrysler needed bail-outs back in 2009.

The same thing is happening around the world with light bulbs.  We used to have incandescent bulbs that lasted maybe 1000 hours on average and consumed 60 watts.  Now we have LED bulbs that last 50 times as long, and consume 10% the wattage for the same brightness.  Yes, LEDs are much more expensive, but it is nice to put one in a light socket and know that it should last as long as I am in my house.  Without any light bulb changes, it is only a matter of time before the end of light bulb jokes.

Could the tire tube be about to undergo a similar transformation?

After my speech in May 2011 to the bicycle usage promotion study group run by Shigeki Kobayashi, a Chiba-based inventor named Suzuki-san came up and started to tell me about his latest award-winning invention -- a tire tube that is nearly puncture proof (well, he markets it as "very difficult to puncture" -- not wanting to overstate his claim).

I was pleasantly surprised to receive, a week or two later, a package in the mail with a gift of two of his patented, award winning Isshin Tasuke tire tubes, plus some explanatory material.  

The tubes felt heavy -- they weigh around 250 grams, as opposed to 90 for a regular Vittoria 18-25x700 road bike tube.  I was not sure I would want to use them.  And I am not sure you want to hear about them either -- tubes are not the most exciting piece of equipment on a bicycle.

The 一新助け(Isshin Tasuke) Tube weighs 247 grams

A Vittoria standard road tube weighs 91 grams.

But the next time I changed to a new a tire on my Bianchi (commuting bike) rear wheel, in June 2011, I tried out one of Suzuki-san's tubes.

I recently changed a threadbare rear tire on the Bianchi for the second time since then.  I put the same Isshin Tasuke tube right back in this third tire.  No flats for almost 18 months of mostly urban riding.  

True, I have not used the Bianchi as much this year as in 2010 and 2011 -- less daily commuting, and more urban riding on the Yamabushi this fall.  But still, no tube punctures in what must be thousands of kilometers, through the entire life of 2 normal road bike tires (both Vittoria -- supple, light, good grip, and high TPI, but nothing extraordinary in terms of puncture protection).

I have never understood the explanatory material that Suzuki-san provided.  Either a lack of Japanese or of technical knowledge.  The tubes have some kind of little loose granular items inside.  You can hear these rolling on the inside as you spin up at the start of a ride ... but they are silent once you have been riding for a minute, and do not seem to cause a noticeable change in rolling resistance.  Yes, the tubes are heavy, not recommended for a hill climb race, but the road feel is acceptable, and for normal riding the convenience certainly more than compensates for the additional weight.

After 18 months, the loose granular substance seems to be forming into lumps on one side of the tube, but it is certainly still useable.  I plan to ride it until it finally punctures.

I just put the second tube from Suzuki-san on the rear wheel of the Yamabushi.  If all goes well, I will use this rear wheel, with the new road disk brake/carbon clincher front wheel, on a 400km brevet in mid January around the Seto Nai Kai.  It will be a bit different than the usual road bike setup, but it is not a hilly course, and it will be worth it if I can avoid changing even one or two flats while out riding in the cold this winter.

Is this a better approach than the Air Protect Max goop that Hutchinson makes, or the Stan's No Tubes sealant, for insertion into a tire?  I do not know.   The sealants add around 100 grams of weight to the tire, if properly used -- not much different than the Isshin Tasuke approach.  I tried the Hutchinson goop a few times on my road tubeless tires 4 or 5 years back, ... and it seemed to end up oozing out under the tire bead and hardening on the back of the seat tube, where needless to say it did not serve its purpose.  Others like the sealants -- David and Juliane used them in the 2011 Transalp in their tubulars, and made it through the week without a flat.

You can order the Isshin Tasuke tubes (Japanese language only) online at 

http://tasuke.ocnk.net/product-list/4

or via fax at 04-7132-2415.

They are not cheap -- at 2850 yen for a road bike version.  Then again, if they last as long as 5 or even 10 regular tubes and save you from all those flat tire incidents, they are not expensive either.  The same concept as the LED light.

What a pain!

It is now three months since I last touched my bikes. As I reported previously (http://positivo-espresso.blogspot.com/2011/10/three-years.html) strong back pain has changed my life in an unexpected way. Here is the full story of what has happened and what I have done about it.

The morning after an exceptionally hard ride in mid August (http://connect.garmin.com/activity/106388342 and http://vlaamsewielrenner.blogspot.com/2011/08/manfred-von-rindomeisteradded-two-new.html), I woke up with a slight but persistent pain in my lower back. I thought I must have slept particularly deep after such an exhausting ride, and my muscles must have relaxed so much that a disk had slipped a bit. This happened to me on occasions many years ago, and the pain always disappeared after some days or weeks.

Alas, this was not the case this time. Worse, I noticed that on subsequent rides my usual back pain while riding got worse, requiring me to take more frequent breaks to relax my back. A longer ride in Austria (http://connect.garmin.com/activity/113853004) was particularly painful and I remember being happy that I was back in the hotel after what was a mere 160km and not even 2,000m of climbing - laughable by my standards. The much harder aluminium bike I ride in Germany and Austria was not kind on my back, even on well paved roads.

I managed to complete four more really tough rides back in Japan, despite the pain. My last ride on 1 October was a rather easy one, except for the fact that I did Jinba-san partly by bike, partly pushing my bike, to the utter surprise of all hikers.

At some point during the first week of October, the back pain increased significantly, and it became worse every day. It was so bad that I knew immediately something was really wrong and I had to get an MRI done. I went to the closest orthopaedic clinic with an MRI, and after a short negotiation I was indeed able to get the MRI done right away.

The doctor glanced at the images on his screen for a few seconds, mumbled hernia and said this was to be expected with age and would happen more and more often.

The MRI image indeed showed some protrusion of two disks, similar to what I had ten years ago. Only back then the pain had developed more slowly over time, and was of a more bearable nature.

