Tsukuba Eight Hours Endurance Race Spring Edition

I received an invitation today for the Spring Endurance Race in Tsukuba. The race is held on the Tsukuba car racing track, basically a flat 2.045 km round course, on May 3rd (public holiday) between 10.00 and 18.00 hr. I have attended the race three times; actually it has been the first race ever I attended in 2003 with Veloz, then in 2006 with David, david and Cycling Jane and last year with Alain, Jerome, Olivier, Augustine and Leonard (the two kids of Jerome) as the legendary six rider strong three rider team. This is a nice "training race", good atmosphere, cheerleaders, camping-like atmosphere but still a lot of excitement. Normally the weather is good and it is possible to go there in the morning and return home the same day. So little effort is required. It would be really nice if we can get a strong Positivo Espresso Team together for this event. Or, if there are not too much riders interested, we can also try to get a combined team with Tokyo Cycling Club who also have some strong riders (I heard).

Teams of 3 to 6 riders are possible, however I personally find that a four rider team gives the best balance of riding and resting. It would be optimal if we could form a mixed team, this would give us some chances for a podium place although it is not easy by any means.

The fee for this race is between 10.000 and 15.000 Yen, depending on the number of riders.

I am writing this post already today because the application starts on February 14th and is limited to 300 teams. It will be sold out very fast and if possible we should have a tentative team ready before this date.

Please let me know if you are interested. we may also want to form two teams, depending on the performance levels of the riders.

Tsukuba Eight Hours Endurance Race Analysis

Just this week I received the lap charts from the Tsukuba race organizers and I sat down with xls and scrutinized them. Well, first of all, our Positivo NFCC team achieved a good 49th place overall out of 305 teams and we finished 29th in the Road-Men category. At some point in time we were also the third team in the 3 rider strong team classification and all six of us were very proud of this result. We did 137 laps, only 14 less than the winning team. Considering that we had two minors on board, our average speed of 34.85 km/hr over the whole race is also pretty good considering the heat as well. So, the first question I asked myself was, where would be have ended in the race, if only one of us would have gone all eight hours and shown the same performance. Here is the answer: If the rider had been

• Alain, we would have finished 28th with 140 laps
• Me, we would have finished 25th with 141 laps
• Jerome, 41st with 138 laps
• Olivier, 92nd with 132 laps
• Leonard, 211st with 117 laps and
• Augustin, 228th with 115 laps

Of course this comparison is somewhat unfair, because Alain and Jerome did much more laps than Olivier and me which dragged down their average speed. But I think it shows that Alain, Jerome and me did a good job and Olivier did well considering that this was his first race. Jeromes kid also had a good show and would have finished more than 100 laps.

Then I checked our average speed by ride or turn. The definition of a ride is a series of laps than one rider did consecutively before handing over to the next rider. Jerome, Olivier and me had four rides, whereas Alain had 5 (he had to do the long last 30 minutes when no rider change was allowed) and the kids had 3. The number of laps within these rides where completely different for each rider. Alains first ride consisted of 11 laps, whereas Olivier and me basically made 5 to 7 laps every ride.
This of course has an impact on the average speed: The more laps you do, the lower becomes your speed average. Another crucial point in endurance racing is, if you find a good group to draft with or not. But basically your average speed goes down, as we can see nicely on the above chart. Alain managed a comeback with his 5th ride, when he hang out long with the leading guys in one group. I always had in my rides good groups to go with and furthermore I always went the same number of laps, that's why my performance is very much consistent.
Jerome is Jerome. Suddenly he gets a boost and nobody can explain why.
The same is also true for the fastest average speed in one lap during one ride. Finally I listed all average speeds per lap in chronological order.
Alain is green, Jerome is violet, me is of course orange and Olivier is blue. Now let's see the same data in order of average speed on each lap:
Now we see a lot of green on the left side, so Alain made a lot of fast laps during the race. Jerome, Olivier and me are pretty much everywhere on the whole width. It is interesting to note that Alain is on the very left and on the very right of the chart, I guess that his forth ride consisted of a lot of slow laps, as he was not able to find a good drafting group.

