Nokogiri! Kazahari Rindo!

On Sunday morning Jerome and I headed up to the Positivo Espresso Oume base.  We met Stephen and, after a breakfast of fresh persimmon from the garden, grapefruit, bananas, yogurt and rolls (Juliane would have been proud of us), we continued up Yoshino Kaido and Route 411.  It was a beautiful morning in Oume, the air clear and crisp ... the next forecast typhoon still 3 days away.

The Oume Base

We made the left turn just a kilometer past Okutama Station and were onto the the Nokogiri climb. Stephen and I attacked, out of the saddle, for the first few hundred meters, then all 3 of us settled in for the 6.7km, 597 meter elevation gain category 2 climb.  We each climbed at our own pace, Jerome suffering from Friday night (into Saturday wee hours) entertainment with junior colleagues.  Stephen crested first, with me just 15 seconds or so behind.  Jerome followed up -- incredulous that he was 6 minutes 30 seconds back.  As he said "no spring chicken".

At the top, Stephen and I waited amidst a large group of men setting up some tents and covered areas that appeared to be a checkpoint for a 70 km. trail running event -- must have been scheduled for the next day (today as I write), Monday, Oct 13, which is a holiday and "Sports Day" in Japan, as trail runners like to go along the crest to the west of Mitake-san, passing Nokogiri-san en route.  Some of the men had "finisher" t-shirts on, while others had "staff" shirts on.  One of the "staff" was smoking a particularly harsh brand of cigarette, the smoke immediately bothering Stephen and me as our lungs tried to recover capacity from the climb (and Stephen from his Friday night red-eye flight HK to Tokyo).

My climbing bike at the top of Nokogiri, at the trailhead.

I was very glad to have my lighter-frame bike (the Canyon), outfitted with compact crank and SRAM WiFli rear cassette and Ultegra 6600 series long-cage derailleur.  I could climb the steepest parts in 34-32 front/rear gearing -- as forgiving as Jerome's triple setup.  This allowed me to stay in the saddle and spin, standing up only for a change of muscles/pace.

Warning -- Don't slip of the road on the South side descent!

Then it was down the south side of Nokogiri, a quick stop for curry at the "Hinohara Woodie House Mura", which seemed to have a good business -- fully rented cabins -- at least this one long weekend.  At the bottom of the climb, we debated whether to try Kazahari Rindo, one of the toughest climbs in Kanto ... or maybe just try the much shorter Chaya (teahouse) climb.  Of course, we opted for Kazahari Rindo!

Jerome and Stephen went ahead, much more aggressive on the approach than I.  They waited at the start of the really steep section, the sharp "V" intersection.  From there, I pulled ahead.  Stephen stayed with me for the first kilometer, as we climbed at 15% or more grade.  But he was riding a bike with, at best, 39-25 gearing.  Almost impossible for this climb, especially the fairly long 18% section up to the Hinohara Mushroom Center.  I went ahead, alternating between spinning and standing, and was up it before long.  Not surprisingly, with this gearing, he needed to dismount and walk for a bit, and Jerome did the same, if only to shift his derailleur into the lowest gear by hand.

I was pleasantly surprised that I did the climb only a few seconds slower than in late April 2011, well into my Transalp training ... and this on the second big climb of the day.  As I waited at the top, I talked with a spirited group of Japanese "ojisan" cyclists who had climbed from Okutama-ko on the main road and were suitably impressed that I had done the rindo.  They were even more impressed when I mentioned that Kazahari Rindo x2 equals the Mortirolo!

A classic Positivo Espresso ride on a beautiful day.  Over 2000m of climbing in total and 170 kms+.

Cervelo Farewell Rides

My new Canyon frameset left Koblenz, Germany on Friday the 16th.  It made it to Narita (via Shenzhen and United Parcel Service) on Thursday the 22nd, just before this 3-day weekend.  I hope it will actually get delivered early this coming week.

_______________________________


 
Last weekend, on Sunday the 18th, Didier and I rode in muggy weather up Wada Pass via the Rindo approach.  On the climb, my first trip to Wada since before summer, I somehow got into my head that Wada Pass had an elevation of 600 meters, 210 meters higher than Otarumi ... but eventually as the road kept headed up, was forced to acknowledge that the top is 700 meters.  Of course, the Rindo approach we took goes another 40 meters or so higher to 740 meters elevation, before you approach the Pass descending along the spine of the ridge.

We returned via the "main" road down from the Pass - Jimba Kaido - and saw many Japanese riders suffering in the heat, struggling to turn over their cranks, or resting by the roadside having abandoned part way up the climb -- five years ago that would have been me!  And at one point, a car I had been stuck behind met 3 cars coming up the road on a narrow stretch -- instant gridlock that allowed me to pass and continue the climb without any traffic. ... No photos though.  Thanks Didier for a nice ride.
_______________________________________________

Saturday September 24.  The Cervelo enjoys a well-deserved rest in dappled shade and a cool breeze, outside a courtyard restaurant on the hillside above the South shore of Sagami-ko.

