Winter Oikaze 400km Brevet ... DNF After the End of the Winter Dry Season

I remembered last year seeing some Audax friends post about doing a winter Kanagawa Audax 400km "Oikaze" (tailwind) ride from the Nagoya area back to Kamakura. This year, I resolved to join it myself. The course looked not overly challenging, it stayed out of the mountains (essential for a winter course in Japan), it offered a mid-day (1PM) start so that no hotel was required and I (and many others) could travel from Tokyo the day of the event. And I needed the training before some February travel. So I signed up.

Winter along the Pacific Coast of Japan can offer some excellent cycling. All through December and into January, we get lots of dry, cool/cold weather, as we are in the "rain shadow" with storms hitting the Japan Sea Coast and dumping snow on the NW side of the islands. Weather only starts to turn ugly usually for February into early/mid March.  Late March/early April are hit-or-miss, but at least as by April the typical temperatures are far warmer, even at night, on a mountain pass somewhere. February is the coldest month, and a lot wetter, in my recollection, than January. So a February 1 brevet is a real roll of the dice.

The weather on Saturday morning February 1 this year was very nice. It was still sunny when I got to the check-in at Mikawa Anjo, the first shinkansen stop on the Tokyo side of Nagoya, SE of the city center (so we would not need to slog through as much urban area as a true Nagoya start). 

At the check-in where familiar Kanagawa Audax members - Maya Ide and Honda-san. Also there was Izumi Kurabayashi (that is her unmarried name ... she was a regular Audax staffer in Kanto, but got married and moved to Nagoya more than a decade ago). And there was some familiar riders as well -- including Tom Yahagi. 

Izumi and Maya at the reception

Honda-san gives the briefing

Tom Yahagi, super randonneur

It looked overall like a fast group for Audax ... it was

It was already cloudy by the time we actually started to ride, and rain was forecast for sometime that evening.  It was just a question of how much rain, when, and how cold. 

Well, I made decent time to Lake Hamanako and then Hamamatsu, around 95kms in, just as it got dark. Still dry, still not too cold. 

Approaching the Route Inn on the west side of Hamanakako where Jerome and I stopped on a 600k a few years back ... in torrential rain.

At Lake Inohana ... connects to Hamanakako

Local roads in the area around Toyokawa in SE Aichi

Plenty of old roads along coastal areas here. Lots of history. 

Not a tailwind, as promised, but also not headwind. I was riding with another Audax member, but he ducked into a pre-identified tiny local restaurant for an unagi dinner. I rode maybe another hour making, I felt, excellent time through the area close to the coast east of Hamamatsu. Jerome and I had slogged through here on a 600km event a few years ago, in Thursday rush hour traffic. This was much better -- deserted roads at 8PM on a Saturday evening. And still only a hint of drizzle, not enough to put on rain pants or even my rain shell. 

Soon that changed and the rain fell, light at first, and not too cold.  I put on rain pants and continued, but my average speed was slipping. My rain pants were sliding down my butt as I rode and I would need to hoist them again every 15 minutes or so. By the time I got past Hamaoka with its massive nuclear plant and into Fujieda area. It was late in the evening. And raining still.  

I climbed the hill between Fujieda-shi and Shizuoka-shi, and after a few mis-course turns finally got back on the correct side road to the check point, which was the major mid-course setup by the organizers.  The checkpoint was a kind of camp site, with some covered picnic table ... I think a kind of gazebo and some rain tarps, and they had prepared a massive amount of food for riders. A large number of potential participants had reported "DNS" due to the weather forecast so they were urging us to take as much as we could.  Tanaka-san, former head of Japan Audax and compadre of Honda-san and Maya-san, was there and said hello. 

My stomach was bothering me, but I ate as much ton-jiru (pork soup - carrots, other vegetables, miso etc.) as I could manage, rested a few minutes, and headed on down the hill.  There were riders arriving and leaving in significant numbers and I felt as if I was very much in the "middle of the pack", at least not one of the very last stragglers.  I knew this route and how the GPS course would guide us to cross Route 1 at a non-obvious intersection, then and cut down a side road that came out on the western side of Shizuoka City ... I led some other riders who were a bit confused in the dark and wet. Eventually I caught one rider who had an annoyingly, painfully bright, flashing rear light that got even brighter when he came to a stop light.  I told him his light was not good for riding in groups or at an event like this (banned by Audax, actually) ... and eventually we separated.  Another couple familiar zigs and zags, and we were onto the "Strawberry Line".  I got a bit of a second wind and pushed through to Shimizu. 