Please use this data to make your own speculations and come to your own conclusions.

Despite the fact that we will probably never have a good team ready to make the podium in Tsukuba,unless we start in the RX class (Road - Mixed), I like the race there very much. It is always fun to compete there and it is also fun to talk about.

RACING REPORT : TSUKUBA EIGHT HOURS ENDURANCE RACE

Japanese cheerleaders trying to spell "TOKYO" in alphabet letters.

It is Monday morning and after a hard weekend of racing I find the time to write about the race on Saturday.

From the start on we had difficulties to form a team. Alain and Olivier were on board almost immediately when the proposal came up to race in Tsukuba this year, but with only three riders and eight hours racing time we would have not stood a chance. And be very exhausted in the end. Alain and me tried to contact as many other riders as possible, sending personal e-mails, calling, resorting to blackmail and even offering money (well, 500 Yen of sweets to my son), and finally Jerome and his two sons Leonard (13) and Augustin (10) came to our rescue. I was very happy, as I had planned to attend another JCRC race in Gunma CSC the following day and I don't want to race 2 - 3 hours on the day before in Tsukuba. As we didn't know how many riders we were, I registered only Alain, Olivier and me as a three rider team.

So when we arrived at the race, we got only three team numbers and we need to change them secretly between the riders. This is not exactly the way it should be done, but as we had no ambitions to make the podium no harm was done [Note: Please delete all traces of e-mails discussing race strategy and podium ambitions send before the race from your PCs. It is just embarrassing.]

We were nevertheless probably the only six rider strong three rider team in Tsukuba ever and I still believe we deserve a special price for most skilled cheating and one more for radiating appropriate image of foreigners in Japan. I arrived early at 7:30 AM at the race track to reserve a good place close to the pit. (note: This is the image of us Germans, that we go to the beach at 4 AM in the morning, place a towel at a good place and come back at 10 AM to demand our rightfully reserved place). At least I thought so. But at least 298 of the 300 other teams seemed to be there as well. I found a nice place close to our pit nevertheless and erected our sunshade. After I fixed everything I was approached by two officials who told me that tents can only be erected at the yellow line and that I had to remove my stuff immediately. Yes, this is unfortunately Tsukuba. A lot of rules which are not necessarily logical but there since the race started. Tradition since 2003. More conflicts with the officials would follow in the course of the day.

Nevertheless I like Tsukuba. First of all, it has been the first race I have ever attended, at the tender age of 40. I was there with Juliane and the Veloz team [now: Tamagawa Cyclists] and we were doing pretty bad. But I was much impressed with racing. In 2006 we went there again with David, david and cycling Jane, targeting a podium place in the "racing mixed" category and in fact we ended up 56th overall and 10th in our class. Also there are always a lot of good looking female riders attending and many similar good looking family support staff. It brings tears to my eyes when I see how some of the riders are pampered by their wives and girlfriends. They prepare barbecue for them, hold umbrellas to provide shade on the start grid and they do many other chores I can only dream about asking my wife.

So I took our tent to the top of the pits where there was just some space free and then Jerome and his kids and Alain and Olivier came already.

There are some important traditions at Tsukuba (since 2003) and one of them is the cheerleaders performance from nearby Toyo Highschool before the race. I took a lot of photos this year. Actually I didn't bother to take much more photos after the cheerleaders performance. Of the race or so, for example. Cheerleading is very important in Japan. The main purpose is to cheer up the audience to survive baseball and shogi games. Often cheerleaders are supported by dynamic music bands to even enhance the cheerful atmosphere.

Then it was already time to start racing.

Alain taking position in his new NFCC team uniform in blue and white at the start grid

As Alain is extremely skillful of using his extended elbows (I still believe that he has some steel rivets attached to his bones below the skin) to push and shovel his way through large group of riders, he was the rider to start. And as usual, despite starting from position 174, so almost in the middle of the field, he managed his way to 7th place after the first lap and stayed with the fast group. After some more laps he was even in 2nd position which made us, and especially the kids very excited. Our best standing ever!

