CRASH PLUS ONE

... no this wasn't my knee. It is a spot on the outer side of my left thigh.
May take some days to recover.Happy to note that I have finally reached the age when it is considered acceptable to talk about injuries, illnesses and the like.

Lesson #1 in Racing Tactics

Michael's reference to the theme from "Fistful of Dollars" got me thinking ... about the end of a long racing stage where 3 riders approach the finish, some minutes ahead of the pack.  The first one to sprint will lose, unless he gets a great jump and gets clear of the other two.  The one who waits patiently can get the others to serve as lead out men and draft off them, saving precious energy and pulling ahead just before the line.  But they cannot wait too long, or the pack will catch them ... maybe 60 seconds to play with, then someone needs to jump, fast.

The lessons -- if you don't understand the tactics and your opponents, you end up dead last, in a grave by the side of the course.  And never enter the sprint finish with an "empty gun" -- ride efficiently and conserve some energy during the race-- or you will end up in second place, digging up the buried treasure for the other guy.
It is like a gun fighters' duel.  (That is why Alberto always shoots the finger pistols after crossing the line ... though I don't quite see him in filling Clint's shoes).

60 cycles

Jean-Claude Labrecque
His 1965 documentary short 60 Cycles won 22 major international awards and earned an BAFTA Award nomination

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.

Nalshima -- now down close to the Tamagawa under the monorail in Tachikawa

Good news.  I happened to look at the Nalshima Frend website today, and was delighted to see that there is now a choice besides Y's Garage to stop for gear and repairs along the Tamagawa. 

Since last November ... when I stopped riding temporarily, so maybe I am the last to know this "news" ... Nalshima is no longer up by Tachikawa Station, a 5-10 minute detour through unpleasant crowds. 

It is under the monorail, down near the river.  See the website for a map.

Weekend Ride Saturday February 13th

With rain the days before Saturday and perhaps snow in the mountains, I thought it might be nice to try a longer ride this Saturday in Izu Hanto.

We would get on an early Shinkansen Kodama 633 out of Shinagawa [7:04 AM] and Shin-Yokohama [7:15 AM] to arrive at Mishima shortly before 8. Then we would first ride along the North-West coast of Izu and depending on the progress and general performance level we can ride up into the mountains while heading South. There are many options that would lead us all the way to the tip of Izu and Shimoda.

Once in Shimoda we again have the choice to take the train home, or we can continue on the East coast side to go North and catch a train at a later station, for example Ito. Again, as the trainline is also mostly parallel to the coast there are many options.

We have done similar Izu rides in the past and most of them turned out to be very nice. Thre are some onsens we could visit if time allows and Teppan Curry Pasta at the Sunny Side Cafe in Shimoda is something I would look forward to as well.

The Dawn of the Davids

Imagine you wake up one morning and the world around you has changed completely. All your neighbors have become brainless zombies and you can only defend yourself by throwing Dire Straits LPs at them. Or suddenly, everyone you know goes by the name Dave.

From left to right: David, David, David, David, David, David, David, David and Phil.

"Oh, David, good that you made it. May I introduce you to David? David, this is David, David this is David."
"Hi David, Nice to meet you."
"Hi, nice to meet you too, David."

With David J. being back in England, David L. injured and David C. taking part only in short trips morning rides, one would assume that the amount of Davids that could be assembled for a ride in Bozo peninsular would be somewhat limited. Nevertheless, when Phil of TCC called for a joint winter ride in Chiba, all remaining cycling Davids and very few other guys turned up, eleven riders in total. We were quite a group: David Dachin (younger brother of James), David Denderson aka as Dominic Denderson and me, the D.O.B. were attending the tour on behalf of Dositivo Depresso.

Phil has warned us that this would become a leisurely ride, adding that we must make 30 km/hr average along the first third in order to be home on time, so we started rather fast and within no time we have also lost some riders of our group. But we always stopped and let the slower riders catch up so that we might have had a good speed average, however the overall progress was rather slow.

It is always interesting to ride in the countryside of Chiba, I believe that I can say that as an expert who has ridden there with Phil already two times. Every time and without him, I would be lost and probably still would ride clueless in Chiba looking for the exit between the vast stretches of land belonging to golf clubs. Nine years ago a Dutchman by the name of Kees Van der Werff got so much lost that he found Chibas' exit only after weeks (exhibit 1, at the bottom of this post).