At one point I made a mistake in the course ... and went up onto an elevated section of road in Shimizu that I am 95% sure is prohibited for bicycles.  Oops.  Too late to go back now, so I took the next exit, but that was well over a kilometer along!  By now it was after midnight and there were no cars at all the entire way, so I figured it was a "no harm/no foul" mis-course, a tree. It was raining harder now, and getting colder.  

I continued along the familiar roads to Okitsu. I had been planning to power-through the night and maybe find a place for some cat-naps, but with the rain and cold, and stomach bothering me, exhausted, I really needed an indoor rest.  I had done 230km, with an early afternoon start, so felt as if I had made enough progress to deserve a rest.

In the cold rain, every move was a "major production" -- it took forever just to get out of my rain garb and get into the Kenko Land, go up to the locker room, leave my rain/outer wear, go to 2nd or 3rd floor and find a place to lie down in the "TV room", full of men sleeping in reclining chairs. Most of these were not Audax riders, so I tried to put my valuables in a bag next to me as I slept.  I stayed in the chair for maybe 2 hours, but could not have slept more than 30 minutes. This was not helping. So I got up, went to the lockers to collect my wet gear, and checked out. Not a moment to lose.

As I headed down to try to push onward, I saw Tom Yahagi, to my surprise. I thought he would be WAY ahead by now.  He said there were reports of snow/sleet at the climb/tunnel entrance of our route over Izu. The rain was harder now, and was a LOT colder.  Really nasty stuff. This was a real winter storm. Tom was gone in a flash, and I was still putting on my rain gear minutes later. 

Back on the bike, I made slow progress toward Fuji City.  My gloves were soaked, my core was very damp, and there was a headwind. My stomach had not fully recovered. The only food I could find was at convenience stores ... no place to eat inside, so consumed out front trying unsuccessfully to get a bit of shelter from rain and wind.

The forecast was for continued rain and headwind most of the way back to Tokyo, including very nasty headwinds on the east side of Izu.

I needed to get back to Tokyo to prepare for a trip the following day.  I was not at all sure I could make it within the time limit if I continued, and I was pretty sure that, even if I did, I would be totally wiped out by the effort and pretty much struggle to even pack and do the few required things before my trip. 

So I decided to ride to Numazu then make a decision on whether to continue.  At Numazu, still wet, and cold, and tired, now in the morning light but behind schedule ... I veered left and headed uphill toward the shinkansen station at Mishima.

I can manage cold, or I can manage rain, but the combination of hard, cold rain is not fun at all on a bicycle.  My gloves, jacket, and stomach were not quite up to the task. The headwind added insult to injury, especially for a brevet named the "tailwind" ride!  And knowing that I needed to accomplish in the 24 hours AFTER I got home ... it was the right choice. A decade ago, I might have powered through this one, but I am older, and wiser, and not as strong today.

600km Azalea (つつじ) Ride on Route 11

Mt Fuji from the Okuzure Kaigan just SW of Shizuoka-shi

Jerome and I still needed a 600km brevet to complete our qualifying rides for Cascade1400. There were some interesting 600km rides sponsored by Kanto area Audax groups between now and early June, and we could always repeat the 600km Okitsu Classic (would be my fourth time?!) on May 23, but we wanted to finish qualifying as soon as practical. That way, we can plan our cycling with complete freedom rather than needing to check the box for an Audax event ... well, complete freedom except for work, family, and other commitments.

As we scoured the Audax club websites earlier this year, the best candidate seemed an April 23 Randonneur Tokyo event -- ride to Hamanako just west of Hamamatsu city in Shizuoka, go around the lake (30kms?) and then come back. The ride was relatively flat, many sections were familiar, no truly remote areas without support, and so it seemed to offer a pretty high chance of completion with relatively little ride-specific preparation. On the downside, it involved an all-too-familiar long trip out of/in to Tokyo, as well as coastal areas that are dense in population, and not as high a ratio of spectacular cycling areas/scenery as on my recent 200, 400, and 300 km brevets. 

Of course, when we planned our rides, last weekend was supposed to be a "rest" weekend between the 400k and our 600k. Instead, with the postponement of our March 300k, on April 16 we rode our toughest 300k in memory in between, leaving only four days to recover. 