He prescribed me a few days worth of Mohrus (ketoprofen) tape and handed me a few leaflets explaining how to do exercises to strengthen my back muscles once I'm better. In the meantime, he wanted me to come back every few days for "rehabilitation" exercises, i.e. electric treatment, massage etc.

Tape and electric treatment helped a bit, but not for long. The following week the pain kept increasing to unbearable levels. Always the left side of the back and right down to the left knee. The pain became so strong I could no longer walk properly.

I went back to the doctor, several times. I got his favorite NSAID pain killer (Loxonin = loxoprofen), more tape, more electric treatments. He refused to give me PPIs to protect my stomach as he claimed the insurance claims bureau would reject reimbursement and would even blacklist him for all his claims (a totally absurd claim, but one that is made frequently by Japanese orthopaedists who stopped learning anything new about their field 20 or more years ago). I had to take my own omeprazole pills which I had bought in the US over the counter, just in case.

Overall, he showed little sympathy with me for my pain, belittling it as normal. When I asked for an epidural injection, he claimed I was not in the right condition for such a treatment. Another absurd claim, which only proved he was both clueless and wanted to avoid doing anything that would take more than 30 seconds of his time or refer me to another doctor and thus lose me as a source of income.

On another day of intense pain that kept me away from sitting down and mustering enough concentration for work, I had enough and went to another orthopaedist close to my office. He was a lot more understanding and willing to take the time to discuss treatment options and prescribe a couple of different pain killers for me to try out, each in sufficient quantity so I did not have to come back just 2-3 days later. I had no difficulty getting a PPI (lanzoprazole) prescribed either. He also offered to do an epidural injection, though ideally only a few days later at his own practice (he was working only one afternoon at the clinic I had chosen).

I tried out Lyrica but it made me feel so bad that I had to stop taking it after just two doses. I was back on a combination of two ketoprofen or loxoprofen patches per day, combined with Celecox (celecoxib) and lanzoprazole. Eventually, I managed to convince him to write his very first script for Nexium, the most effective PPI which had launched only a few weeks earlier in Japan (many years after the rest of the world).

In the meantime, I had contacted an uncle of mine in Germany who himself is a hospital-based orthopaedist specialising on the lower back (what luck!). He had already advised me ten years ago on my first bout of hernia. I sent him the MRI and X-ray images which I had bought of the clinic and eventually managed to speak to him by phone. He had uploaded the images into their hospital system and was impressed by their quality.

He quite categorically denied that I had hernia. Some protrusion was normal for one third of people of my age and my type of pain did not fit the pain caused by a disk pushing onto the spinal nerve. (And indeed, it was very different from what I had experienced ten years ago.)

Instead, he suggested that one or two disks may have ruptured. Not only did my pain symptoms point to discogenic pain, but the images also showed so-called high-intensity zones (HIZs) at the edge of two of the disks, and these are normally an indication of rupture.

Normally, disks do not contain nerves, so a rapture should not be felt. In my case, nerves may have grown into the disk(s) - perhaps because of the frequent and prolonged pressure to which they were subjected when I was riding road bikes?

The left-hand image shows a HIZ at the left side of disk L4/5. This would fit the fact that I have strong pain on the left side of my back, going down into my leg, but not beyond the knee.

The second image here shows a HIZ at the back-side of the L3/4 disk. This led at least me to hypothesise that this was the disk that ruptured already in August.

My uncle suggested I should get three epidural injections, sequenced a few days apart. This might both help me to alleviate the strong pain, and also serve as a further diagnostic tool.

I had these done at the second doctor. In case of hernia, injecting a combination of a local anaesthetic (10ml 5% Xylocaine = lidocaine) and a cortisone = steroid (3.3ml dexamethasone) works wonders. The anaesthetic takes away the pain right away, and the steroid takes away the inflammation which may then give pain relief for many weeks or even months.

In my case, initially nothing happened other the skin around my bottom becoming slightly numb. The pain persisted unabated. A few hours later the steroid started working, on my entire body. The back pain went down to much more bearable levels, but I also experienced the typical side effects of too much adrenaline, just like after a very long bike ride: headache, dryness, racing heart etc.

The doctor was puzzled by this, but to me it was already clear that these injections could not have a better effect, as the epidural channel was not connected to the real source of the pain: a raptured disk.

I went back for the second and third injections because they provided still some relief and my uncle had suggested to be persistent. By the third injection, however, I felt rather tense about these injections as they were somewhat painful without the use of a local anaesthetic and dangerous without proper anti-sceptic cleaning of my lower back (an infection in the spine would be disastrous). This probably caused the doctor to pass the needle into my bone rather than the epidural channel and I continued to feel the pain from this mistake for many weeks.

By this time, I had agreed with my uncle what the next steps should be. He said I should get discography done to confirm the hypothesis about the disk raptures and confirm which of the two disks was the real problem.

Discography is nicely described in this short video: http://www.spine-health.com/video/discography-video-non-surgical-back-pain-diagnostic-procedure. This intervention helps to identify which disc, if any, is causing the pain, and why.

If these interventions then confirmed the hypothesis, I should undergo intradiscal electrothermal annuloplasty = IDET, described nicely here: http://www.spine-health.com/video/idet-interactive-video. By literally boiling the painful disc, nerves that have grown into the disc are meant to be destroyed and proteins of the disc are meant to be changed which in turn should lead to some kind of regeneration of the disc. Nobody seems to know how this actually works - but in about half of the cases it is effective.

I asked the Japanese doctor what about doing discography. He reluctantly admitted that was a possibility, but said it would require me going to a hospital and they would then likely want to put me under the knife which he thought was the wrong answer.

Rather than taking more chances and arguing my way through Japanese medicine, I decided it was much easier to put myself into the good care of my uncle - or rather his boss, the medical director of a hospital division specializing in "conservative and operative spinal therapy", as my uncle didn't want to take responsibility for treating relatives and friends.