Yesterday, Saturday the 24th, I rode with Fumiki, Tim, Thomas and Travis of TCC on their O-Toge time trial.  It was nice to enjoy a true Cat 1 climb and beautiful weather in the countryside on the 2007 Cervelo R3 SL.  I suspect I can count on one hand the remaining rides on this frame, which has served me so well these past 4 years.

A question for Positivistas everywhere:  if by obscure tradition some Japanese cycling clubs insist upon burying a punctured tire tube at the end of its useful life, what does one do with an older, slightly scratched up carbon frame?  Maybe touch up the scratches with paint and hang it on a wall?    Maybe sell it on Yahoo auctions ("rare XL (61cm virtual) size not sold at Japanese retailers, only crashed a few times, rarely raced, AS IS condition")?

Maybe apply the Transalp elevation profile decals again?  Add some other custom markings with my name such as:

"Paris-Brest-Fresnay sur Sarthe, 2011 Metric Millenium",
"Schwalbe TOUR Transalp Finisher, 2009 and 2011",
"Tokyo Itoigawa Fast Run, 2008 and 2011"
"Etape Acte 2, 2011, 1390th place",

or even the undeserved

"JCRC Class C Racer"?

Does it need some personalized high points to accompany the manufacturer's small "Paris Roubaix 2006, Fabian Cancellara" decal and the Positivo decal on the seat stays, or would that just clutter up an attractive design?

Inspection Tour Reports Life in Most of Japan Proceeds As Usual

With trains disrupted Friday evening and my Brevet cancelled, I had planned to ride on Saturday, but put off any plans as I was glued to the television, watching reports of horrible devastation along the coast in Tohoku, visible for the first time after a long dark Friday night.

And then there were concerns about the nuclear power plants in Fukushima, not so close to Tokyo, but not so far either, with a lot of confusion in the hours following an explosion that blew the roof and walls completely off of the building that houses (housed?) reactor #1.  The huge explosion was visible via some media outlets (I saw one broadcast that had been posted to youtube and linked from U.S. aggregators like Business Insider), while on Japanese TV I could not find any footage, and the government reported that the "roof had collapsed" while at the same time asking people to evacuate within a 20 km radius.  I think "roof had been blown to smithereens" would be a bit more accurate, even if this did not ultimately coincide with a major radiation release (and who really knows, yet?).

So I put off any ride until Sunday, awoke, quickly checked the news (no meaningful news updates) and decided to head to the west, as usual, and even further away from the disaster zone.  I was hoping to get over Sasago Pass and then try Kamihikawa, or maybe head up the first part of Odarumi and along the Crystal Line, inspecting for quake-related damage.  But I planned to go at a leisurely pace, as my legs were so stiff when I awoke that I could barely walk -- the result of descending 29 flights of stairs in my road cycling shoes on Friday end of the day to get out of my office building (note to self -- next time, walk down in your normal shoes and change at the bottom, even if it requires bring them home in the rucksack).

What I found was, well, normal.  There were significantly reduced volumes of traffic as compared to a typical Sunday, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary.  Life goes on.  And the further west of Tokyo, the more normal things are.  The main disruption that I found was at the 7-11 in Takao, where there was no 2-liter private label bottled water available, though everything else could be had.  Further away from Tokyo, at the 7-11 past Otsuki, even the 2 liter bottled water is available.  And baseball practice is proceeding as usual, along the Tamagawa and further out west.

The Chuo Line runs normally between Fujino and Uenohara, no damage to houses, roads, bridges or train lines.

The Katsuragawa flows normally toward Otsuki, from Tsuru, on a late winter/early Spring day.  Observe the non-landslide on that steep hill along the western (right side) bank of the river.

Traffic crosses the undamaged bridge over the Katsuragawa on Route 20 as people go about their Sunday morning business.   The "Gusto" restaurant that sheltered Jerome, Yutaka and me on December 30 has been serving food without a break since our visit 10 weeks back (still open 24-7!).

At Otsuki Hatsukari Elementary School ... Baseball practice must go on!

I headed up the old road toward Sasago Pass, but was quickly met by snow and ice on the road in the shade -- a bit of a surprise given the lack of visible snow on the lower hills to that point, and the warm temperatures (by now over 10 degrees celsius and climbing to the mid- or upper-teens).

I dismounted and walked through the patches of ice, since I remembered that the road would soon climb along a sunny, much more exposed slope, where I expected any snow would have long since melted.  This worked well at the lower elevations and until I got much closer to the pass, when I began to run into some deeper drifts across the road, even on the sunny slopes.  I pushed my bike through a few of these.