The signup for this event was delayed several times, but when we inquired by email, Tsumura-san, the maestro at R-Tokyo, assured us that it would go forward in due course. When the event finally opened for registration, it was as an "N2" format brevet. This Covid-19 countermeasure format means that instead of all gathering in a group, riders have a significant window in which to start their rides, in this case a week ending at 6AM, Saturday April 23.  Since a rider need only declare his or her start shortly before heading off (using a Google Form that R-Tokyo set up), it offers maximum freedom to avoid bad weather and match schedules. But the N2 format also means it is easy to do an entire brevet and never meet another rider, especially if you do not start at 6 or 7AM on Saturday morning. That was my experience last Fall when I did an N2 400k event entirely alone. 

Jerome and I both decided we would do the ride on Thursday/Friday, April 21-22. That would offer a bit more of a simulation of what we will face during Cascade -- 5 days straight of long rides like these. And, I hoped, I would be "fresh" for work-related duties the following Monday. We each had obligations on Wednesday the 20th, (Jerome's was a family event that would go relatively late at night), and in the end Jerome needed to go to Osaka on Saturday afternoon for work-related meetings and a dinner. I did not feel bad about doing the ride on weekdays, as I have work during Golden Week this year.

I started checking the weather forecast on Monday. Rain was forecast for Thursday afternoon, evening, and into Friday morning in Shizuoka -- the middle half of our ride. And it looked as if the rain would be quite heavy at its peak. The forecast held steady. Well, Jerome could not push back our start by a day, so we would ride in the rain and look at it as training for Cascade, a ride I started and finished in the rain back in 2012, and where this time our first day route goes around the Olympic Peninsula, a rainforest that averages 150 days of rain each year (though June is a relatively low precipitation month).

I wanted to get out of Tokyo before the morning traffic, while Jerome could not get to sleep early, so needed a slightly later start. In the end, I started at 4AM and Jerome at 6AM. That gap meant we would probably end up riding together after he caught me at some point over the next 40 hours. Indeed, he caught up half way through the return leg and we ate lunch then rode the final 25% together.

3:40AM, crossing the Tamagawa at Marukobashi

Fenders on the Sky Blue Parlee -- for a non-sky blue ride!
24x7 dynamo lighting for this trip, so non-matching front and rear wheels still.

The weather was perfect heading out of town, and the roads were nearly empty for me as I rode the the start (leaving home at 3:15AM), and the first few hours on the course, until about 6AM. The route is a "standard" way for R-Tokyo brevets to head Southwest. First, a long stretch of Nakahara Kaido, then another one on Chogo Kaido, and finally, heading south around the western edge of Hiratsuka to hit the coastline at Oiso. From Oiso to Odawara, we take Route 1. Somehow, I would expect a trip by bicycle from Tokyo to Hamamatsu to involve a lot of riding on Route 1, but this was the only section, and one both familiar to us and very easy to ride. (Another bit between Yui and Okitsu follows a path alongside Route 1, but does not require actually riding on the road). 

Heading west through Kanagawa at first light

The Sagami River shortly after dawn

Finally, some traffic.

North of Hiratsuka as the route heads toward the coast

Hazy Mt Fuji in the distance

I stopped at Odawara briefly to get a snack and refill a water bottle from a spigot on the west side of the castle grounds. The scene was lovely at 7AM, only a few people around and flowering azaleas and wisteria.

At Odawara Castle

More Odawara

It was late enough now so that I experienced full traffic conditions on the next stretch, Route 135 along the coast. Heavy traffic, but at least it is another familiar stretch, and before I knew it I was in Atami.  I took another short rest by some azaleas at roadside, ate a half bagel I had brought from home, and started the climb. 

Azaleas and a brief rest in Atami

Just as I got to a really steep ramp as the road went around a sharp bend, I stood up on the pedals and applied a lot of torque ... and heard a big "ping" snapping sound from my rear wheel. A non-drive side spoke had broken. No worries. I had a spoke wrench and was able to adjust the tension of the two adjacent spokes on each side of the broken one so the rim was "true" again. Indeed, with a deep rim carbon wheel, the rim is stiff enough that I think you could probably ride it with a few broken spokes and not notice much. Then again ... I did see video of Wout van Aert and Christian La Porte's wheels pancaking catastropically last week on Paris-Roubaix, so better safe than sorry! I used to break spokes pretty regularly, even with decent attention to spoke tension. Maybe I am reverting to my former self as a cyclist? That is, indeed, my hope for the year, that I can regain most of the form I had in 2012-2017 or so. 