After some back and forth on the dates and me having to cancel some professional commitments, I flew to Germany in mid November. My uncle and aunt took good care of me and until the actual hospitalization, I stayed two nights with them.

I spent the first morning getting checked up and signed into the hospital, and prepaying for the interventions to come. I received a lot of attention and everybody was exceedingly nice to me - quite a difference from visiting a hospital in Japan where everything works like in a factory (for better and worse). The afternoon I was free to do some sightseeing in this beautiful town of Germany which I had never properly visited before.

The next morning my uncle drove me into the hospital for a 6:30am start. The medical director came by for a quick check-in. This was the first time for me to meet him - up to then my uncle and other younger doctors had done all the preparations. Shortly after 7:00am I was being rolled into the operating room.

It took at least half an hour to get the room prepared (so much again for German efficiency!) - plenty of time for me lying on the operating table to chat with the nurses about my past life as a paramedic. I was nervous - pulse at 80, blood pressure at 140, despite the early hour. Still nothing as nervous as at the start of a cycling race when my pulse was typically at 100! I remembered to ask for a protective cover for my lower parts. Lots of x-rays would be taken during the intervention to help guide the needles being inserted into my disks.

The medical director started injecting a local anaesthetic into my right side of my lower back. Soon after he pushed the pretty thick needle through my skin. Actually, it isn't even a needle - there is no sharp tip, so it took some force to push it through my skin. From then on, he went subsequently deeper through many layers of tissue (8cm in total) to finally reach the first disk. The deeper he got, the more I would feel the advancing needle. Penetrating the disk took some force and was associated with quite some pain - itself an indication that the disk was not without issues.

Next he started pushing contrast media into the disk. If this disk was the cause of my pains, building up pressure inside the disk this way should produce the same pain I normally experience. Alas it did not. Only when 1.5ml was injected did I feel some pain - but not the same pain I normally have.

Needle out and a new needle into the next disk. He deliberately did not tell me in which sequence he was doing the disks as to avoid biasing my perceptions. However, I had already guessed he would have started with the lower of the two and now noticed that the next penetration was higher up. He had to admit defeat :)

Same procedure again, only this time it was harder to reach the disk and also to penetrate it. Not a great

feeling having someone basically poke a knife twice into your back!

Now only 0.7ml of contrast media already produced a lot of pain - though not really the same pain going into my leg that I normally experience. This led him to conclude that proceeding to the next intervention (IDET) was not indicated. He counselled that IDET was an irriversible procedure and he would recommend it only if discography had produced clearer results.

That was in some sense still a disappointment, because I had hoped for some kind of intervention that would finally stop this immense pain!

As with the previous disk, he completed the procedure by injecting a bit of a local anaesthetic into the disk, which would give me amazing relief from all the back pain for the next 16 hours or so (and thus also helped to reconfirm the source of my trouble).

I spent one night in the hospital recovering from the intervention which had swollen my back quite a bit - but took only half a day to disappear again.

The next morning, before leaving the hospital to spend the weekend with my parents, he gave me an epidural injection. Unlike in Japan, this one was masterly placed into the epidural channel just between my bad disks, local anaesthetic and proper disinfection included, done by the medical director without any assistance.

Alas, the effect was no different from the injections in Japan: no immediate relief, and only modest relief from the cortisone over the weekend.

The medical director and my uncle got together over the weekend to discuss my case. For some reason, the medical director hadn't remembered that all my pain was on the left side. When he realised it, all the pieces fell into place. The above X-ray images of the discography show that while the contrast media stayed inside the L3/4 disk, it escaped to the left from L4/5, indicating a completely ruptured disk. Moreover, as a result of the leak, it was not possible to build up the pressure needed to produce my normal back pain, so this explained the initially negative finding.

When I called my uncle Monday morning, he said I should come quickly for an IDET intervention, and not another epidural injection as initially planned.

I was in my hospital bed at 11am, awaiting to be pushed into the OP momentarily, but it eventually took another three hours and a short visit from the medical director before I was really there.

Similar setup as last time - only that I forgot to ask for the X-ray projection until it was too late!

Once again, the needle was inserted into my back and into my L4/5 disk. The first attempt to place the thermal catheder failed as it landed it the wrong place inside the disk (see the first image on the left). Pushing it in and pulling it out was no fun - a very peculiar pain inside my disk which I have never experienced before and hope to never experience again.

In the second attempt, the catheder reached the left-side of the disk. Now temperature was put onto the catheder, in steps up to 85 degrees. The disk became increasingly painful. I agreed to endure for as long as was necessary to achieve a good outcome. When it was over and I looked up, the timer showed 6:53 minutes.

The heat-related pain did not disappear after the catheder was gone, though injecting another round of local anaesthetic at least killed the normal back pain for the next 16 hours. During that time, the heat pain started subsiding, though not disappearing completely. That took another few weeks.

In the first few days after the intervention, I felt remarkably good, except for short bouts of minor heat pain in the disk. However, almost as

soon as I was back in Japan, did the back pain become stronger again. What a disappointment!

Fortunately it is not at the level it was before the intervention, which was truly unbearable. But it is not at a level at which I can be happy, and I am still dependent on taking NSAIDs every day because without them the pain swells back to bad levels.

The prospect of no more improvement makes me wonder what my future will look like: drug dependent until the rest of my life? Not a good prospect, considering the long-term side effects NSAIDs have (chance of earlier death), not even considering the prospect of never getting back onto a bike.

My uncle still thinks I may improve in a few months' time. And in the worst case? Well, he hasn't seen old people with discogenic pain - i.e. maybe I'm finally pain free in 20 years or so...

After six weeks of mandatory rest from exercise, I have started a careful programme of back exercises and walking/hiking. Let's see what this will bring - at a minimum some positive feelings!

