In May 2024 Golden Week, Jerome and I decided to join a Nihonbashi 1000km ride that left Tokyo and headed for Tohoku. The checkpoints were designed around statues of the famous Japanese Edo period poet Basho. Basho traveled a lot, and documented his travels and wrote verses about the places he visited. He is an iconic figure. So Japan is full of Basho statues, and they make useful photo checkpoints for cyclists!
Anyway, I was certainly not in shape to do a 1000km ride, and after the riding 12+ hours and going up to a high point in Nasu Kogen near the “killing stone” of legend and descending down into Shirakawa, southern Fukushima, slogging all the way to the coast of Miyagi around Watari-cho, we abandoned the ride. I made it 417kms in 27 hours then called it quits.
We took a train to Ishinomaki and the next day rode straight through to Shinjo in Northern Yamagata. After a second night, in Shinjo, I hopped a morning train back to Tokyo while Jerome rode down the coast past the beautiful Sasakawa Nagare to Niigata and took a train the from there.
Anyway, that 2024 attempt taught me not to try and ride a 1000km event without careful training and buildup. It was kind of like when I tried to do the Okayama 1200km event in 2021 on minimal training and preparation. (“Ikinari 1200km”).
But I have a short memory.
So, apparently, does Jerome.
Or maybe we had enough fun doing our ride to Shinjo in 2024 and enjoying the countryside on bicycle that … that 2024 Golden Week plan did not seem like a failure.
So this year, we again signed up for a 1000km brevet over Golden Week, this one sponsored by AJ Utsunomiya, with a start in Yaita at the same location as the 600km AJ Utsunomiya event I rode last May (conveniently close to my wife’s favorite onsen – favored for the quality of the waters, not the food nor luxury).
This time, we agreed, we need to complete the event!
The course was not particularly easy, but also nothing looked fatally difficult about it either. It would be the same start as my 600km last year … a long gradual climb out of Tochigi from Yaita through Nasu and Oku Nikko to 800-900m elevation, and over the top into Minami Aizu. Then a long gradual downhill to Aizu Wakamatsu. After riding north through the inland plain from Aizu Wakamatsu, there was a second climb over Oo-touge (and through some tunnels -- to shave off the highest points) into Yamagata, then a second long flat stretch up the valley to Shinjo, km 287.
I had booked a hotel in Yuzawa, Akita-ken, around km 360, on the theory that the first day should be the longest. But the event did not start until 8AM, so that would make for an arrival at Yuzawa long after midnight, perhaps after ~420AM first light. So at Jerome’s urging we instead booked Shinjo.
The second day would have lots of shorter up and down, then a flat section from Morioka to Oshu in Iwate, then we would go over the coastal mountains to Rikuzen Takata and Kesennuma – towns whose names we know all too well from the 2011 tsunami. Kesennuma was 340kms from Shinjo, so a long day again, but there was no place to stop really between Oshu and Rikuzentakata/Kesennuma area, and from Kesennuma the final stretch – a day, a night, and a final morning – was still 370kms.
The third day route followed the coast down past Sendai, then headed inland and up onto the highlands of Fukushima between the coast and the “nakadori” central valley. That hilly section, with lots of shorter nasty climbs and already 800+ kms done, looked like the greatest challenge. Again, I had experienced some of that on last year’s 600km ride and felt I slowed to a crawl for some time. At least this time I would be ready mentally.
The last 90km looked not bad – again it seemed to track close to last year’s 600km. There were some climbs, but none too long, and once on the Fukushima-Tochigi border, we could just roll downhill and then through Otawara/Yaita the final 25km+.
A few days before the event I checked the weather forecast on the “Randoplan” app, which uses Apple Weather (or one of several other weather sources). Day 1 looked fine, except for some risk of rain early on, and a very high likelihood we would be wet at night. Day 2 would start wet, then the rain would stop around 9AM. From then on, it seemed highly likely to be dry, but with vicious headwinds. Flashbacks of the fleche!