The cue sheet says to take Route 11

Anyway, the climb was painful ... but not as painful as other routes over the mountains above Atami. I think I will use this road again. And the tunnel at just over 400m elevation saves a lot of time and effort as compared to cresting Atami Pass.  After exiting the tunnel, there is a long descent to Kannami, at least 7-8 kms. The road is relatively straight and fast. After the first control point (PC) at a convenience store just above Kannami, the route cuts through Mishima/Numazu area. By now I was in heavy morning traffic, in a part of the world that is pretty much car dependent. Patience was required ... as well as some tactical maneuvering onto the sidewalk to pass lines of standing cars. 

Hazy Fuji in the distance as we slog through Numazu area.

My conference call stop.

Approaching Okitsu Kenko Land -- regular Audax Kanagawa Start/Goal location

I made it out to the coast and almost to Fuji-shi when I needed to stop 20-30 minutes for a work-related call. I headed into the wooded area and up a stairs to the top of the tsunami wall. The sea and sky were hazy, the boundary of the two indistinct ... reminding me a bit of some of Hiroshi Sugimoto's seascape photos at the Enoura Observatory. Anyway, the call was a bit longer than I hoped, but I did need some rest now 6 1/2 hours from the start, and felt I could spare the time as I was already 130kms into the course and done with the only significant climb of the first half! Jerome reported that he had stopped for breakfast at a Gusto, so he was not yet making up too much time on me. 

The route took more familiar territory as I rode through Fuji City, Yui, Okitsu, Shimizu, and then to a PC at the foot of the Miho peninsula. From there it was on down the Ichigo Line (Strawberry Line). This is a very exposed stretch of road along the ocean, so I was relieved not to be facing any significant headwind. Then it was along the south edge/oceanside, of Shizuoka City, through the Okuzure Kaigan area where the road climbs about 100 meters above the crashing waves, then down into Yaezu City.

Still dry, Okuzure Kaigan

Yaezu's harbor area

The R-Tokyo route turned left along the fishing harbor and hugged the coastline on local roads -- an improvement over the main road I have taken more often between Yaezu and Omaezaki. Everywhere here, as elsewhere, there were azaleas in early bloom. Again I took a short rest -- pulling into a parking lot for a park, attracted by the signage "Discovery Park". Again, I could walk up onto the tsunami levy and this time even enjoy a rest on a bench. 200kms done!

The coast at Discovery Park Yaezu

Randonneur snack

A few drops of rain started to hit me as I left Discovery Park. Within another 10 minutes, I put on my rain jacket.  15-20 minutes later I put on my rain pants and changed to my Gore tex rain socks. And by the time I got to the Omaezaki checkpoint (km 227), the rain was steady. Jerome had been gaining on me ... but he also had stopped for a work call. I enjoyed a snack of 7-11 pasta with cream sauce, and pushed on. 

Steady rain then dark from here ... so no more Thursday photos. ... except

I have usually taken National Route 150 along this stretch of coastline -- Omaezaki, then the southern edges of Kikugawa, Kakegawa, Fukuroi, and Hamamatsu. So it was good that the R-Tokyo route is a parallel road just inland.  The rain strengthened as I rode west. My lower half was soaked -- the rain pants apparently useless -- but my upper half still somewhat dry and at least it was not too cold. I was glad to have fenders both front and rear wheel. I stopped once at a pedestrian underpass that sheltered me a bit from the rain, where I could eat an onigiri and call Jerome to check in. 

The route travels along the coast south of Hamamatsu, and I had managed to hit Thursday afternoon rush hour traffic as cars zoomed by me along one particularly crowded stretch. There were lots of signs for central Hamamatsu, but no city. The most obvious landmarks were some hotels -- "Dior Seven", and "Bel Grave". They were obviously love hotels, lights lighting up the evening sky, beckoning couples. There were also some golf driving ranges, huge nets along each side, but they lacked signs or features to distinguish one from another to the untrained eye. I think people around here probably give directions like "take a right turn just before Dior Seven, proceed to the second traffic light after Bel Grave, then another right turn." Anyway, Jerome's son now works for the real Dior, so he snapped a photo of the hotel just in case the real Dior thinks it is worthy of a trademark infringement lawsuit.