* * *

Some final thoughts. Why did this happen to me? Did I overdo the cycling? No doctor wants to confirm, the logic being that many people cycle at least as hard as I did and they don't have their disks rupture, and most people with ruptured disks are not cyclists. Personally I still think that all the strains on my back while riding up to 13 hours a day leaning my body forward must have at least contributed to the problem. The back pain while riding was a warning sign, but as it always disappeared as soon as I got off the bike, I did not take it seriously - it was merely a big annoyance.

Was it perhaps the position on my bikes which was wrong? This is another possibility, as I preferred to sit relatively high and lean forward as much as possible, to gain leverage in my legs and be aerodynamic. To do what I did this felt perfect - except for the back pain. I did experiment with a somewhat lower saddle height, but this did not reduce the pain while riding, and when too low went into my knees. So I am not sure my fitting was poor. If I ever get into the position of riding again, I will of course have a proper bike fit done, just to be safe.

Cold Valley

The cold sky lightens, 6:30AM December 30, on the cold Chuo Line
back from cold Otsuki, as we approach cold Uenohara

For at least the past month, Jerome has been talking about a "repeat" of last year's attempt to complete that most difficult of winter ultra-endurance cycling events, the "inland mountain route" from Tokyo to Kobe on the last two days of the year, arriving just in time to join the Beeren Club for a ride up the route to sacred Mt. Rokko ("Rokko-san") for the ritual viewing of the first sunrise of the New Year (the "Hinode").

Your humble correspondent joined the first leg of the trip last year, as far as snowy Lake Suwa in Nagano Prefecture (host to the 1998 WINTER Olympics) ... then hopped a train home.  This year, with my older son back in Tokyo from university for a very short of visit, I told Jerome that I could not join him.

On a family overnight trip to Izu this Monday/Tuesday, our shinkansen train was delayed in both directions, because of snow on the tracks between Maebara and Nagoya.  I fired off an email to Jerome -- if there was snow on the relatively low-lying outskirts of Kansai around Maebara, what would the mountain valleys and passes be like Northeast of there?  Surely, only the most courageous (or foolish) cyclist would even try to find out.

On Thursday morning Jerome called.  "You know, the weather has become much warmer and has been dry since Monday, I've been watching the forecast and I think I should be able to do it."  True, it was noticeably warmer in Tokyo on Thursday (low of 4 degrees C, high of 11, according to my morning newspaper), and if this trend held then it would be much better than what we experienced last year.  Jerome said he wanted to get an earlier start than last year, 2AM, so he could be in the Kiso Valley (or over Kamikochi ... madness in trying that route) early in the afternoon.

I hated to see him try this alone, and also wanted a good test of my new dynamo lighting setup, so told him that I might join the first leg -- just the ride out of Tokyo in the dark, assuming I could make it out of the office at a decent hour on the last day of the year, get my bike ready, get some sleep, and manage to stumble out of bed in time for a 2AM start.  No need to wait or call if I was not out front and ready to go.

I awoke at 1:45AM after only a few hours of sleep.  Tired.  We were on the way from my house before 2:15.  The weather was not so cold in Tokyo, but he mentioned that Yazaki-san, the dean of the Beeren Club, had told him it was snowing in Nagano on Thursday.  Jerome had given up the idea of Kamikochi passage, and was instead aiming for Nakasendo through the Kiso Valley.  This should have sent me right back to bed.

The first leg was uneventful, other than a gradually increasing headwind.  The Shimano dynamo hub and Phillips Saferide LED worked beautifully.  We took Yaen-Kaido, then Machida-Kaido and the south side of Lake Tsuikui, joining Route 20 (Koshu Kaido) just over the hill west of Takao.  This route is almost exactly the same distance as going via Takao, but avoids one climb of several hundred meters, in exchange for a few shorter climbs.  Neither route has any significant traffic between 2AM and 4AM!

It was just as we passed Tsukui-ko that the weather started to get really cold.  At a tunnel before the bridge over the lake, the temperature gauge said it was minus 3 degrees C -- and we had not even started the long climb inland up the valley to Sasago.  Rock sand had been spread on the bridge to prevent black ice.  We made our first convenience store stop at a 7-11 just over 50 kms into the ride.  Even Jerome put on some shoe covers, though he did not yet avail himself of a jacket.

According to Garmin Connect, the AVERAGE temperature for the entire 80km ride was -2.8 degrees C (or 26.9 degrees F) -- and that includes a first 20 km that was mostly well above zero degrees C (or 32 degrees F).  Between 4 and 6AM, on the ride out to Otsuki, it must have been -4 or -5 degrees.  My water bottles were frozen within minutes of the 7-11 refill, even though I had added hot water from the convenience store's thermos.

At least my feet were warm.  I had used a combination of thin wool socks, shoe liners, Gore windstopper/felt-lined overshoes, and "kairo" mini chemical warmers, and this managed to barely keep the cold at bay from my toes.  But I had not planned on real sub-zero temperatures.  After the first rest stop, as I shivered through a few short downhills before my engine heated up again, I thought my face would turn to ice and fall off.  My Sugoi-brand head covering, usually just fine for Kanto mid-winter rides, was inadequate.  And even my Nalini winter tights, Assos winter jacket and Craft inner layer with "windstopper" front panel were too thin.  I bid Jerome farewell at Otsuki, around 5:45AM -- I would have slowed him down significantly if I continued.  I sought refuge in a convenience store by Otsuki Station.  My skin was very cold to the touch, not just on my extremities.

I hopped the 6:17AM train back toward Takao, then on to Tachikawa, then the Nambu Line to Musashi Mizunoguchi.  Each of these three was a local train, so the doors opened every 2-3 minutes on average.  I would just start to warm up from a weak heater under the seat when the train car's 8 double doors would open, admitting blasts of cold air and returning the car to sub-zero.  It was a cold 2-hour ride home.  Only on the last train, from Musashi Mizunoguchi to Kaminoge, did I finally feel at all warm.  Then a hot bath and sleep.