I gave up, 50-75 meters or so elevation below the tunnel, when I reached a patch of snow that continued around the corner and as far as I could see beyond, and also as I realized that the opposite slope of Sasago is mostly shaded and so probably in far worse shape.

After a quick trip back toward Otsuki, I made the left term at Magi and started the climb up to O-Toge.  The Sasago climb on the old road starts at 700 meters elevation, whereas the Magi traffic light is below 450 meters, so at least I would get some climbing before encountering snow.  And the climb is all on the South slope of the mountain.  I made it up to the gate, and around the next corner, before I found the first stretch that would require dismounting.  Realizing that this was the first of many and that I still had 500 meters of elevation gain ahead, I turned around and headed for home.

The O-toge gate, approximately 975 meters elevation.

O-Toge Southern approach at 1000 meters elevation.

At this point, it is still too close to the event to know with any certainty the medium and longer term consequences of Friday's earthquakes.  But as I descended back down the road, still free of cracks, potholes or obstructions, and looked out to the South at the next line of mountains, over the roof of an undamaged house, I knew that much of Japan -- indeed, where 90% of Japanese reside and the vast bulk of Japanese industry and commerce -- is still just fine.

Another undamaged farm house on a smooth road -- Magi, on the climb toward O-Toge, about 75 km west of Tokyo.

I had a quick trip back toward town and, having ridden just under 190 km (10 km with my Garmin GPS turned off), I hopped an uncrowded but otherwise normal train at Hashimoto (Yokohama Line, then Denentoshi Line) and was home for dinner.

Map:
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/190306/full.gif

Elevation Profile:
http://ridewithgps.com/photos/snapshots/trip-histogram-190306.jpg

And today, from my office a photo of a few of the many buildings in central Tokyo that did not fall down on Friday:

The Wild Sheep Hunt

Yesterday, Tom rode the giant Yanagizawa Loop, consisting of the climbs to Yanagizawa, Kamihikawa, Sasago, Suzugane, Hinazuru und some other minor ones. Today, David, Jerome and me did the same loop. Almost.

Well, at least that was the plan, when the three remaining Positivo Espresso founding members gathered at Tamagawahara-Bashi at 7:30 AM. The (former) Tamagawa bicycle path, now a major walking path for the hanami-crazy, was full of people so we decided after a while to ride the normal road up to Ome.

Which brings me to the discussion about the Tamagawa path and the recently added obstacles (see for example here). Honestly, I don't care. I don't even want to put the argument forward that riding along the Tamagawa is boring and not very challenging and that I have been there a hundred times. Yes, all true but not of general interest. The point is, in my opinion, that the sum of total obstacles doesn't increase too much, if some fixed obstacles are added to the enormous number of moving ones.

There were simply not that many people when I started to ride along the Tamagawa about ten years ago: people, people with dogs and bicycle riders on the path. It was a fast and simple way to get out of metropolitan Tokyo. But by now, this has changed dramatically: too many moving obstacles. Even if the speed bumbs will be removed, that wouldn't change too much.

So, riding the (normal) road to Ome was comparatively much more pleasant and we were speeding towards our target like a fusillade of human bullets shot from an AK-47. Or perhaps more like a set of RPGs, given the shape of our bodies.

And so we arrived in Ome in 2 hours and 5 minutes - from my home in Yokohama that is. It cannot be done faster (today). And after a short break at Aurore bakery, we continued our fast ride towards Okutama and further up to the Okutama lake, without any longer breaks. This was the first time that I did the stretch between Ome and Yanagizawa in one go and as you can see on the right side this has now become the CHO TOGEBAKA (cho, in the double meaning of 長い and 超える), given the distance and elevation conquered. This is the mother of all Toge Baka (so far).

Now, when we made the turn at Okutama lake, Jerome was shouting from the top in front of me. Actually he told me, that we should wait for David who was further behind. But I didn't understand that properly, plus I didn't saw Jerome waiting, so I was assuming that he would be still riding in front of me. Now, as I don't wanted to be beaten up Yanagizawa, I accelerated and went quickly around the lake, supported by a nice tailwind. No sign of Jerome. "Jesus", I thought "He must be in really good shape." So I tried harder and exhausted myself completely on the climb. No Jerome came into sight. I had this vision that I was so slow, that David would overtake me with double my speed from behind.

So I run up Yanagizawa at full speed; until 200 elevation meters before the pass when I finally was convinced that Jerome must have been behind me. And I had run out of power. The climbing started to become really, really hard after being in the saddle for almost three hours. All the houses up there are deserted and all the curves looked alike and finally, well, there was the final one and I arrived at the restaurant on the pass which was also luckily opened. Jerome wasn't there.