Finally, I arrived at the 281km 7-11 PC. It was now raining cats and dogs. Even the area just along the front of the store, under the overhang, was too wet to sit. Jerome was still way behind me. I told him I would push on to the hotel, near km 320. 

And thus began what should have been the highlight of the ride -- a chance to go around Hamanako (Lake Hamana) by bicycle. But by now it was dark, and the rain was hard. And the wind from the NNW was straight in my face. The next 20 kms seemed to take forever, pushing into the wind and rain. After a few kms there was very little traffic, at least. 

At last I reached the northern tip of the lake and the route turned toward the west then southwest, with a wind from the rear right. I felt like a sailor on a boat that had come about and swung toward a broad reach. Finally progress was easy. But the next PC was not a convenience store, it was an unmanned and nearly unmarked train station. As I cycled up a slope, I finally saw a hut that might be a station on the left side of the road. I dismounted and walked over. The platform showed a mark "Sunza" as the name.  I pulled out my brevet card/sheet and saw that Sunza was not the PC. Back on the bike and a few kms further along when the highway again neared the train tracks, I finally pulled off again at the correct station. The station waiting room was empty, but at least the door was open so I could go in to take out my card and get my smartphone camera ready for a "proof of passage photo" as instructed. 

late Thursday ... proof of passage photo

The route soon turned off the main highway and followed a small road along the lake for some kilometers. There was dark vast water on the left, water on the road, and water falling from the sky. I could imagine that this was a nice place to have a vacation home, or to visit and stay in one of a few hotels or resorts I passed. I will need to go back when it is light out and not raining.

After another 30-45 minutes on back on the bike, in the wet, I stopped at another convenience store. I asked if the hotel, Route Inn, was ahead. The clerk confirmed that yes, it was not far, and was visible from the road. I got some food to eat once I got in my hotel room -- it would be after 9PM by my arrival, so I could not count on a restaurant being open, nor would I want to "waste" time I could use for sleep hunting for food. 15 minutes later I arrived at the hotel. I apologized for being soaking wet as I trampled through the lobby. The man and woman at the front desk ... immediately handed me a bath towel so I could wipe down. Ahh. I asked if there was a place I could keep my bicycle dry and secure for the night. They said "if it is a road bike, you can take it to your room".  I was a bit surprised. "It is really wet, and a bit dirty".  They said it was just fine. Wow. Very different from the reaction one would have gotten at a Route Inn or similar ten years ago! I guess the local cycling promotion activities around Japan (Hamanako had lots of signs for a bike route around the lake, similar to Ibaraki, and Izu, Shimanami Kaido, and other places) has had an impact on the hotels.

Jerome was still 90 minutes behind. After a hot bath and some food, as I was getting ready to sleep, he called me reporting trouble finding the train station PC. His GPS unit had gone haywire so he was navigating using ridewithgps on his smartphone screen. I calmed him down and got him to switch the phone to Google Maps, where he could find the exact location of the station, not far away. I lay down in bed and was immediately asleep. It was already 1030PM. I had planned to be on the road at 130, but decided to push it back to 2AM (with a generous 30 minutes to get dressed and out the door) as the rain was not supposed to stop until 2-3AM.

I woke after an hour, then again was out immediately. My alarm woke me at 130AM. The rain seemed to have let up, but not entirely. There was a text message from Jerome -- "call me when you wake up" -- that continued to say he would probably not join but leave later. I called and woke him. He had just gone to sleep ... said something about getting a bit lost, about drinking a large beer with his food after arriving at the hotel and said he would sleep more and follow later.

Very very early Friday, somewhere out there is Hamamatsu, or maybe Iwata

I stowed my rain pants, dressed in my clothes that had been hanging but were still very wet, and headed out. The roads were quiet, and the next PC was about 12kms away, at km 331. It turned out to be the same 7-11 as the 281km PC. By now the rain had stopped entirely. In a few hours, with the morning sun, the roads would be dry! And it was warm enough so the weather was no longer a factor.  Before long, I saw the Bel Grave and the Dior Seven, still lit up even in the wee hours.