I got an email note that Jerome made it to Kofu by 7:30AM ... but hit strong, gusty headwinds thereafter.  He eventually turned around on the climb past Nirasaki, to return to Nirasaki station and get a train for Shiojiri, the entrance to Nakasendo/Kiso Valley.  Did the weather actually get better as he headed by train further inland, to the NW, and to a higher elevation?  I doubt it.  Did he have the sense to stay on a train through Nakasendo and to Gifu, where he was planning to stay with friends?  I hope so.  Stay tuned.

Update, Evening of December 30:  Jerome reports that he remounted the bike at Shiojiri and made it through the Kiso Valley, suffering continually in (cold) headwinds, and arrived at his friends' place in Gifu Prefecture.  He was completely knackered (if I've got that Brit expression right) and suggested he might try to find a less mountainous route for day #2 of his ride. At least the weather forecast for Nagoya/Osaka area looks dry, partly sunny, and low/high temperatures of 1 and 10 degrees C respectively, so this bodes well for his chances.

Update, New Year's Day:  I received a call from Jerome just after midnight, reporting that he was approaching Rokko-san and Kobe, and another note this morning that he had made it successfully.  He departed at 10AM on the 31st from SE Gifu and rode hard, via the North side of Lake Biwa and the Japan Sea (the city of Obama), then over some (icy) mountain roads into Kyoto-fu and on to Kobe.  The weather cooperated on the 31st.  The hardest part was the headwinds and cold after Kofu, in the hours after we parted ways on the morning of the 30th.

Chesini Storm Trooper

New bike for my son Henri.
Almost ready. Will replace his wonderful size 52 green Giant bike. HIs is now almost as tall as I am. As a front derailleur ist just a waste of money and additional weight in Bremen I connected instead a storm bell to the left STI lever. Always wanted to have one when I was a boy.

It works wonderful, when you shift the bell starts to become very noisy. This one commands respect on the streets of Bremen.

Union Fixie

Just completed yesterday the built-up for my first fixie, just in time for a test ride on the weekend. Red theme on a blue basis.

More photos here.

In September I bought an old Union frame from the Seventies at a very good price, an opportunity too good to be missed. As nevertheless I didn't want to spend too much money I thought that a fixie would be a nice and inexpensive project. As usual the right parts accumulated slowly over the course of time. I had no previous experience with a fixie drive train so I had to ask some experts for help and naturally I also made some stupid mistakes. Note in case you don't know: Track bike cogs and BMX cogs have different thread diameters.

Union used to be a large Dutch bicycle manufacturer in the same class as Gazelle, Batavus and Sparta. The company is defunct now, but they made mainly Dutch shopping bikes just as their competitors. Tom probably knows precisely what I am talking about. For marketing and image reasons Union sponsored a racing team in the Seventies. But as they were not able to produce racing frames by themselves, they asked Motta in Italy to weld the frames and labeled them "Union". This is the story I was told about the frame I bought.

I assembled quite a mixed bag of components. I got some mid-priced Campa Record brake levers and Campa Gran Sport brakes as well as a NOS Chorus crank from 2006. I also found some beautiful Mavic 500 hubs and Mavic clincher rims.

Again, as usual I saw some nice parts that I desperately wanted to have and which made the whole project expensive beyond reason. The red saddle is brand new, a replica of an old version and while it is still much more affordable then a carbon saddle it is still way more expensive that it should be. I also bought new hoods for the brake levers which cost about the same money as the levers itself and a NOS 3ttt Gimondi handle bar. But I just love the Gimondi handle bar shape which is a hybrid bewteen a classic racing bar and a track bar. And when I saw the red Veloflex tires at an internet shop in Toulouse I wanted to have them too. Luckily the tax return came just in time to pay everything off.

The weather was miserable today so I just took the bike to the Universum. This was the first time I rode a fixie for a longer distance. David and david gave me the chance to ride their fixies for a few meters in Tokyo but today was very much different. As could be expected I am too stupid to ride a fixie and I need a fixie training camp. So lets see if I can get used to it.

If not I am working on my new Chesini winter bike. Life has alternatives.

Yabitsu in December -- a Reminder

Mt. Fuji seen while descending the South side of Yabitsu Pass, with viewpoint/tower in foreground.

Sunday December 4 served as a reminder of what a great place Tokyo is for a road cyclist.  The weather was Spring-like (sunny and a high around 20 degrees C), and the countryside was full of cyclists.  Jerome and I were able to enjoy a spectacular ride through hills, forests, by lakes and along the seacoast, and hop a train to be home around 4PM.

120 km

We went out One-kansen, around the North side of Tsuikui-ko, over to Miyagase-ko, up to Yabitsu Pass, then down the south side and on to the coast line, which we followed back to Kamakura.  Not a particularly long or tough ride, but just spectacular.

Some road construction on the "normal route" around North side of Tsukui let us here.
Can you see Mt. Fuji in the distance -- under the wires?

The Miyagase-ko rest area was buzzing with people and their dogs, not to mention cyclists.
We met a couple, 65 yr olds, who live in Fujino and were going to ride up Yabitsu.
The husband stayed on the big ring and beat me to the top. He said they ride 13-15K km each year.

Miyagase-ko from the rest area.  Xmas lights ready on the lower left.

A river runs through it -- the lower part of the valley on the North approach to Yabitsu.

At the beach near Enoshima.  Lots of sailboats and surfers today, December 4!

Wheel No. 00001 (and dynamo hub)

Today I built my first wheel -- Shimano dynamo hub (DH-3N80), 32 DT Swiss Competition (2-1.8-2 double butted spokes), Ambrosio clincher rim.  It will not be my last.

Nice instructional DVD by Bill Mould, an Alexandria Virginia based wheelbuilder, makes it easy as 1-2-3.  One mistake in lacing required me to backtrack 5 minutes or so, but otherwise it went quite smoothly.

Moved some bike tools indoors for comfort, and so I could watch the DVD as I worked.
Note to self:  any future housing must have room for a bike shop area indoors.

... Now I just need to wait for the LED light I ordered for use with this ...