Alain in second place after the 10th lap (4th from the right)

Actually the kids should not have been that excited, as we decided before the race, that they would not ride in case we show a good performance. But of course we couldn't kept the pace. We cheered up Alain as good as we could, I even used what remained of my French language knowledge ("Allez Alain - only 140 laps to go!") and hoped that he stays out forever, so that I could enjoy the relative comfort of my camping chair and the good food brought by Jerome. But then it was Jeromes turn and then mine and then Olivier and we dropped to 20th place. So we decided to let the kids do some laps, whereas we dropped to 30th place. But that was ok.

In the meantime one of the race officials kept picking on us. First he was not satisfied how our team entered the pit area. Then he gave us a warning because we were standing outside the yellow line in the pit (as everybody else did) and then he asked me to fix our sun shade better. He was clearly looking at us and trying to apply some ijime at every occasion that was offered to him. I didn't want to claim, as our rather unique six rider three rider team was anyway constantly in danger of getting disqualified. It was getting really hot. Later the CICLO speedmeter on my bike showed 47 degrees Celsius. I don't believe that, but it was really, really hot.

The key to success in Tsukuba is to stay with a good and fast group and hold out as long as you can.

Key to success : Stay in a fast group, cooperate.

The track is very flat, so there is no much variation of speed, although you need to accelerate some times. Basically one can run all the time in a 35 - 45 km/hr range if you are riding with a group. If you are alone on the track it is rather hard to keep a good speed. In the afternoon it also gets windy, so in some places your speed might drop to 30 km/hr or even less. So the best strategy is to go out, take it easy at 30 - 40 km/hr and wait and preserve energy for a fast group to overtake you, then hang on to their tail as long as possible. My first round of laps was not very good, as I was on my own almost all the time and I couldn't find a good group, neither restricting myself to go slow. But the second and third time were much better and I hang on to some fast guys, even leading these groups some time. We all did a good job, but with the kids doing slower laps and more frequent changes we dropped down to the 50th position.

Jerome had his bag of wonder dried plums with him. This, he explained to me, is his secret recipe for reviving his energy levels and showing good and strong performances during long races. Well, I am not sure what exact performance enhancing impact it has on his metabolism, but in my case the only performance enhancing impact I could notice was a more physical one, similar to jet propulsion. This was becoming more pronounced during the races and it has the interesting side effect that other riders drafted behind me only for very short periods before dropping from their bikes. Leaves were turning brown, insects stopped chirping, beavers started suddenly to prepare for the winter despite 47 degrees of heat and flocks of birds migrated in direction Siberia. Why is there no big yellow warning label on the packing?

In any case we had now stabilized our 50th place. Actually unknown to me, we were called by the race officials and told that after 4 hours or so we were in 3rd position as a 3 rider racing team, so Jerome collected some (useless) prices, which we nevertheless will put on display someplace.

Stabilize the pace at 50th place midterm during the race.

After some more warnings from the race officials (Jerome had to remove his speed bars of his bike, one of his kids was not wearing gloves when he rode) Jerome and his kids went home and our six rider three rider team was reduced to three riders, Alain, Olivier and me. We all felt that this was somehow unfair after all this unfair discrimination we had to endure during the past 6 hours. Jerome has told his wife that he would be home at 7 PM, assuming that an eight hours endurance race would include 4 hours of transportation to and from the race track. An understandable thought when one considers the patience and endurance one need to navigate a car through the traffic in Tokyo.

As the pit closes 30 minutes before the finish of the race, we fixed again our strategy. We were down to 55th place and we wanted to recover as much as possible. So we asked Alain to do some laps, and then Olivier and me would alternative until shortly before the pit closing whereas Alain would do the last 30 minutes. Alain hold out very long, so I did additional 6 laps after him which were fast and done with a strong group of riders. At the very end I accelerated to more than50 km/hr and sprinted away even from this fast group. Some guys tried to follow me and they were left dumbfolded when I entered into the pitlane at the very last moment.