I had a bowl of Soba, when Jerome arrived about 10 minutes later. We waited for David, who joined us after further 30 minutes, looking pretty wet and exhausted. In the moment he entered the restaurant, Jerome and me got up from our chairs in good, old Positivo Espresso tradition and said "OK then, let's go!".

But the truth was, that I was also pretty much done and I wasn't fully hydrated and recovered after some days of sickness last week.

So I made the following proposal: "We can do now Kamihikawa, Sasago, Susugane and Hinazuru, so about 34.786 meters (BBiT) of climbing plus an estimated 6.732 km (BBiM *) of distance, or we ride down to Ensan (now Koshu, by the way) and jump into an Onsen." Surprisingly enough, all of us opted for the Onsen visit, so we mounted our bikes and made the fast run down to Ensan. There it was pretty hot. The sky was blue, the thermometer showed 17 degrees and after all the cold weather before, we suddenly didn't felt in the mood any longer to linger in hot water.

So we rode the Fruit Line to Route 20, climbed up again and then took a right turn up to the haunted Sasago tunnel. We took it really easy, at least David and me, while Jerome was frolicking around in faster speed-hemispheres.

Shortly before the gate we met a woman who asked us, if there would be an old hotel further up the road. No, only a haunted tunnel with transparent octopuses living in the vaults. Later David said, that we should have taken a photo of the women in order to check if her body and face would show-up on the print, then perhaps she was only an epiphany of a Fox deity.

The old Sasago Tunnel was filled to the ceiling with maximum horror as usual.

Here we can see David and Jerome, still not suspecting anything, while entering the tunnel from the Ensan side. And here we see David and Jerome and me coming out on the other side, after we have experienced pure terror in it's most terrifying form in the darkness inside.On top of that there was also a strong wind and it was extremely cold inside the tunnel. And the weather on the Otsuki side of the tunnel was about 10 degrees colder than on the Ensan side.

So we made a fast run down to route 20 and almost froze to death. Then we made another superfast run down to Otsuki station on route 20 which was even more fun. And then we had a superfast express train from Otsuki home; all in all it took me less than 2 hours from arriving at Otsuki station to the door of my house.

A very nice trip with 167 km distance and more than 2.500 meter climbing (mapmyride checked). Could have been warmer, though. The last two rides (Chibchibu and this one) were some of the coldest rides ever. I enjoyed reading about the other rides on the weekend by Ludwig, Tom and the large PE group as well. It is good to know that so many activities are going on and there are so many groups to join.

Notes: I wrote this post yerstday after the ride, but didn't had the time to edit it and include the photos. So, please take this as an addition to David's post on the same subject.

(*) BBiM : Blind Believers in Me

The Honeythieves

After the rained-out weekend I met with Ludwig yesterday at Hashimoto to do a short but climbing-intensive trip over some new roads in the Route 20 / Doshi area under heavy police surveillance.We started on time at 7:30hr in front of Hashimoto station and tried a new shortcut that eventually brought us to the North Tsukui lake road. I wanted to show Ludwig my new discovery, the NORTH TSUKUI LAKE TRUNK EXTENSION which is very silent but in rather bad shape as you can see in the photos. But it has all the ingredients of a wonderful road: Three huge barriers which are shouting at you "Climb over me, please!", complete lack of any human activities, landslides, and great views. And all of this very close to Tokyo.
From there on we road to road 20 (the origin plan included to ride up Bijotani but I thought that wouldn't be a good idea in winter, given the conditions of the road).

Ludwig thought about a nice shortcut from road 20 to Akiyama, but we were stopped by some construction works. We tried to convince the guys there that it would be OK to let us pass, but we couldn't. In the end they were helpful to show us an alternative road which brought as to Akiyama as well.

We then started to climb Kando-Toge (not Ganda-Toge, it seems) which Ludwig has done already once from the Doshi-Michi side and Tom has reported out first in his heartwarming-story about the honey farmers of Doshi who in the 18th century cut this path into the rock with their bare hands in an effort to get access to the free market economy in the villages at road 20. Only to get raided by corporate M&A lawyers on the pass who forced them to integrate their operations into huge Doshi Honey conglomerates, lease the assets to dubious investment backs and sell the not performing bees as sub-prime collateralized debt obligations to the local pension funds. Oh sorry, I come back to cycling now.

The climb up covers about 500 meter elevation difference and the pass is about elevation 800 meters plus. On the top we were greeted by snow, a very much different scenery to the first signs of springs at Tsukui lake.

I wanted to pee, but because of the honey thieves the whole area is still very much under remote police surveillance. I found the only possible place to pee only after some serious thinking (please enlarge for maximum effect).Mount Fuji was now clearly visible between the mountains and after riding down on the other side, we continued to Doshi Michi, and then to road 76 and Makino Toge which I also had climbed only once last year.