It is also interesting to note that Chiba is not flat at all and consists of many hills, not a single one higher than 400 meters, but some of them quite steep and all in all we were able to do much more than 1.000 meter of climbing before we broke into two groups.

The riding is much different than on the West side. On the West side one picks a series of climbs with impressive elevations and connects them by dotted lines, trying to get us much of them in as possible. One knows the climbs, they are continuous and one is motivated to make an effort, go up fast and reach the top, followed by some leisure time riding downhill. It is like working as a public official in the accounting department and having a wild weekend affair. Riding in Chiba is more like the average marriage: The hills are not that high any more, but the sheer number of ups and downs adds up as well (or perhaps "adds down" in this comparative case) and leaves its mark on the spiritual and physical condition of the participants.

One climb was particular long and nasty and Phil took photos of all of us coming in one by one except for Tim and his fixie. As there was a road branching off to the right which went down and looked much more inviting, TruffleEater constructed a nice cryptic message out of some bamboo branches which should have indicated the proper road (up) to follow. All you needed to understand it would have been basic operative training in the CIA or MI-5 and an enigma machine to decode the message. The alternatives would have been (a) to block the wrong roads with some logs that were lying on the side of the road or (b) to write a message with chalk on the (wrong) road surface at the bottom of the hill some 200 meters down:

"U-Turn here, Fixie and up the other road!"

But being nice guys we decided something simple. We never saw Tim again that day.

Then we made another stop at a nice country shop (now PE approved) somewhere in the middle of Bozo. My guess what be that our group made not only 50% of the total turnover in that shop on this day, but also 100% of the not-alcohol related turnover. I saw some locals dropping in with their typical agricultural mini cars and every single one of them left with a crate of beers. And nothing else. That should give you some idea what people in Chiba do on their weekends during winter time.

It was nice and toasty (PE rule: The word "toasty" should be used in every post at least once between December and March.) in the shop that has provided us with a seating arrangement at least as nice as a snack bar and the only equipment missing was a Karaoke machine and some 60 year plus old bar hostesses feeding as with mizuwari from our drinking bottles, peanuts and gently touching from time to time our shaved knees.

We also took a group photo there in front of some old slot machines at the scrape yard next to the country shop.

A few kilometres later our group split, Phil leading the TCC guys back to Honda station and David, David and me riding along road 465 towards the coast to the town of Kanayamahma where we would take the ferry to Miura Hanto. Phil also suggested a smaller detour over a hill on a road (Ken 93) parallel to road 465. He suggested this climb in particular because he never did it before and wanted to know how it is.

We were cruising then at good speeds along 465 and enjoyed the tailwind as we had quite some headwind going South all day before. Unfortunately the reason why we had this nice tailwind was, that we managed to miss road 465 somewhere and we were now heading North on road 410 towards the very ugly part of Chiba, bringing as far, far away from the ferry port.

Luckily I had brought my Garmin Version (1.0, aka as a Chiba map) and we headed up to the village of Kururi where we took a turn on Ken 93 (where well hidden) and rode back to road 465. I started to bonk (no, not that) but luckily Dominic and James gave me a banana and a power bar so I felt much better than. It was the first time I ever ate a powerbar and I was surprised at the resistance it offers against being eaten. The consistency is similar to semi-liquid asphalt or dried squid and the energy required to eat it is more than the energy your body absorbs by eating it. Strange. But I felt better than.

And finally we reached the coast and some minutes later the ferry port. I have checked the departure times of the ferries between 12 and 2 PM, however we were so late because of the many stops we made and the pointless ride we included (living up to this great PE tradition) that we only managed to catch the 4 PM ferry.

This is a great ferry, designed in the Seventies and in service since then with plushy sofas, fancy chandeliers, toasty aircon and a strip show on the upper deck starting at 4.30 PM. Or we could have selected to see Tom Jones singing in the parking deck protected by a series of bulkheads.

Recently some of the ferries had sunken because the loads were not probably secured on deck. During the heavy seas which occur during the winter seasons in the bay of Tokyo, some of the vehicles have gotten loose, moved to either the starboard or backboard side and resulted in perpendicular inclination of the ferry.
As one can see on the photo my Heavy Cervelo Soloist (8.9 kg) required therefore much tighter fixing than the relatively light Pinarellos standing next to it.

In the middle of Tokyo Bay we saw the "Tokyo Express" container carrier by Hapag-Lloyd moving in which made my immensely proud of all the useless stuff from Germany and other European countries that is carried year by year to Japan and actually sold here. I must be the equivalent to trade beads of the 19th century and in return our ships come home loaded with Toyota Hybrids which will be immediately forwarded to Toyota dealers for recall.