I called Jerome at 330AM. He answered immediately and said he was preparing to leave the hotel. So again a 90 minute head start. The stretch to Omaezaki was flat and I could roll at a decent speed without much effort. I reached the Omaezaki PC just after 5AM. A bit of a tailwind heading NE, and another rest at Discovery Park around 645AM -- this time Mt Fuji visible in the distance! There were lots of Mt. Fuji views today, almost as many as there were azalea. 

Descent after Omaezaki PC

On the road to Yaezu

More Fuji

More azaleas

Back at Discovery Park

I passed the Okuzure Kaigan again, just before 8AM, and the Shizuoka checkpoint around 830AM. The Ichigo Line wind was blowing and had shifted, but at least it was not a direct, full-on headwind.

Dramatic, crashing surf all the way from here to Ichigo Line

Jerome was catching up, and we agreed to try and get an early lunch together in Fuji-shi or Numazu. There was a Gusto family restaurant (our standby) directly on the route. He was flying now, and was less than 30 minutes behind me, and closed most of that gap by the time I crossed the Fujikawa. I arrived at the restaurant only 5-10 minutes ahead of him, and we rode the last 150kms together.

I was a bit worried about the time limit for this event. By stopping at the hotel from 9PM to 2AM, I had lost all my "savings" and placed myself in a bit of a time deficit. The R-Tokyo organizers had provided us maximum flexibility by not imposing interim time limits at the PCs.  I had 200kms to go with 13 hours left -- plenty of time. But coming out of Gusto after 11AM, we had under 9 hours for nearly 150 kms, including the Atami climb.

Passing through Numazu, we saw ... at least 4 riders headed the outbound leg, including Tsumura-san himself. They had used common sense and started Friday morning, after the rain, and were enjoying the lovely, even warm day!  (Update: I heard later from Tsumura-san that they faced constant headwinds in the afternoon ... that "defeated" him. So we actually may have made the smart move by riding into the impending rainstorm?)

Azaleas everywhere!

Back through Numazu

We were both hot by the time we reached the Kannami PC, which was a different convenience store down nearer to the town.  At least we had caught up with the "time limit" from our lunch break and were again well "ahead" of the notional cut-off time as we entered the PC, so a 15km per hour pace would mean we finished in time. 

But we dawdled at this PC. And when we were about to leave, I suggested to Jerome that I could save a lot of weight and heat if I put my rain gear and cold weather gear plus some other unneeded items in my rucksack and sent it on by Yamato. We went in the convenience store. After about 5 minutes of attempted discussion, it was clear that Lawson only handles Japan Post, and their only relevant service "Yu Pack" would not take a bare rucksack. 

We finally left and headed to start the climb. Maybe if we were lucky we would find a place to ship my rucksack (and Jerome's -- he had adopted the idea).  About 150 meters ahead ... there was a 7-11. But it was still a challenge to ship the items. The arubaito working there had never done it before, it seemed. What were the dimensions of a shapeless rucksack? Would I buy a plastic bag to put it in so the straps were not loose? I wanted to just throw some money at him with the address label and run out the door. I said "we are in a big hurry, so I am happy to pay a bit extra and don't need it measured exactly." He got the message, charged me JPY 1750, and handed me the receipt. Jerome was still trying to have the same discussion with the other clerk, and I said I would ride ahead.... I knew he would catch me on the long climb ahead. We had burned in total at least 20 minutes trying to send our bags, after the 20 minute rest stop that preceded it. Now there was not a moment to lose!

Actually, I made it up the climb I thought in pretty good shape. It was shorter than I had thought, and not nearly as steep as the East side, of course. Jerome caught up with me only after I had gone through the 2km tunnel at the top and was starting the descent. 

My rear brake cable had been acting up a bit and seemed stuck somewhere at times  ... and early on the descent it snapped entirely. Oh well, 75-80% of braking power is the front brake anyway. But this was a steep winding Atami descent, and I would be sitting on the lone brake, heating up my front rim. Now was NOT the time for an accident, or a heat-induced burst tire tube. (That also has happened to me before a few times when riding aluminum rim clinchers ... it happened back when I was breaking lots of spokes.)  So I took it slow going down the hill, and even stopped once for a rest to let the rim cool. ... I also noticed that my front brake pads were getting ... very thin. If needed, I could swap the now-useless rear ones into the front, but I hoped the current pads would make it through all the crazy hills on Nakahara Kaido.