I should have gotten a truing stand, tension meter, etc. and learned how to build wheels years ago.  I suspect I would have had many fewer wheel problems if I had been prepared to maintain them properly.  Checked the tension and trued 2 other wheelsets, and replaced the bearings in the front hub of a commuting wheel as well.
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UPDATE:   I ordered a Busch + Mueller Lumotec IQ Cyo Plus LED front light, and a Philips LED SafeRide dynamo front light 60 Lux from Bike24 in Germany. They arrived Tuesday so I was able to try them in the evening.  I wish there were some darker streets near my house ...   It was easy to connect these -- removing the front brake and then using the brake bolt to hold the light's base/adapter to the frame, then winding the wire around the right fork.  The Shimano hub has a very easy to use terminal for the wires -- easy to plug in/unplug when you remove the wheel.

The B + M is smaller and lighter than the Philips.  It also was a bit cheaper (46 vs 62 Euro).  But I think I made a mistake in ordering the IQ Cyo Plus -- a model without any "senso" (automatic light detector) or a manual on/off switch.  The IQ Cyo T senso plus -- which Yan (commenter below) has -- would be a better choice.  Anyway, the B + M has a very bright "standlight" which runs from a capacitor and stays on for several minutes even when the hub is not spinning.  The main light is also quite bright -- significantly brighter than my Gentos LEDs. 

But it has an odd beam pattern, with a bright trapezoid in the middle and some weird dark spots.  This would take time to get used to it, I think.  And the model I ordered is not "switchable" -- and seems designed for a rim "bottle" dynamo where you switch it off by lifting the dynamo away from the rim of the wheel.  My error, though I could add a manual switch if I wanted to ...  A mixed verdict.

The Philips is impressive.  It is really bright (brighter than the B + M, I think, and WAY brighter than my Gentos LED lights).  It has a very smooth, even beam pattern, which projects a carpet of bright light a long way ahead onto the road as you ride, and also manages to throw a bit of light wider to the sides and onto the ground near the front of the bike -- perfect.  Also, I got the right model -- with off/on switch, and a separate cable if I want to add a rear LED as well, or connect to another device/charger.  The standlight is dimmer than the B + M, but still enough for checking a map and being visible to others.  This is consistent with the results of a tester/blogger in the Netherlands reports -- it seems comparable to the much more expensive Supernova E3 Pro or Schmidt Edelux.

The dynamo and Philips LED Saferide light are staying on my commuting fixie for the time being.

At the Kawasaki Keirin Track

With the brakes and bullhorns off, and 48x14 gearing,
my commuting fixie is a real track bike!

MOB did it at end of 2008, others have since, and now it was my turn to join Hiroshi and his Keihin Pista club for one of their sessions on the Kawasaki keirin track -- to ride the "bank".  Gunnar and Tim S. also joined for this event.  Tim mentioned that he lived in Portland at one point, and offered to provide info and intros to the cycling (and cycle racing) scene before my visit in February.

It was a great way to spend Saturday afternoon, and I look forward to another visit soon.  It took awhile to get used to riding high on the steep banked curve, but it was much easier to get to the top of the bank than I had thought it would be, since on the keirin track the approach is very gradual from the flat to the top of the bank.

There were actually people in the stands as we rode ... all of whom were just there to bet on and watch via big screen some keirin races being held elsewhere (Shizuoka, today) and maybe have some shochu.  It was great to go into the velodrome the back way, pass the large room where some of the riders were hanging out, schmoozing, training and tinkering with gear, and to emerge in the infield with music playing and an audience.

Next time I will need to remember to count the number of one lap "pulls" that I do when
we ride in a line.  Lots and lots of laps, just not sure how many.

Gunnar's track bike -- Chrome frame, chrome wheels, chrome stem and bars and post!

Hiroshi, Gunnar and Tim are #2, 3 and 4 in the line.  Tim was riding the bike Eric borrowed for Saiko --
the GS Astuto carbon frame with Ultegra DI2 electronic shifters and GS Astuto 50mm carbon tubulars.

And there they go!

Practicing my track stand (?), smiling after a try at the Flying 200m

Time flew by, it got colder, dusk neared, and it was time to go, as the facility began to shut down.

Industrial strength rollers for riders to warm up before the race.

More rollers, Hiroshi with his Nagasawa track bike,
and the entrance to the area where the keirin riders were hanging out.

Saiko 2011 - Race of Destiny

I knew it had to be a race of destiny, as the hand of God seemed to part the clouds and the sun shown down upon the start area at Saiko, as I neared the race registration on Saturday afternoon.

Mt Fuji from our lodgings.

Another year, another trip to Saiko for beautiful fall weather and foliage, a weekend at the mountain and a day full of exciting races.  Gunnar, Jerome and I stayed at the same well-outfitted, comfortable Sasuga cottage in Oishi, Kawaguchi-ko as Ludwig and I had last year, and cooked a riders' dinner of pasta, as well as sampling a number of the local products.  We could not find fresh local vegetables in November, so instead we sampled the products of a number of micro breweries, mostly dunkel (dark beer) and weizen (wheat beer).  Fujizakura Kogen; Fujiyama; and one more brewer whose name I've already forgotten.  All very nice, even the forgotten one.  I was looking for Baird Beer, since I met one of the managers there recently, but did not see any on the shelf in Kawaguchiko.

As for the results, EricinIkebukuro from TCC did well in the X-class in his first JCRC event, 14th place, with an average speed over 41 kph, and he should get a decent class placement.  I think we will see him again next year on the JCRC circuit. 

Only one "bike leaning" photo this year.

... and one "bike hanging" photo for good measure.

Gunnar, making a guest appearance for Ludwig, whose back is still giving him problem, easily hung with the B-class group for 49 out of 50 km, and was positioning himself for the final sprint ... when he got hemmed in between 2 riders, with someone cutting him off from the left and forcing him into a crash.  Fortunately, no broken bones, and it looks as if with a new derailleur hanger and some wheel truing the equipment should be fine.