In this context I would like to add that my son asked me yesterday evening if it isn't dangerous for Toyota dealerships to intercept Toyota cars on recall as they couldn't brake when entering the premises.

And when we arrived in Kuriyama after having enjoyed a good meal on board (thanks to the Smutje), the strip show and seeing Dean Martin after Tom Jones, it was almost dark. David choose the train home from Kuriyama while David and me took the straight road towards Kamakura. On the trip I have shared many stories about the legendary Helga, her two brothers (not named David) and the German Seacastle restaurant that they operate at Kamakura but we did not had the time to drop in despite being very fast on the last stretch. But it was already dark and we just made it to Ofuna, packed our bikes and took the train home to Yokohama.

142 km of riding and more than 1.500 meters of elevation. And, oh yes, we also met some very nice cycling Davids. Thanks to all of them for the nice trip.Exhibit One

A different ride

I joined a group of TCC cyclists to ride up and down the Arakawa.

It was a beautiful day - very crisp air, with extremely good visibility.

However, an initially modest headwind which we were able to take in pace line at around 32km/h turned into gale force winds which slowed us down sometimes to a creeping 20km/h, blowing us nearly off the path and at one point almost into the traffic.

I would have never been able to motivate myself to go through this permanent wall of wind without the pressure to cycle with a group, and a fast one it was.

The return ride was great fun - skippering our bikes in the wind. On a longer stretch free of any lurking dangers I accelerated easily up to 60km/h. With a better ratio than 50:12, I could have done even more.

It was also fun to be with such a strong group. Constant motivation to put in a lot of power - accelerating, sprinting, facing the wind. I find it hard to do this by myself in the flat.

The result has been my first ever muscle ache after cycling. I didn't feel particularly exhausted after 133km of riding, but the frequent sprinting must have added an extra degree of exercise that I normally don't get.

I hope there will be more soon.

More on this ride at the TCC site: http://www.tokyocycle.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=1716&page=3

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/jp/kanto/561126545731843367

P.S. for ardent believers in the accuracy of cycling computers that measure altitude gain: I did 470m in this very flat terrain! I'm so proud of myself...

Not all signs are created equal...

In the not so distant past a group of riders encountered a big obstacle on a small road and a incident turned into an accident. Since that time I have wondered what could have happened and what did happen. At the end of it all I realized there was one thing missing in the equation, what should have happened. So I have been researching this and came up with a fairly good list of the "Rules of the Peloton" of which I think there will be many additions to and hopefully a lot of discussion. As a team this discussion is a long time coming and may have happened and I missed it, I have been out for some time.

Please have a look...

Whilst riding in a bunch, it is imperative that a rider warns the other cyclists about road and traffic hazards, anticipated moves, or position changing. Although the lead person is at the disadvantage of having to break the wind in front of the bunch, he also holds the distinct advantage of seeing things way ahead. The riders behind depend on him to give them the necessary signals that will avoid mishaps such as crashes, punctures, damaged shoulders and even possibly fractured necks.

These are some of the more common hand signals:

1. Pointing down at the ground (left or right) would indicate danger on the appropriate side. Move in the opposite direction to avoid hazards. Hazards would include potholes, cateyes (NB), painted lines (very slippery in wet weather), stones etc. Remember, it doesn't have to be a large stone or boulder for you to indicate danger. Rather be safe than sorry - indicate any potential dangers. Make sure you also call out loud any obstacles in the road so people can hear you and take note of the problem.
   
2. Patting the bum. Patting YOUR left 'cheek' with left hand would indicate to all riders following your wheel that there is something hazardous on the left and to move over to the right. This could be due to a parked car up ahead, slow riders which are going to be passed, a big patch of gravel or dangerous road ahead. Patting the right bum cheek with right hand indicates that the cyclist has riders must move over to the left.
   
3. Finger or hand up in the air - indicates that a rider has punctured or incurred some or other mechanical trouble that will result in him/her having to stop. When riding in a bunch, you can't just pull your brakes and come to a screeching halt. Keep rolling and hold your line until everyone behind has passed, then pull off to the side for assistance.
   
4. Arm out with forearm at 90degrees towards the sky, hand up with all finger extended/or with a fist. Indicates that the group must slow down to stop - traffic lights or stop street or anything else that would bring the group to a stop. If it is traffic lights call out "LIGHTS" loudly to get everyone's attention.
   