After that we continued to Miyagase lake and started to climb up Yabitsu as the cul de sac of the day. When I started the clock, Ludwig said "We don't do a time trial, do we?" And I answered: "No, but I don't want to slog up as well" So we started pretty fast, kept steady and after we saw another cyclist in front of us we went even faster. After 20 minutes I lost Ludwig who was speeding ahead and I went up my own pace. I wasn't that good but also not too shabby when I reached the top where Ludwig has waited already for 4 minutes, probably setting a new Togebaka record (which needs to be entered on this blog).

The descent was rather fast, although I was careful on the site of my crash some weeks ago. But I reached more than 69 km/hr on the stretch after the donuts slope which was good enough to reach Hadeno station on time and take a train home.

Incredibly, the whole ride was only 111 km long, but with almost 1.800m of climbing it was pretty intensive and a good start into the week.
Off to Germany now any minute.

For a fistful of holes in the gloves

Image to ride by her and hear this music. Yes, you are now in Tsukui country.

With bad weather forecasted for Thursday and Friday I thought that it would be nice to mount Bad Boy and ride up into the snowy mountains of Yabitsu Toge today. That proved to be quite a painful trip.

Rather late in the morning I jumped on Bad Boy and rode along the Tsurumigawa river and the Onekan road to Hashimoto and Tsukui lake. Riding Bad Boy is rather a slow affair, it took me 1:09 hours to the Onekan crossing while I can do it in less than an hour on good days on the Cervelo. As I was slow and not chasing speed records, I had time to take some long overdue photos, like the "House of the hanged foils" and the residence of the Columbian druglord along the Tsukui lake North road.I went along Doshi to the Yamazaki shop at the entrance to Miyagase-lake and Yabitsu and I was surprised to see there many typical cycling related food like Weider Jelly, Soy Joy etc.. Clearly there must be more cyclists on the road and the shops are adopting accordingly.

After a very short break I continued to ride to Miyagase lake and then started to climb Yabitsu Toge. There was some snow left and right of the road from elevation 300 meters upwards but not too much. Instead it started to drizzle, not too hard but not very pleasantly as well. The road was completely deserted for (normal) cars. I didn't encountered a single bike or (normal) car when riding up. However: There were five construction sites on the road up and all of them did slope works. More concrete out there. And of course a lot of construction related trucks and concrete mixers.

By the way, the maximum capacity for a street legal concrete mixer in Japan is 3 m3, while in Germany for example up to 6 m3 is permissible. Actually the truck itself is not that much bigger, this is more related to the size of the drum and the ratio of concrete to air inside. But the consequence is, that double the number of mixers are required to deliver the same quantity of concrete to construction sites.

Whereas I thought last year, that the fury of public works might be related to the change of the govt in Japan, I am not sure if the change in gov'&t has changed anything at all in this respect. Or do I need to wait for the end of the fiscal year in April? At least Yabitsu was not closed for traffic in the winter like some of the years before.

It took me more than an hour to get to the top. Bad Boy is not only slower in the flats by 10 - 15%, but also climbing is slower in the range of 15 - 20%. Bad Boy is pretty heavy and the 700 x 30 tires add rolling resistance as well. On the top there was no Snow on the road, foggy views, drizzling rain and 5 degrees Celsius.
That was much less romantic than I thought I could be and I could have made it on the Cervelo as well. Within no time I started the ride downhill to Hadano, Bento capital of the world.

It is a pleasure indeed to ride downhill with Bad Boy, so steady and stable ,so easy to use the disc brakes. I was easily reaching speeds in the 50 to 60 km/hr range and was enjoying the ride. Also the rain has stopped on the Southern slopes.

A truck (construction material!) came up the road close to the observation point and I took the hair needle left turn coming down when it suddenly happened. Without any warning my rear wheel slipped to the outside of the curve, I fell heavily on the left thigh and elbow and slid with my bicycle in direction of the truck driving up. Luckily he was able to brake before I could touch him.

I felt a little bit dizzy, the rider came out of the cabin and the usual dialog started: "Daijobu? daijobu? Daijobu? Heiki?" Ellow and leg really hurt but basically I felt OK and I told him that I would just need a little break and then continue to ride to Hadano. My jacket and long trousers were also not torn despite the pain, however my Assos winter gloves had big holes in the area of the palm on both hands.

It seems that I have ridden over an icy spot and lost control. I am not very good at maneuvering curves and I normally leave a lot of reserves so I wonder what has happened here. Too much braking with the rear disc brake?

After a few minutes and checking that Bad Boy was still in acceptable shape, I continued the ride down very slowly and made my way up to Hadano station. Took the train home. Finally at home I could undress and take a better look at the damage done. Nasty scratch, that will hurt for some days. Surprisingly swollen as well. Took a long nap. Took it easy.So, not sure about the Saturday Izu ride. Let's see. Be careful out there. There was no indication of ice and I haven't seen any on the road riding up.