This left only a few laps for Olivier to go and then Alain hat to come out again to do the last thirty minutes in one go. He was doing well in a fast group and we cheered him up ("Go Alain, only 20 laps to go to the top!") from the comfort of our pits. Also we flirted with the women teams to the left and the right, as there was nothing else to do. Then the last lap was called and as it was getting dark the race came to an end.

Fast and furious final sprint.

As I found out later, we ended overall in 49th position. My best Tsukuba result so far, a good start for Jerome's kids and Olivier who did his first race. And also a nice goodbye to Alain who is leaving for France soon. After the last lap all riders assemble on the track and then they ride together one more ceremonial lap to the start. There is some music (I guess it was Titanic or so) and some fireworks, really nice, festive atmosphere. This is also a good old Tsukuba tradition and we were all very happy that we survived to see the fireworks and made a good show.

We were a good team and we had a lot of fun. And that is all we ask for.

Good teamwork by us.

Race analysis will follow later, once I have the lap chart from the organizers.

Best team name newly discovered : UGA ("Ultra Genki Athletes").

Mama told me not to come

Last week by poor coincidence, I was able to make a registration for the Fuji Speedway race on this Sunday. Alain asked me if I wanted to go and with my son being in Germany, my daughter on a figure skating trip to Nagano, I quickly calculated my chances: One nice Spanish dinner for my wife on Saturday evening, asking her over a glass of redwine, if it would be possible to get family free on Sunday? It was worth the risk. Registered, got a haircut, made a reservation at Cicada.

I never had to got up so many times so early as this year. First I attended a lot of JCRC races in places far away from Tokyo (Gunma CSC) so I needed to get up early. Then, the German soccer team proceeded to the final of the European Championship. Unfortunately the games started at 3:45 in the morning so I need to drive my son to the German School to watch them until the bitter end.

Alain picked me up at 5 AM on Sunday, as we need to register by 7:30 AM and the race started at 8 AM. He is a fast driver (just as me he oversped 52 km/hr when he was finally caught by the ever vigilant Japanese police) and as such he has now installed many technical gadgets in his car which should warn him of speed traps. That's why we were at the Fuji Speedway already at 6:30 hr and both of us wished we would have slept half an hour longer.

It became clear that it will be a very hot day. But I didn't mind, we were registered for the 2 riders 210 minutes race, so we could take turns and I had my comfortable camping chair with me for the relaxing parts between the stretches. As Alain is the better rider, my secret strategy was to convince him to do much more laps than I would do, thus extending the relaxing part on the camping chair.

Unfortunately then we found out some things which put both of us in a very bad mood: First, just by chance, when I checked the race results of last year in the booklet, I noticed that the winning team in the 2 riders category did 56 laps, in the 3 riders category 78 laps and in the four rider category more than 100 laps. This seemed strange, so I asked one of the officials and he told me that all riders need to be on the track all the time and that the combined lap numbers of all riders decides the wining team. Goodbye camping chair. Also it became hot. And I only brought a small water bottle the event. And when we checked the track we found out to our dismay, that it is very hilly. A long straight at the start is followed by a nice descent where one can reach easily 60 km/hr and more and over sprint the next hill, but then the climb starts in three stretches for a total of 40 meter elevation difference until one is at the final straight again.

So what I thought would be a nice and relaxing race, turned out to become a long, hellish and warm nightmare without water and not too much chances to win anything.

Anyway, we didn't complain further and Alain gave me some good training how to touch other riders while riding fast and get them out of the way. I immediately applied that at the start but as I am only a beginner at becoming rough around the edges, I could not follow Alain who ellbowed his way to the top. The race was started with a pace making bike and as there were about 500 riders on the track the first crashed already occured. I was OK so far, but then the climb began and I couldn't kept the fast space of the first group and fell back. A lot of faster rider overtook me then.

But I settled for my own pace and after 4 laps I overtook other riders and rode a steady pace. I was missing the warm-up though. The fast group overtook me already after 45 minutes for the first time - they were really fast. Also Alain overtook me after one hour as he was still riding with a good and fast group.