Far right -  Gunnar with B class, after 2 laps, Jerome's finger pointing him out.

Broken derailleur hanger, blood on elbow -- typical race stuff, as Hiroshi looks on

Hiroshi made a good showing in 60km S-Class on his beautiful Colnago ... but was blocked by a crash in front of him within 3 km of the finish and so was not able to contest for the podium.  He passed Jerome and me driving home along Doshi michi in his very, very small car, and gave us a friendly "shave and hair cut, 2 bits" honk of his horn.

It's all good!

I enjoyed my C Class race, and managed to do well enough so I should not get bounced to D at least.  I stayed on the right/outside edge of the group the entire race, so I would be in the "lee" protected from the headwind as much as possible in the far side of the lake.  This worked well for the most part, and on the first 2 laps I was able to conserve energy and yet creep up the group so I was relatively near the front (no more then 20-30% of the way back, on the far right) when we hit the turn and the short nasty uphill 2 km from the start/goal.  Even though plenty of people passed me on the short uphill, I managed to keep in contact with the group each time and recover quickly.

Best team kit

On the last lap, on the penultimate turn on the far side of the lake, about 3 km to go, I was pretty far back in the group and went into the turn again on the far right ... but there were 2 riders directly ahead of me, and the front one slowed suddenly.  I hit my brakes to avoid barreling into the rider directly in front, and my rear wheel locked and skidded left a few inches.  Fortunately, I did not lose balance, and the 5-10 riders behind me in the group were all on my left, so no one hit me either ... but I had decelerated way too much and was off the back just as the acceleration started.  I hauled ass and caught the back of the group just before the hill, but was pretty much out of gas and lost contact again ... finishing about 100 meters behind the main bunch at an average speed of approx 40.4 kph.  I was 46th out of 60 who registered and maybe 56 who started, 52 of whom finished (or 94 out of 188 in the 3 C-class heats, measured by overall time).  This kind of racing requires repeated intense bursts of energy, and I top out far below the level it takes to do really well. 

Okay, maybe I was misled by the shaft of sunlight piercing the clouds on Saturday afternoon, and it was not a race of destiny.  But it was fun.

Jerome and I rode back to Tokyo, leaving Saiko around 3:45PM, as Gunnar would need to hop the train home with his non-functioning derailleur.  It was dark within an hour, as we passed Yamanakako. 

Only 100 km more to ride.

Days 3 and 4 - Maizuru to Hiroshima-ken

The P.E. communications base has just received the latest in a series of updates from Jerome as he continues on the road westward.  He stopped in Maizuru on Friday night in "real" lodgings, then braved the rain much of Saturday along the Japan Sea coast past Tottori and to Yonago, and headed inland from there late Saturday evening.

He eventually stopped to sleep -- in an enclosed bus stop, Brevet style.

When he consulted an elderly woman local resident this morning about the location of the next convenience store or other source of breakfast, he was invited inside her house to dine, as she took pity on a bedraggled cyclist.

He made it to Miyoshi (in Hiroshima Prefecture, but about 65 km NE of Hiroshima City), and is hopping a train to start the process of drying out and resting so as to be presentable for Monday business meetings.  Approximately 860 km in 3 1/2 days.

The route below is what was on the maps I handed to Jerome at Tsuruga.  I'm not sure if is exactly the route he took, but should be very close.

Day Two -- Shokawa to Tsuruga (and beyond?)

After a night in the comfort of the Sakaeya Ryokan in Shokawa, in deep rural Northwest Gifu, I awoke feeling at least as if at least my cold had not gotten any worse, and I could start day two on the bike without holding Jerome back, or doing myself any damage.

It was apparent from walking around the inn, and from the offer that we leave our bikes inside the front door, blocking access, that we might be the only guests.  In the morning, when she brought coffee to our room and we settled up the bill, we asked the innkeeper about the place.

So, it must be quiet now, before the ski season.  Do you get many guests in the winter?  She replied, "Hmmmm, well I guess there is a little ski area up the valley ... " [Translation: "No guests in winter"]. Well, how about in the summer then?  "It is pretty quiet around here in the summer." [Translation:  "No guests then either."] The inn was in good shape, the room we stayed in looked near new.  Finally, she volunteered, "sometimes we get a group that will stay when they play at the golf course up the road."  When was the inn built?  "This building, in 1989, ... but we have been open since the Taisho era, and are now the 3rd generation.  We used to get merchants stopping through on their travels, but ever since the expressway was built ... not many people come around here."

I guess most businesspeople take the expressway, instead of riding their bicycle to a business meeting 900 km from home ...

We left in the fog and climbed very gradually (1-2-3% grades) out of the valley less than 100 meters vertically and 8 km or so further onto a plain where we reached a small settlement - Hirugano Kogen/Takasu Cho.  There was a Daily Yamazaki convenience store, complete with benches across the front exterior, the main one occupied by a very satisfied looking cat.  The cat clearly belonged to the store, as its water and food bowls were under the bench (Jerome noted that the cat's porcelain bowl was made in France, and of a type he had once imported into Japan, in a previous job many years ago -- yet another small contribution he has made to the welfare of Japan).  The sun came out as we ate breakfast.  A younger man waiting for a shuttle bus to take him to his job at an onsen chatted us up.  When I mentioned to the older man at the cash register how calm ("otonashii") the cat seemed, he seemed genuinely glad that I had noticed and assured me that there was a second cat around that was the opposite, always hiding from customers and sneaking around.  As we mounted our bikes to ride off, two very energetic looking old ladies pulled into the parking lot in a mini-car and literally applauded and cheered when they saw two odd foreign cyclists, just heading out.

With that send-off, and the fog completely burned off, we saw that the fall colors were still vibrant, the air clear and clean, and we were on the beginnings of a very gradual 20 km descent, much of it along a river valley.  All seemed right in the world.