We reached the Tokyo metropolitan area just as Friday evening rush hour was in full swing. At times we had to ride past lines of standing cars and trucks. Lots of trucks. Anyway, we made it safely to the goal at 730PM with about 30 minutes to spare. At least it was enough time so that, once past Odawara, I knew there was enough time without too much worry. Jerome, starting 2 hours later, had plenty of time.

We celebrated with steak dinner and beer at the nearest place to the finish line. Then home to sleep.

In total, I rode 633kms. Not bad. Then again, for a course like this, I would have expected to ride it in under 36 hours, not 39 1/2 hours. Sure, this ride was only four days after the monster 300k, and neither of us had enough sleep the night before. We rode in rain (and full rain gear) for six hours (Jerome for more). And the hotel stop was 5 hours, the work call 30 minutes, the Gusto lunch at least 45, the Kannami dawdling another 20+ longer than expected, and the two mechanicals, one of which required extra caution riding the last 100kms. But there is relatively minimal climbing on this route (for Japan -- "only" 3660m elevation gain total), no gravel, no serious headwinds, no searing heat, and so I was expecting to do it several hours faster. There is still more work to be done before Cascade. But at least I am done with the qualifiers! And done with my first 600k since 2019! And my body experienced an intense two-day effort while still recovering from the last brevet, or maybe the last two brevets. So I think I am on the way.

The R-Tokyo route can be found here on RidewithGPS.

Shizuoka Coast - Ichigo Line in Winter! First Brevet of 2018

An Audax Saitama rider takes his turn to pull, with former Audax Japan Chair Midori Shiroki (aka "Kaichou")
on the O-Kuzure Kaigan 大崩海岸 betweeen Shizuoka City and Yaizu.
(O-kuzure) means basically "big landslide". That is why they ultimately build this bridge out over the water!

On January 7, Jerome and I joined a Shizuoka Audax sponsored 200km event, the BRM107いちご200km, our first Brevet of 2018. I have not done a Shizuoka-sponsored ride in at least 3 or 4 years, but many of the Kanagawa Audax and Randonneur Tokyo events, not to mention our first Fleche route with our Audax Chubu-based team members, have overlapped with significant parts of this course. And today there were many other riders and friends from Kanto, and Chubu--notably, Shuichi Tanaka, our Fleche leader (aka "sensei" -- he is a pediatric surgeon after all), who rode much of the course with Jerome and me. It was only at the finish, when we could meet many of the faster riders who had started at 630 or 7AM, instead of 730AM, as did we, that we found Jun Sato, Tak Kawano, and many others. We were riding much of the way passing and being passed by Hirokazu Suzuki, solo Race Across the West participant, who "wrote the book" on randonneuring (literally). Normally I would be way behind him, but he was on a relaxed pace, riding with his wife. And there were Yurika Murakami, the Kamanos on their tandem (legal in Shizuoka Prefecture, unlike some other Japan locales), Akihiko Kamishima, Noriko Sakai, Midori Shiroki and so many more familiar faces. I am sure others would have joined as well, but for Maya Ide's Audax Kanagawa January 6 200km brevet the day before. (The ideal solution was to ride BOTH events, 200km on Saturday and again on Sunday, as at least Kamishima-san did!).

The only unfamiliar stretch of the route was the climb SW of Shimizu-shi to NihonDaira (日本平）which gave us a spectacular view of the Suruga Bay, Mt. Fuji, Izu in the distance, and the connected mid-sized cities along the coast that make up Shizuoka. Of course, we passed row-upon-row of Japanese tea bushes, and mikan trees, on that climb. It was only 260 meters of elevation gain, starting at sea level, but it was steep at places and came after 135kms of road, so it took some real effort!

The view from part-way down Nihon Daira. Just behind the smokestack on the mid-right side is Miho no Matsubara.

It was a beautiful winter day, only really cold, numbingly cold as we stood around in a shadow with a cold breeze listening to the morning briefing.

Cold briefing and speeches. As usual, Jerome gets attention as the only rider with bare legs. Crazy.

The start/finish were at a closed elementary school, located just at the southern end of many kilometers of Numazu/Nishi Izu coastline fast food restaurants, ramen shops and gasoline stands, where it changes into a beautiful, peaceful coastline. Several rooms at the school have been converted by the Numazu city government into "Numazu Cycle Station". They have rental cycles (1000 yen a day for a "cross bike"), maintenance tools, men's and women's changing rooms, some other supplies, maps of the local area, AND free parking for cyclists who arrive by car.