I decided to ride the RAMAX for this event. I had gotten it nicely “dialed in” during our attempt at a Fleche at the beginning of April, and a new rear cassette (11-34), some rear hub maintenance, new bar tape, a somewhat lighter and faster rear tire (Schwalbe One Pro 700x32) and a new bike bag from Rixen & Kaul (The Bikepacker Waterproof X) would give me plenty of space to carry what I needed, an easy to remove/attach bag and no “swaying” like some bikepacking bags. I went back to my old “standard” saddle, a Fizik Arione (R3), since my Ryet saddles’ carbon rails did not work with the Rixen Kaul “klickfix” attachment. Indeed, my bike setup worked almost perfectly during this ride. Zero flat tires (or at least zero that were not sealed up by tubeless sealant quickly enough so I did not notice). My only issue was some feet pain on Day 1 – solved completely when I lowered the seat by maybe just under a centimeter. Riding this bike with ~50psi pressure and 700x32 tires was a real “magic carpet ride” over what, a decade ago on 80-90psi 700x25 tires, would have been very punishing roads – potholes remaining from snow and ice that covered them only a few months ago.
My main concern with the forecast was the wind. Days 1 and 2 the wind was unlikely to be a problem. In fact, Randoplan reported that we would gain about an hour each day due to wind direction. It was the final day/night/morning stretch that looked problematic. The forecast showed a loss of around 4 hours due to headwinds. I tried shift our start time earlier or later as much as 3-4 hours, and nothing helped in terms of wind loss – either approach just made things worse. Oh well, we still had a few days before the event, and would check the forecast again.
Jerome and I met at Tokyo Station, grabbed a bite, took the Tohoku Shinkansen to Tochigi and got to our respective hotels (in Yaita and Nishinasuno). Tokyo Station was a mob scene, with train delays of around 20-30 minutes due to the Golden Week rush.
After a decent night of sleep it was easy to be at the start before 730AM for a briefing from Tanami-san, the AJ Utsunomiya staff in charge. The forecast had not changed much (the headwind forecast was, if anything worse), except day 1 seemed less likely to have any rain until evening. The headwind seemed likely to be the main challenge. My hope was that if we got that far, on schedule, we would just gut it out the final 300km, using every available minute.
There were only 12 riders. The entry list had been larger, nearly 20, but a few DNS and a pre-ride by Tanami-san and it became a very small group. That was just fine.
Masahito Sato, one of the entrants who was an AJ Utsunomiya staffer, told me he remembered me from a Choshi 400km. I thought he was probably referring to a long-ago AJ Utsunomiya event that went to Choshi and back, … but a few hours later I realized he might have meant the Iwaki-Choshi-Iwaki 400km ride I had done last year? I wanted to confirm with him … but never caught up to ask! Another rider, Akira Tomatsuri, said he had chatted with me at a rest stop on the February 300km to Oarai and back, and at least I did remember him from that even more recent event. His name is unusual enough that I won't forget it.
We cleared the bike check and I headed out, the first rider to do so. I caught the first couple traffic lights on green and did not see any riders behind me at all. … After around 10km, the first rider passed me. By 15km in, nearly all (including Jerome) had passed me, and I was near the back of the pack. But I was making decent time, in decent (dry) weather, and I knew the climb from last year, so I was not worried. At one point, I could see Jerome and one other rider ahead at a distance. I saw Jerome about to follow the other rider straight when my GPS told me that we needed to turn left. I hollered at the top of my voice, and Jerome stopped … the other rider continued, not sure for how long. When I caught up and told Jerome we turned left up a short, steep hill to a nearly parallel road that gradually edged away to the left, farther and farther, he pulled over for a convenience store stop.
At one point, well up the hill, the climb does a big switchback and the road goes on a kind of sky bridge. I could see Jerome below me, after I made the switchback. I was probably 500 meters ahead, and at least 30-35 meters higher. I remained ahead until the top of the hill.
We had a nice, gentle tailwind! This was a huge difference from last year's 600k, I realized. We had been descending into a headwind! We made good time to PC1, the To-no-hetsuri, a lovely cliff carved by a river that is a nice tourist stop.
Knowing that eventually Jerome will pass me, I headed out first from the rest stop. (Tomatsuri-san pulled in just as I was leaving.) Indeed, Jerome caught me near the top of the climb to Otoge [tunnel] – a long tunnel at the end of which we enter Yamagata. He waited for me at the far end of the tunnel and I passed him again as he seemed preoccupied with his emails/phone.
Thus began a second long descent toward Yonezawa. My Garmin GPS map froze at this point . … I just kept descending until I finally decided to check my phone’s GPS … and saw that I had gone off course, past a left turn. I retraced the route about 1km up the hill, made the right turn, and finally saved my activity on the Garmin unit, restarted a new activity … no luck in unfreezing the screen … so rebooted the device. Finally it was working and I was back on track.