Hida Highway, Route 156, in Takasu

On the descent down Route 156 in Takasu

On this stretch, I saw a pension (inn) with the name "White Pecker".  At first, I could not imagine why a pension might have that name (?), then it struck me -- the bird in "shiro tori" (White Bird) must be a wood pecker, not the swan that uses the same characters but is pronounced "haku cho" instead.

Anyway, we reached Shirotori and turned to the west onto a 400m elev climb, first up a circular bridge -- the Japanese road equivalent of a spiral staircase -- and then found yet another entrance to a road tunneling through a mountain, closed to bicycles.  Instead we headed up the old road, far under a different expressway.  Again, it was a connector to the mid-air Tokai Hokuriku Expressway, closed to bicycles.

Yes, the dot way up ahead is Jerome, now in good climbing form.

Now above the highway, looking back down at White Bird, Gifu

Cresting Aburazaka Pass ... shorts and short sleeves in the mountains in November!

Then we looped back and forth and eventually were above the same ribbon of road, reached Aburazaka Pass, and began almost 50 km of gradual downhill and flat, slowed only by a headwind as passed some long reservoirs and then descended the winding gorge of the Kuzuryu River.  Neither of us knew what to expect here, and so it was a pleasant surprise that we found ourselves on a good road surface, without too much traffic, and on a cool sunny day even the reservoir was sparkling.  We were very happy to emerge from the gorge into the flat area around Echizen Ohno, out of the mountains at last and ready for lunch of "rice omelet" and side dishes.

The next segment of our trip illustrates an important rule of cycling in Japan.  Never assume just because a road is "National" instead of "Prefectural" that it will be a major route.  And never assume the "Prefectural" one will not be.  This seems especially to be the case in Fukui Prefecture.  Fukui Prefecture seems to have more funds than the National government for road construction and repair.  It is known as the "nuclear Ginza", the home to 13 nuclear power plants, the most concentrated in the world, and it looks very prosperous -- the biggest houses, largest birth weight babies, and most medical clinics per capita, also, according to an article in the most recent Businessweek.

We left Echizen Ohno and headed onto National Route 476, which seemed like the most direct road, bearing south of Fukui City -- hypotenuse instead of legs of the triangle.  Strangely, it had no traffic.  After a few kilometers we passed a "road closed" sign warning we would need to stop in 1 kilometer.  Then a climb started, into the woods and the road narrowed to a single lane -- more of a "rindo" (forest road) than a "kokudo" (national road). We came up to the road construction sight, and found this.

The hole was very deep, and there was no obvious way around on either side as far as one could see.  The helper down in the trench was using a cord to pull himself up and out of the steep bank.  The bulldozer operator took one good look at us, then a long puff of his cigarette, then said "you cannot make it on a bicycle; you will need to carry it".   It was a remarkable statement of the obvious -- no, my bike cannot ride through a 5 meter deep, 10 meter across hole!  Yet it was also incredibly bold and helpful -- no effort to turn us back. No worry about liability if we should slip and fall clambering into or out of the hole.  In fact, the helper in the trench with the cord held my bicycle so that I could lift it first and then climb out with my hands free.  After offering our thanks, we continued up National Route 476, again no traffic for the next 10+ kms, as we climbed a few hundred meters to a pass, along the ridge, then down the other side and into and through another beautiful, isolated farming valley.

Route 476 looking back at Echizen Ohno

Kokudo, not Rindo (?)

After 22 km on Route 476, we finally reached PREFECTURAL Route 2.  This looked to offer our last climb before Echizen City, again a short cut in exchange for going over a hill.  On my map, it looked to be 200-250 meters to the top.  But after a short uphill at 2-3% grade, we saw a new tunnel mouth, and the pavement inside the tunnel was tipped down away from us.  Whoosh, we zoomed through the base of the mountain and came out on the plain just to the west of Echizen City, onto Route 8 -- a major road with heavy truck traffic, but at least a decent shoulder.

South of Echizen, Route 8 is unpleasant, but difficult to avoid.  It heads Southwest over several small climbs and eventually reaches the Japan Seacoast offering a very nice view down the bay and across to the Tsuruga Peninsula, where the sun was already low in the sky.

Tsuruga Bay, Fukui

Tsuruga Peninsula, Fukui -- there is a nuclear plant just this side of the tip of the peninsula, in the dark shadow, just about 10 km from the city center, while the accident prone "Monju" proto-type fast breeder reactor is just around the corner

There were a few others at the rest area, snapping photos and admiring the view.  And we met another long distance cyclist, traveling from Komatsu, Ishikawa Prefecture, toward Osaka.  He was stretched out on a bench resting, just like we do sometimes.  And he had extra lights for night riding, large water bottle, and plenty of clothes, just like we do. 

His bike, on the other hand, was a mama-chari, and he was going at a slightly slower pace.  And he was missing a good number of teeth, and did not say anything about business meetings on Monday.

At least it was reassuring to know that we are not the only long distance cyclists in Japan.

Time to head for the train station.

I told Jerome that I had had enough, and planned to hop the train home from Tsuruga, another 20 km ahead.  Two days and 410+ km was already too much, pushing my luck with the cold.  And I would just hold him back if he wanted to press on far Friday night.

So we made good time through the traffic on Route 8 into the prosperous looking city, ate dinner at "Gusto" near the station, I gave Jerome a spare light, batteries and the complete set of photocopied maps, and we managed to attach his headlamp onto his helmet far enough back so it would not pull the helmet forward.  Fed and restocked, he headed off another 50+ km to Maizuru, where he again found real sleeping accommodations Friday evening, to continue again on Saturday.  I hopped the train back to Tokyo, and was in my house before 11PM.

Saturday I have been feeding him weather updates and mileage information.  He was in heavy rain from midday to late afternoon when he reached Tottori, but the rain seems to have let up along the Japan Sea Coast as predicted, so he decided to continue on in the direction of Yonago by bicycle on Saturday evening.  Any more detailed reports of Day 3 (or 4) will need to await his return.