Last Frontiers

Instead of riding out on the Cervelo road bike on Sunday, I decided that it would be time to test the Bad Boy with all terrain tires out on some serious gravel trails.

I notified Tom and Ludwig about my riding plans at 11.30 PM the day before and naturally they didn't made it to the meeting point. Perhaps this wasn't unintentionally as I perhaps preferred to be alone on my first Bad Boy Cyclo Cross Test ride.

After having prepared the bike on the evening of the day before I left home at 7 AM only to realize that having only 700x23C spare tubes for 700x30C tires plus no patching kit with me would be probably not a good idea. Never mind. Did Napoleon leave Moscow despite the Russian winter? Did Hannibal cross the alps on elephants? Did they have spare French or spare elephants with them? No, of course not and how splendid they did nevertheless afterwards!

It took me only 48 minutes to reach the meeting point at Tamagawa which was fairly fast, given the fact that I was basically riding something more similar to a MTB than a road racer. Luckily James, Dominic, Michael and Yair kept waiting despite me being late for more than 20 seconds over the allowed PE approved waiting deadline. I was seriously reprimanded by James before we left along the Tamagawa. James had the Shimano Di-2 groupset on his Cervelo so he is the first PE rider who did upgrade. Together with the Garmin and the powerbub on the rear wheel he carried more electronic components per kilo of machine weight than a USAF stealth fighter jet.

It was really hard to keep up with Bad Boy in the flats, it almost felt like learning to cycle all over again. I had to put in at least 10 - 15% more power along the Tamagawa only to draft behind James and later in direction Takao I had to stop to get rid of my gloves. Actually I bought this padded Gore gloves for the winter season, but yesterday it was simply too hot so I continued riding without them.
This also gave me a good excuse to take it easy as I was already worn out from riding at 160+ HRM all the time. And conversation wasn't so much fun either. I spoke with James and even when I wasn't in agreement with what he said I could barely stammer "ah, yeah, right", as I was trying simultaneously to get some amount of air into my lungs.

On the positive side I had to note, that the new Selle Italia saddle with 150 mm width with quite comfortable. I probably have to realize that my behind is not made for 130 mm wide saddle due to its sheer horizontal dimensions, swallow that pill and go for something wider also on my road bike. Stephen has already let the way in this respect with his huge over sized saddle that accounts for half of the weight of his Scott bike and make it look like a chaise longue.

Our group made a stop (I rather don't add "quick" here) at the 7-Eleven at Takao station before we started to conquer Otarumi. Everybody was going up pretty fast and consistent, however with Bad Boy it was even worse going up than in the flat. It took me 19:30 min for the standard Toge-baka distance and perhaps I could have done it a little bit faster but not much. Pretty disappointing, and I swore that the next time I will take out Bad Boy by train and start to ride only in very close vicinity of a gravel trail. On the top I said good-bye to the group that was going back via Tsukui lake while I was continuing along route 20 to the crossing with route 76 at Fujino.

Well the nice thing with Bad Boy is, that he is really fast, stable and steady on the downhills. I overtook everybody already at the first curve and I didn't saw anybody behind me when I reached the bottom of the hill. Braking is also very comfortable and easy to manage with two disc brakes and it was really a pleasure to ride down. It would be nice to do this again with David and check if I would be able to keep up with him as he is the actual holder of the Positivo Espresso Reverse Polka-Dot jersey, i.e. the king of the hills(down).

Road 76 was nice and empty. And before I know I arrived at Aone at the local supermarket where I purchased last supplies for the trail up to 大越 Tunnel. This is a PE-approved supermarket, however as this is the only supply point in Aone, please don't expect too much from it. It caters to people who actually cook their meals and not to those who expect to have indication of Amino-desoxy-nuclein-ribulose-natrium-viagra-glycolyd content on their jelly packs. I asked the lady how the weather would be up at the tunnel and as usual she answers "You cannot go up there" and as usual I said "Well, you keep telling me that, but some of my friends did before, don't worry I can do as well." We did this dialog already two or three times. By now it is more like a ritual, with all words in it having lost meaning.

Outside her dog was barking as usual. He dislikes me. Or my bike.

I got lost in Aone-city trying to find the entry to road 76 leading first to 神之川 camp site. Yes, Aone is a village with perhaps 500 inhabitants but nevertheless it is not so easy to find the right road. Ludwig and me tried to find it once but once we did we had to turn back as it took too much time. TCC has gone up there one, two times but this is already two, three years ago. Lauren told me he was there a long time ago and also Tom conquered the road with his new Cyclo-cross bike recently.

So it was time for me to give it a try, as this is also one of the few roads I know about and never did before. And a good initial test for the Bad Boy as I always had this road in mind when I made my plans to upgrade the bike.