Jerome had passed me during this navigation mistake. I have gotten so accustomed to a GPS that works that I no longer have my cue sheet out where I can read it in real time. I recently switched from an aging Wahoo Element Bolt V2 unit to a new (close-out sale) Garmin Edge 1040. The main selling points of the Garmin are far-longer battery life, a bigger screen, and integration with Garmin Connect, which I use with a Garmin watch I can rely on for other activity and health tracking when I don’t need the maps or the cycling data right at my stem/bars. But the Wahoo has been “bombproof” and has not frozen up during a ride in years, and it has physical buttons instead of a touch screen, which I much prefer. I find the Garmin not intuitive, and offering way too many choices. I hope eventually I will get it set just the way I like, and that the Garmin works out. I can certainly use the battery life!
Jerome waited for me (with another rider) at the next PC, a small (no staff) train station about 16 kms further along). We rode much of the remainder of the first day, another 100kms, together or close by. Jerome was going faster, pushing a much bigger gear than me (or anyone else), but he also stopped more and let me catch up or leap frog. The gentle tailwind continued and this part of the course was generally flat as we tracked the Mogami-gawa, a great river that looks more like a smaller version of the Mississippi or Missouri than the typical short, fast, steep Japanese river. Only a month ago there had been talk of drought in eastern/northern Japan, and only 10 days ago there had been forest fires further along our route in Iwate. But now balance had been restored. The rivers were full, in some cases even over their banks and flowing around the base of trees.
Based upon our weather forecast, it was only a matter of time before the rain started. We were expecting to get soaking wet before making it to our hotel in Shinjo. But the rain held off longer than expected, and when it came it was warm and very modest drizzle. This was a very nice surprise – to get through the first day without needing any more rain gear than a basic rain shell. No rain gloves, rain chaps, shoe covers, leg warmers, etc.
We made it to Shinjo and our hotel shortly after 11PM – on track, even an hour earlier than expected due to the favorable conditions. Everything was working well. The hotel, on the east side of the Shinjo Station, had no restaurants nearby and even the nearest convenience store at that our was a 10 minute walk. I hopped on my bike and rode over there, got Jerome and myself some food for before bed and pre-ride breakfast. We agreed to depart at 530AM.
The next morning, it was raining, and a bit colder, I thought. I put on my full rain gear, and within 3-4 kms was overheating. A few minutes later, between 6-7 kms from our start, we stopped at a Lawson for some more breakfast food and coffee, and I stripped off all that extra gear (except the rain jacket and shoe covers). We finally got going again well after 6AM. The first 30+km of the morning was tough for me. I just could not get going. The rain was not heavy, but we were climbing (net, with plenty of down as well as up) toward the Akita border. My GPS unit’s elevation reading was out of whack. It showed elevation decreasing as I climbed a hill. It reset repeatedly and I had no idea how high I was or how high I would be at the Akita border. At a couple places we diverted to the “old road”, as the new “bypass” highway did not allow bikes. We went up a steep hill as the bypass went through the hill via a tunnel. Finally, we got to a long tunnel that had a thick line drawn around its arch near the middle, deep under the mountain, “Akita” written on the far side of the line and “Yamagata” on the near side (in Japanese). Finally, we hit a fast stretch. Just out of the tunnel there was a gradual descent of a couple kms, then a slight downhill all the way to Yuzawa. I was getting soaked but not too cold and finally felt in sync.
Further on, we snapped our checkpoint photos at Yokote Station and headed east up into the mountains, just behind another rider who left as I was rolling into the station roundabout.
Again, my elevation reading was way off and I could not tell how high we were. Jerome went ahead. I passed a rider resting at a convenience store, glued to his phone screen. Eventually, I got to a sign indicating I had entered Iwate, and my elevation jumped from under 100m to nearly 300m. The “entering Iwate” sign surprised me as I had thought we would remain in Akita as we went up an internal valley toward the north.
Nope, the rest of the day would be in Iwate. After a descent to a reservoir and a bit of a town, I wanted to find lunch and called ahead to Jerome. He had just found a cafeteria and was 1~2kms ahead. We ate lunch of Japanese curry with pork katsu. It stuck to the ribs. It was after noon already and we had only gone just over 100km … toward a target of 340kms for the day. Way too far still remaining. At least the rain had ended.
But there was a TV on in the cafeteria, and a brief weather report where the NHK weather announcer declared that there would be rain all over our region for the next 3 hours. I rechecked my iPhone weather and it was a lot more ambiguous. I had thought, based upon the most recent Randoplan, that we were DONE with our rain for the entire 1000kms!!