The climbs at 30 degrees plus were really the hard part. All in all I did more than 1.000 meter of climbing at this race. I really hated myself for being that fat; I must try harder to shed about 10 kg, as otherwise my climbing life is miserable. On the straights and on the descents I could easily go the same pace as the faster groups, even overtaking a lot of guys. But at the climbs I fall back and then I ended up again on the straights behind some slow guys creeping towards the finish line at 33 km/hr where I could go easily 40 km/hr without being drafted.

That kept on and on for the first 2 hours or 16 laps. I had steady lap times of less or around 8 minutes (4.56 km track) and I calculated that I could make 26 laps within the 210 minutes limit if I could keep that speed. But after the two hours I got really tired. I was running out of water and I had two normal 0.5 liter PET bottles in addition with me which took hours to open and close. My left hand was completely numb and I couldn't unscrew the cap any longer - simply no power left in my hand, everything drained by the legs. I opened one gel to get some more energy, miscalculated my hand pressure, the gel was all over my hands and handle bar, everything got sticky .... And it was so hot. My feets were getting extremely hot in my SIDI shoes.

Probably I would have made a break, retired or go slower if I would have been solo, but I knew that Alain was somewhere out there fighting so I kept going. One can see my dropping performance where nice on the average lap speed chart here.
After 2:30 hrs I really started to count the laps and the minutes. I didn't got overtaken by Alain again, which meant that he was experiencing the same problems as I did. I noticed than that my speed has dropped in such way, that I would do only 25 and not 26 laps anyway, so I took it a little bit slower. Actually my climbing became a little bit better compared to the other guys in the field: A saw a lot of riders standing on the trackside, massaging their legs or making a rest or really at the edge of their abilities and going up at 6 km/hr. I definitely didn't want to end up there, so I made some efforts at the climbs.

The last climb before the straights comprises of three climbs, interrupted by two flat curves. The first one is hard, but the other two ones I cut on the inside where the distance is shorter but the inclination higher and I regularly overtook some of the better guys there.

Hey, this is a genuine formula one track, why is it not flat ???? Formula one cars are fast enough, they do not need additional acceleration by going downhill!

In the end I was not thinking any longer, riding more or less on automatic. I made my 25th lap before the time limit of 210 minutes, then started another one at an easier pace. I asked another rider on the track when the race is over and he said the last lap before 210 minutes counts. So I took it even easier. I could not judge from the other riders, as the 5 hour team race and some of the 150 km distanc race was still ongoing.

So when arriving at the final straight before the finish line at my 26th lap, I opted for the pit lane, then I noticed that there was no time measurement there but didn't care as this lap was supposedly not to be counted. A mistake of course, I should have crossed the finish line one more time and then moved to the pit, so I missed one lap.

When coming to the pit Alain was already there. He overlapped me only one time and moreover I was happy to note that also he gave everything as well so we could expect a good result. I would have been really angry if he decided to quit the race or took a longer break in my caming chair.

Stephane and Kenichi from NFCC arrived as Kenichi was attending a BR-2 race in the afternoon.
We were really tired, then packed our stuff. I also briefly spoke to David Marx who had an Assos tent at the pit and sold his stuff. He made a good business, in particular selling water bottles.

Ok, then the results were posted, we made 4th place in our category, even if I would have done one more lap that wouldn't have made any difference. Excellent result, but really achieved by hard work and both of us fighting to the end.

Then we were called on stage and got our commendation and the prices. Hm, a nice big bag with the words SONY printed in big letters ... A play station portable perhaps? Maybe not, the first places got only a box of sport drinks. So I opened the bag. Inside : 2 bottles of sport drinks. Unbelievable ketchi prices !!! I got two bottles for free even before the race when I asked for them. Bloody capitalist oppressors, the wrath of the working riders will hit you some day !
Anyway, Alain drove me home, we had a good time, we were satisfied with our result and very, very tired. I slept for some hours at home. Before I woke up, showered and went to bed.
Really, I shouldn't do these things.