Numazu Cycle Station. Warm inside, cold outside!

The location makes this a great jumping off place for a Nishi Izu exploration -- and a perfect way for someone to try cycling in Japan on beautiful, low-traffic routes. And it can be used by groups, such as Shizuoka Audax, so I expect this will not be the last event they hold using this start/finish.Indeed, this is just where I reached the coastline on my Nishi Izu ride last month.

For better or worse, the brevet route headed in the opposite direction, North toward the cities and traffic. But it was early morning Sunday, and the route was well-planned, so traffic was manageable, even when we ended up riding alongside some traffic jams.

We warmed up as soon as we were on the road and the sun rose, and by the first checkpoint, at Miho no Matsubara, I changed to lighter gloves and cap, and took off the "rain legs" chaps I had used to block the wind from coming through my cycling tights.

Mt. Fuji from Miho no Matsubara
(This area, with its famous Fuji view, is part of the Mt. Fuji UNESCO World Heritage Site)

At Miho, the biggest crowd was at a soccer training facility for the Shimizu S-Pulse, the local J League team, where a scrimmage was underway. In fact, we saw S-Pulse ads on the local buses, and lots and lots of other S-Pulse imagery around.

From Miho, we rode onto the Ichigo Line, a beautiful stretch of road just south of Nihon Daira between Miho and Shizuoka City, famously lined (on the inland side) by strawberry fields and entrepreneurs. Many of the places selling strawberries have several teenage girls dressed in brightly colored down jackets, waving at passing drivers and beckoning them to pull into the parking lot and buy some berries. On our return leg in the afternoon, Jerome and Tanaka-san stopped at one place to wait a few minutes for me, and we all enjoyed strawberry soft-ice cream (it was that warm, in January!), before continuing.

I can remember some rides in the past where I faced such severe headwinds on the Ichigo Line that I could barely move forward. It was so hard all I could do was laugh, put my head down, and pick a goal -- catch that rider 25 meters ahead, try to keep up with a runner (!), or just make it to the next sign. And I can remember heading west/SW along this stretch of coast as the sun was low to the horizon, creating headache-inducing glare.

Not yesterday. We had gentle tailwinds or calm in both directions! And in the morning we rode West, away from the sun, while in the afternoon we rode East, also with the sun at our backs and great visibility.

As for the term "Ichigo Line", I knew the road was named after the strawberry fields and shops for which it is famous, just like the "Fruit Line" in Yamanashi, the "Salad Line" NW of Shiojiri in Nagano, and the "Beef Line" in Ibaraki. But a Japanese friend pointed out that the "Ichigo Line" is National Route 150, as in "Ichi-Go-Zero". And close by was Route 1, which also can be pronounced "Ichi-Go-Sen".  So maybe the "Ichigo" name is a more clever play on words that I never noticed before?

We did a loop at the the western end of the Brevet route, going out along the coast and the O-Kuzure Kaigan, a beautiful stretch of steep coastline between Shizuoka and Yaizu.

Jerome and Shiroki-san, on the O-Kuzure Kaigan climb, Fuji further away now

Looking SW, after the climb at O-Kuzure Kaigan.

On the return we went inland, entering Fujieda and following local roads over a low pass roughly parallel to Route 1, then back into Shizuoka City.

The first short climb is O-Kuzure, the second is the return from Fujieda to Shizuoka, the last is Nihon Daira.
A very, very flat brevet for Japan! Less than 1000 meters climbing.

Our route - around the top of the Suruga Bay from East to West and bak.

All-in-all, it was a very good day and a great start to the new season. Jerome and I stopped at an onsen hotel (Hakkei-en) in nearby Nagaoka to soak our tired bodies, then got some fast Chinese food, in an attempt to wait out the traffic jam on the Tomei expressway. (Japan must be the only developed country in the world where there are traffic jams returning to the cities on the evening of the MIDDLE day of a 3-day weekend. What is the purpose of the 3-day weekend, if not for people to return on the 3rd day?)  In the end, Google told us we could save 10 minutes if we avoided the jammed Tomei and instead came via Route 1, Hakone Shindo, the coastal bypass, and Yokohama Shindo and Dai-san Keihin. Indeed, it was a reasonably fast trip home, then to bed.