We made it up along this interior route, gradually climbing a bit over the next 50kms, then a short descent into Shizukuishi, 150kms from Shinjo, where the route made a 22km loop detour to the north to pass Koiwai Farm where we could see (and take a proof-of-passage photo of) the 一本桜 – a solitary Sakura tree in the midst of a field of grass. At the start of this detour, I pulled off at a Lawson to get some extra supplies, while Jerome went ahead. Shortly after, by now past 3PM, the rain arrived. We each got hit with squall-like blasts of wind and rain. It was cold. I put on my rain jacket and eventually pulled up my leg warmers. It would rain from now until I called it quits for the night almost 8 hours later. The wind was from the west here, so our detour had us facing it briefly. It was brutal – difficult to make progress – and I breathed a sigh of relief when the route shifted north, then east, and I did not need to fight the wind at least.
Jerome waited for me at Koiwai Farm. Another rider had been there as well, and Jerome had gone past the checkpoint spot and needed to return, he said, not even realizing that the other rider was one of our event and was at the PC taking a photo … in the rain.
The last part of the Koiwai loop was a gradual descent to the SSE. The rain was harder, and colder now, and pretty miserable. There was heavy traffic even on a country road, and as I passed a staff parking area exit from part of the Koiwai Farm complex, I could swear that a woman in a car waiting to pull out and head home … was laughing at the ridiculous soaked cyclists in this weather. I probably imagined it.
Anyway, we made it down the hill and to the west edge of Morioka, where our route swung to the southeast just at the edge of the city. At around 185kms from Shinjo, we stopped at a Gusto for dinner. Jerome had wanted to ride further before dinner, but I recalled that we were about to enter a “no restaurant zone”, if I remembered the route from a trip in 2017. That proved correct. We ate dinner and stayed a bit longer, hoping the rain would stop. It did, for a few minutes. We thought, based upon the forecast, that surely we would outrun it as we headed east, away from the mountains and far from the Sea of Japan, and then south along the eastern edge of this huge Iwate internal valley all the way from Morioka to Oshu … well over 60kms. It was dark now, and the rain waves kept coming. The wind was usually a crosswind, but at times shifted in front. And it was very cold. I had my rain gloves and rain chaps on now, as well as, rain jacket and headband in early May, but I was cold.
At dinner Jerome had suggested his goal was to get me to finish the event with him. I immediately pushed back and told him he should go on ahead in the evening and not wait for me. I had grave doubts I could make it to Kesennuma. I had booked a twin room with two beds. I called the hotel and told them to let Jerome use it as he would arrive ahead of me. (I didn’t say it, but I was thinking “if I arrive at all”).
I never fully recovered from the dinner stop. I think I ate too much, and I was cold, wet, and pushing against a cross wind. I would not have felt cold if I had not been pretty exhausted. Our route zigged and zagged under the Tohoku Shinkansen tracks, which reminded me of the Isabella Bird Tohoku rides back in 2017 Golden Week – we had passed here on a lovely morning. After riding together the first half hour or so, Jerome was now well ahead of me. Even at night, I could see very dark patches of cloudy gloom where hard rain was coming at me, and felt good that I had outrun one or two of them as they moved across the valley to the North behind me. But it was still raining and eventually I got caught in one of the hard rain squalls.
I pulled off under the shinkansen tracks and called several hotels in the Mizusawa/Esashi areas of Oshu-shi. On the fourth call, I finally got a place that could give me a single room, in Esashi. It was 730PM and I was around 42kms away. In this wind and rain, I told them I would arrive around 1030PM. Indeed, even on a flat easy course, with one convenience store stop en route as I entered town just to get my bearings so I did not miss the hotel, I did arrive at 1030PM. I was still 90kms from Kesennuma. With a need for rest stops, I would have taken at least another 6-7 hours to arrive there, only to sleep a few hours, then face that headwind for the final 370km. I had done 250kms the second day and it had been 16 ½ hours since we left Shinjo, and that was enough.
At this point, Jerome was close to 90 minutes ahead of me. Even so, he did not arrive in Kesennuma at the hotel until 4AM, riding the last 5km with a gradually flatting front tire.
I slept until 5AM, woke and drank liquids, and slept again … until the phone rang at 1020AM, with the front desk politely but firmly reminding me that they had a 10AM checkout time! I was packed and out of the room a few minutes later. Jerome reported that he left his hotel, 90kms ahead of me, at 9:45AM. He still had over 25 hours to make it 370kms – well within his capabilities, even with 630kms in his legs already. He struggled the first 30-40 kms, taking well over 2 hours, then found his rhythm again.