5. Hand left or right with fingers normally extended shaking back and forth - indicates loose gravel or small stones in the path. Very common at intersection. Slow down and try and avoid 'infected' area. Cornering should be done at slower speeds.
   
6. A 2-fingered downward point moving laterally, would indicate railway tracks ahead. The direction of the hand should indicate the angle at which the railway tracks cross the path. Be extremely cautious when crossing them and also go over the tracks at a 90degree angle, even if this means going wide and then cutting across to achieve this angle.
   

These are the main hands signals used whilst riding in a bunch.

Practice SAFE Riding

Never assume the rider behind you has seen the danger ahead. Use loud VOCAL warnings for anything you can not signal or needs special attention.

GOLDEN RULE -
Never over lap tires for any reason!

If the entire group can't make it through an intersection, NOBODY goes.
It only takes one silly person for a tragedy.

good link:
http://www.pearlandcyclingclub.org/safety-SpaceCity.pdf

Sunday AM ride Report -- P.E. Approved Mid-Winter Gear

A beard really takes the chill off on my morning commute [but I just needed to remove that offensive close-up photo if I was going to recirculate this as a brief ride report, with Tom's input as well].

As planned, I made a 7:35AM start, aiming for 8:15AM from Sekidobashi. I did meet Tom and Nishibe-san at Sekidobashi ... but was nearly 10 minutes late because of the headwinds. We struggled toward Takao, finally making decent time once the path turned far enough toward the West so we were not going upwind. My legs held up okay, with Tom having taken a long ride and Nishibe-san having run a 1/2 marathon on Saturday. During the rest at the PE recommended Takao convenience store, Tom gave me a pack of his chemical footwarmers -- tiny, and they easily slipped inside my toe covers and outside my shoes. Toasty. I will need some supply for the rest of the winter.

We headed back in via the "Hino Bypass", coming back to the Tamagawa about 2 km North of Y's, near the temporary end of the Tamagawa cycling path. We lost Nishibe-san at some lights along Hino Bypass, but he called Tom's phone and we headed home.

It was great riding home downwind, zooming along at 38-40 kph despite being fat and weak. I've started the road back!

Tom's supplement:

Thought the beard looked really sharp on you! Yeah...Kafun-season and Haru-ichiban sandstorm may soon want you to start shaving again! Thanks again for the quick ride this morning. It didn't look like your shoulder was giving you much trouble....powerful riding style sure intact!

(Fujisan in the back....I know....I tried to photoshop but to no avail)

And my photo of Tom:

Answers on a postcard

In MOB's post below he poses the question regarding how teams communicate during a race, especially with all the different languages and accents making it very difficult in the heat of the moment to pass along tactics and instructions to rider.

Having followed the Tour last year I think Team Astana with the help of Lance Armstrong developed a series of hand signals to communicate with, they seem very intricate but might be something we can use on our rides.

There is no shirt for the fastest sprinter

I must say I am very impressed by the series of videos about the 2009 season of the Cervelo Test Team as sponsored on bartape.net and/or as video podcast on itunes. Dominic and James have pointed this out.

I include below some screenshots from the videos I have made on my PC with Quick Screen Capture, a very handy tool which works exactly as "print screen" should work: It takes a precise "photo" of your PC screen in the moment you press the button, so you can for example also take pictures out of movies which you cannot with print screen. Or from Allsports.

Aesthetically, Cervelo has come a long way from their first bike shown above to the bikes they make today. I am in no position to judge, but looking at the way they design their bikes, their clothes and also now their videos, I believe that aesthetics play a big part in their brand image - and it's a different kind of aesthetics as compared to other makers and teams. Not as loud and "sportive", focusing more on melancholy, suffering, pain. The only other cycling-related maker than comes to my mind with a similar image is Rapha.

What I like about the videos in particular is, what is missing: They are almost bare of any direct promotion for Cervelo products (actually the first ones are, but this becomes less and less until the final Tour de France videos). And in addition they are also almost bare of any information about the results of the race the team entered. It is just about cycling and riders speaking about cycling. And combined with the Koyaanisqatsi like soundtrack, again bare of any traces of Euro-techno-beats, it appeals very much to the romantic rider in me. I would love to have seen "Road to Roubaix" in a similar matter.