The first part up to the right-wing radical camp site isn't particular difficult. There are some beautiful spots along the Kaminokawa river and even now there were a lot of people fishing there. Then one comes to a closed gate which is plastered with sign boards. One doesn't need to be able to read Japanese to understand that the basic message must be:

"Come on. This is a nice road leading into beautiful mountains, devoid of any dangers and just made for cyclists like you. Fun and adventure are awaiting behind these close gates. Welcome to cycling-pleasure wonderland. Don't hesitate to climb over the gate. By the way, these signboards are only made to look like "DO NOT ENTER" SIGNS so that normal human beings are refraining from coming here."

The gate is about elevation 550m and up to elevation 630m the road is in fairly good, asphalted shape. Of course there are many stones coming down from the slopes on the road. Then it starts to become a gravel road but again there are intermittent asphalted stretches. Then there is only gravel again. It is so hard and so to slow to climb this road that I had to make a break at elevation 720m to shoot some photos. The steepness of the road plus the surface made me creep up at 6 - 7 km/hr. Luckily I had my trekking shoes with the MTB-SL cleats on as otherwise I would have ruined my shoes and cleats for sure. Definitely not a road for road bikes.

Over 800m there was some ice and snow but generally it wasn't too cold. And after a while the road became flatter and finally the last stretch up to the tunnel was asphalted again before about 30 m in front of the tunnel was a last gate.

Interesting enough some of the slopes seemed to be shotcreted recently and were in good shape while the road next to it was not. But why is there a road (and a prefectural one) in this lonely place anyway? And why is there a tunnel on the top when basically one has to climb an additional 50 to 100 meter to make it over the mountain anyway?

I was too exhausted to answer these questions and continued through the tunnel which was dark but not as scary as I thought it would be (I brought a lamp from home especially for that purpose). No comparison to the horrors that ones await at Sasago tunnel.
I stripped down on the other side and took sunbath to add some complexion to my stealth body. And then I made the downhill to Tansawa lake which was fully on asphalted road and a breeze with the disc-braking Bad Boy.

We should ride more often to Tansawa, the lake looked beautiful and there are many roads around it. After some more km I found myself on road 246 again. As I never thought I would make it that far, I didn't think before about how to return from there and naturally I didn't bring any maps with me.　I thought about riding along 246 to the next Combini, take a look at a map and decide further. But then 246 was really ugly out there and there was no Combini at all. By the way, the landscape 246 runs through is nice indeed and also the Tomei highway over it is pretty impressing to look at. One can see parts of the old road and some older tunnels here and there but otherwise road 246 really made a cycling misery out of the place.

So when I saw a sign to Yamakita station I took that hint and stopped at the station there. There was a long shopping arcade with many shops in front of it so I thought I might find some noodle shop or supermarket to buy some food. Unfortunately most of the shops went out of business in the Eighties and what is left catered to the needs of old country folk (seeds, aprons, adult diapers), so I was rather happy when I could leave the place 10 minutes later on a train. I was also happy that a train stopped at all, as it does so only once an hour.
And within no time I was in Odawara and back on the Shinkansen to Shin-Yokohama and finally home where I completely exhausted lost a game of monopoly to my 8 year old daughter and a game of Playstation2 Winning Eleven soccer with my Spanish team against Uruguay managed by my 13 year old son.

Hey, but they will never beat me up road 76.

PROLOGUE

I didn't join any of the Saturday rides as I was out in town Friday night with my wife. Few years ago I bought a rather larger piece of art (about 3 meters long) from a promising young artist called Yamaguchi Akira. Since then we get invitations from the gallery of him to all kind of exhibitions which are mostly in Kagoshima or Akita and with artists the world has never heard about and never will. But he has become more famous by now and we were asked by the 17th Bienale in Sydney to rent out our work.

As this time our cooperation was required we got some of the better invitation cards for the G Tokyo 2010 art exhibition at Roppongi Hills plus VIP invitations for the reception hold at Maison Hermes in the Ginza. For the exhibition I can report that there was not one work related to cycling and that most of art is decorative today. Also they ran out of champagne after I drank my third glass there.

I always had some relation to Hermes-Ginza for several reasons, one being that the elevators in the building were made by my previous company and the second one being that my wife always threatens me to buy some of this stuff.

It was very pleasant and as we arrived on time we had a good time at the Sushi Bar. As we ate a lot the bar was shut-down half an hour later when we were already at the buffet and the dessert bar. It is really pretty kind of Hermes to hand out food to the unemployed, I must say.

We were shown around the building and in the sixth floor busy craftsmen were repairing handbags and leather belts at 10 PM under inhumane conditions (i.e. in full view of drunken VIP guests).

I am happy to report that I found a brand that is even more expensive than Assos or Rapha. I could convince my wife not to buy anything but to eat and drink as much as possible. Which we did and explains the headache and general unlust the next morning. Sorry. We cannot be all VIPs.