That might have been the end of the adventure for me, 540kms – 290km on day 1, then 250km on day 2. But actually, despite my exhaustion and need for sleep the night before … nothing in my body was hurting, everything was working fine, chamois cream had nipped any chafing in the bud, the seat adjustment worked and my trusty Fizik Arione saddle was proving more comfortable than the light weight Ryet saddles I have used in recent years, the large and long platform allowing me to shift position. My fade-out the night before was only to be expected, given my inadequate training with only a single ride longer than 100kms since that 300km brevet in February.
It was a beautiful day, and Jerome was still on course, and I had a plan to my wife in Tochigi midday on the 7th, 27 hours later. On my way into Esashi at night, I saw some signs mentioning the “Esashi Fujiwara” and pointing to some kind of tourist attraction. I did some reading online about Fujiwara no Kiyohira, a lord who established the northern Fujiwara dynasty in the 11th century, eventually relocating from Esashi to Hiraizumi where they built a massive temple complex centered around Chusonji, on a strategic hilltop aside the main North/South roads and the river that flowed through the valley.
Kiyohira’s mother was an “Emishi” (akin to the “Ezo” indigenous people of Hokkaido), and his father was essentially a lord outside the control of the ruling government to the south. Kiyohira ultimately lost his parents, siblings, wife, and child to wars, and he ended up being raised as a step-son by one of his father’s enemies. This was a brutal period in Japan’s long brutal history. In the end, Kiyohira gained control of the area and established a dynasty.
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| Bike parking for the Hiraizumi temple complex |
The temple complex eventually expanded to include over 40 halls and 300 monks’ residences. It was dedicated to all victims of war. The dynasty survived most of the 12th century, until a defeat at the hands of Minamoto no Yoritomo. This defeat, and later fires, destroyed much of the complex that had once been said to rival Kyoto, but Chusonji and a number of other buildings remain or have been rebuilt, and the area is now a World Cultural Heritage Site.
I rode south to Hiraizumi and walked through the complex and inside the Kinkonji structure. It was a lovely day, a lovely break, and notable that a sizeable crowd still did not make the place feel at all congested. Nor did I see more than one or two other foreigners, nor hear more than a single non-Japanese conversation. Where are the foreign tourists? Not at Chusonji/Hiraizumi in Iwate!
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| Basho was here also! |
I hopped the train from Ichinoseki to Sendai – standing room only next to the exit of the Shinkansen unreserved seating cars – then onward by local train to Natori. From there I could ride a few kilometers to a yakiniku restaurant on the brevet course. My timing was perfect and I showed up maybe 15-20 minutes before Jerome. We could get a table in between other reservations and in 20-25 minutes get dinner. I sent him back on his way and returned to Natori station.
I had booked a hotel reservation (non-cancellable/same day) in Utsunomiya as my wife had asked if I could meet her there in the morning to go to a specific store before our onsen trip … so I went back to Sendai and got on another jammed shinkansen south … just as she reported that the store did not have the item she wanted so there was no need to go to Utsunomiya. Oh well, at least I got a good last-minute deal on a hotel right by the station, ate some gyoza, slept well again, ate a nice hotel breakfast, and then headed north. My plan was to meet Jerome at the goal, eat lunch, then head to the onsen.
I got a message that he had made an error in navigation and added 15kms to his route. He was now well behind schedule to finish at the 11AM deadline. I had a pleasant ride north … passing Sakura-shi/Ujiie and on to the goal in Yaita. It was already Noon and Jerome was still 25km+ away. I headed NNE through Otawara and Nasu Shiobara. We met almost perfectly where a road bore off to the NW and toward Nasu Shiobara shinkansen station. There we got lunch and a well-deserved beer, and he headed for the shinkansen, while I headed to the nearby onsen.
All in all, I rode 290+250+45+55 kms. This was much needed training and a delightful time of year to be on the bike and in the countryside. I’ll need to put this training to good use and complete my Audax series. I’m looking for 400km and 600km rides to do so, and ideally another 1000km or 1200km ride later in the year … schedule permitting. Since returning from my final California visit in early March it has been difficult to ride as much as I used to, given other commitments, longer recovery time, and just plain laziness. At least this ride gives me plenty of base for the next adventure.