Another thing that I learned from the videos is that a cycling team consists of riders, mangers and support staff of many nationalities, Italians, Spanisch, Germans, Australians, Swiss, Norwegians .... and they communicate in English. Naturally perhaps most of them don't enjoyed (?) higher education and at least my classmates who were brilliant in the gym were not equally gifted in learning foreign languages.

Now, in international business topics as "intercultural management" and "crosscultural communication" are big topics and often cited as major factors for success or failure of international business ventures. Now hearing some of them speaking English, I wonder how can they communicate effectively during the races: Some of the Germans speak with accents of German offices in US WW2 movies while the Australians/NZlanders are hard to understand even for me.

As someone who, sitting in a restaurant with his teammates, wasn't even able to bring across the difference between "fencing" and "fanzine" to his English mother tongue teammates, I wonder how they manage to decide strategy on the (poor quality) team radio during a race when every second counts.

All in all it is a very motivating video, I find some traces of my own addiction to cycling included in the footage and after watching it I had the urge to ride out on my bike immediately.

Which I did.

Positivo Bike Porn

I thought I would have a play with the colour scheme of my current bike to see how it would look if it conformed to the Positivo Rule book and I was very surprised with how it turned out.


I’m actually tempted to find out just how much it would cost to have Pinarello respray and graphic the bike into the team colour’s.

Saturday Ride [6.2.10] : BOSO AND MIURA HANTOS

I am planning to join the TCC ride organized by Phil on Satursday. With snow in the mountains and Phil knowing every corner of Boso peninsular, I think this is a good opportunity to check out this rather unknown area.

The ride starts at 9.30 AM in front of Honda station on the Sotobo Line. With the Narita Airport Express it is possible to ride from Yokohama (7.39 AM) or Shinagawa (8.01 AM) to Chiba, the switch trains there, so the travelling time is reasonable.

My plan is to ride about 50 - 60 km with TCC, then ride along road 465 to the West coast and catch the ferry to Kurihama on Miura Hanto. I have done this last year as well, it is a nice combination of riding and cruising.

On Miura I would then go South to Jogashima and back up North on the West coast to Kamakura where I might stop at the Seacastle to have an early dinner, provided I have a) company and b) feel fearless enough to enter that joint.

Back by train then from Ofuna with a few beers already in the belly (but not 0 alcohol ones). Train also connects directly to Shinagawa within 3５ minutes, so thgis is much better than taking the train home from Chiba in the evening again.

Anybody going to join me?

More TCC Info here

A Bit Of Fluff

Warning; May contain images that readers may find offensive. Parental supervision advised

What with the weather turning on the fun side even for a few hours I decided to make a change to my morning ride and break out the cross country, wide width tire, stealth wheeled ,retro fit bar road bike and go full out in the fluffy stuff that had dumped during the night.

Living outside of Yokohama and half way up a nice climb the snow was pretty thick and on leaving the house at 6:30am there was still enough snow to prevent me from going out on the road bike. The going from the onset was pretty slippery and I had to drop the pressure on the front and rear tire to get proper traction and control.

With my confidence increased I put the pedal down and set a pretty good pace of 27kph through the hiking paths where I live and with the bike being what it is I was able to ignore all stairs and blast down them with the snow, tires and shocks absorbing the impacts.

Reaching Route 16 I took the river road, again offering lots of run on the shaded side where no one had walked and the morning sun hadn’t already started the thaw, again, the tires and squat rear triangle giving lots of traction and acceleration over the snow. Before long I was almost at the junction where Route 16 meets Route 1 and passing some picturesque temples I had to make a quick stop to get a photo.

Not wanting to ride on Route 1 I decided to take the back roads along the river and the cut over to Minato Mirai and along the bay. By now the sun and the salt air had done its work and only a few places had a smattering of snow left.

I almost had a tumble however on the old wooden bridge as you leave Akarenga and head to Yamishita Koen as the snow and slush had made the wooden planks very slippery and the rear end fish tailed out, keeping the feet in the clips I was able to steer into the slide and pull the back end in line again without crashing.

Finally reaching Kannai it was if it hadn’t even snowed at all but 80% of the ride had been a lot of fun and although it added another 10 minutes to my normal ride it was a lot of fun and broke up my usual morning training regime with some childish fun that put a big grin on my face. Going back will be slightly borring so I'm tempted to scout out for the ridge road that Momonger mentioned.

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.

Boystalk

Rather easy to imagine that this conversation would have happened in the same manner with a new Cervelo bike equipped with a Shimano Di-2 groupset parked in the room instead of a Plasma TV mounted to the wall.