Ekiden in Pictures

Rather than to add further writings about the Ekiden event, I post some of the pictures Ludwig and me took along the ride.Ok, I can not restrain myself and will add some comments nevertheless. This also should serve as a reminder when I plan the event next year again.

It took me about 45 minutes from my house to the meeting point at Route 15 at the Tamagawa. The meeting point is easy to miss if you come from Tokyo as one has to leave the main road and ride down from the flyover.

James and Dominic came shortly thereafter and as the Tokyo group was not in sight we started at 8:25. The first part is not so pleasant, I found. There is still a lot of traffic, many police on the streets and many red traffic lights. One is probably as fast as the runners on this stretch.

We kept our group together, had some talks with the police here and there and then one of the spokes of my rear wheel decided to break. As I was organizing and perhaps a little bit more nervous than usual, one spoke missing made me even more nervous. The wheel was still true but I limited myself to about 40 km/hr on the downhills.

We were late for the meeting point in Fujisawa but Kori has hold out there, so I was happy that this went well, after we have missed the Tokyo group or vice versa.After Fujisawa is there is a fast stretch on the coast road where we gained alot of time and where riding was fun with Fuji-san clearly visible right in front of us. Also Ludwig and David A caught up with us there.

Then we all had together a last break an a Combini in Odawara before the serious portion of the ride started. Now Ludwig was also pushing to start, so I could relax a little bit from my organizing role. It was clear that we wouldn't stay together as a group on the climb from the beginning.

I don't know why, but the road between Odawara and Moto-Hakone is not a very pleasant one. There is only a slightly incline, but it feels like 10%. And we almost got stopped by a policeman again, but Ludwig and me could ignore him and continue. We could also see another pair of pinchers from hell on the rights ide of the road, but they refrained from grabing us.

At the beginning of the official Togebaka climb at Asahikawa Bridge, Ludwig, James and me were together with me leading and the others were somewhere behind. We stayed together for about 6 or 7 minutes and then Ludwig and James went ahead. David A also overtook me some minutes later. But that was it, I overtook some more riders on the way up. The traffic was rather bad with a lot of buses and sometimes I had to squeeze my way up between a bus and a line of spectators. One time I even had to stop. And I was slowly running out of power. I particular dislike the slope after the Fujiya hotel which isn't that steep again, but for some reasons hard.

Then I reached the huge Yunessun Onsen at about 600 m elevation and this is always the point on this climb where I think, OK I have almost made it and now it is only a few more meters. Some minutes later I was overtaking a struggling Japanese rider, I thought and shoute "Gambatte" as encouragement, only to find out that it was Graham. I wanted to be up fast, so we didn't talk too much and then I saw James taking a break at the roadside in front of me. Before he saw me, he started again and I could caught up with him. We then stayed together until the ENEOS gas station where he said "Oh, that was hard", while I said "It is not over yet!", as we still needed to go down one hill and do one more short climb. 55 minutes an something was not a shabby time for me, better than last year (always important) and much better than the 1:35 hr I needed some years ago. Ludwig was by now already at the goal.So James and me ride together into the finish area, seeing all the cheerleaders, hearing all the bands (Playing "Popeye, the sailorman") and watching the Supporters of Tokyo Nogyo Daigaku (Agricultural University) swinging big radishes in support for their team.

I opted for the Assos Fugu jacket, which was the right choice for the first 20 minutes in the morning but was afterwards simply much too warm. Too cold was never an issue on this day. Luckily the day was sunny so I laid it upside down in the sun so that the sweat could dry.

Dominic also made it in front of the runners, very well done. And Graham as well.
So after watching some of the runners, we rode up to the Michi no Eki restaurant where we had some Soba and Udon and told each other our stories. Ludwig and me wore our JCRC championship jerseys of 2008 and 2009 and we made some photos.There was nobody elase coming so we made our way down to Atami. The traffic was bad up to Route 20, but from there onwards it was OK. The road was beautiful as usual, but I was very catious with me spokeless rear wheel so I didn't enjoyed it as much as I do normally.
And in Atami we were greeted by an assortment of Geisha in the 60 - 96 years age bracket who congratulated Ludwig on his JCRC championship while all of us got there "Otoshidama" from them.
Then back on the Shinkansen, very crowded but only 25 minutes to Shinyokohama for me with a beer in my hand.A very nice start into the 2010 riding season. I felt a little bit sorry about the rider we have left behind or didn't made it, so as some of the other have checked with Yair, I checked with Kori later. As we started also much more earlier the climb this year, than last year, there was also les stress that the runners would overto\ake our leading group. And of course we were faster but I would assume that the last runner of Toyo is stil faster on the stretch between Odawara and the finish than I was. Amazing.