Today something incredible happened. David, James and I agreed on a riding plan and guess what, apart from the fact that I was too late and had to catch up to the guys at Sekidobashi, we rode exactly as we had outlined it the day before. We never do that. Normally we have big plans, which tend to be too big, such as: "OK let's try to go to Ensan and then we cross over to the Araikawa." And then we end up going up and down the Tamagawa. But today we had a perfect match.I didn't want to overdo it today as I plan to attend the JCRC race in Narita tomorrow, but we went quite a brisk speed to the Takao 7/11 and then further on to the Wada start point. There we went for the first TT of the day, the Wada climb. This is a very hard and steep climb and we were all pretty much exhausted when we reached the top. The start is a little bit flatter (that means 6%+, but then it is 11% average, alternating in the 9 to 15% range. Sometimes my speed dropped down to 6 - 7 km/hr and I could only go up by riding in circles.And once you are on the top, there is only the teahouse witch waiting for you, trying to blame you for not buying something .... so it is really not a pleasant climb. But we wanted better times for our togebaka records and all of us did. One could see the effect of the Fuji hill climb last week.After that we went down the long slopes on the other side, returned to route 20 and started the next TT, the reverse Otarumi time trial. After Wada, everything is flat and a thing such as a slope ceases to exist. So all of us again were very fast up the Otarumi (see Togebaka) and David please note that I voluntarily added 10 seconds to my time in order to compensate for the wrong finish timing.Today we had a lot of longer breaks, but once on the bike we went very fast, also despite headwinds on the Tamagawa. I was back home by 14:30 and even before that we had the traditional coffee break at the Futago Tamagawa Segafredo (since 2008).It was a good and fast ride and I think it is a good idea not to strive for longer and more demanding rides every weekend, but also do some shorter ones. Not that this one was easy although.Thanks to David and James who kept pushing me through at the right points.Please feel free to add some photos.[Photos added by David L.]The sign at the bottom of the Wada Touge hill climb TT -- "only" 3.7 km of pain ahead.James and Michael share a joke at the bottom of the Wada Touge TT, next to the famous Jimba Soba noodle factory, "Under [the] Mountain Shop."Also be sure to visit James' blog (Jimmy from Shinagawa -- link on right hand of page in "important people" -- for another photo.
Today something incredible happened. David, James and I agreed on a riding plan and guess what, apart from the fact that I was too late and had to catch up to the guys at Sekidobashi, we rode exactly as we had outlined it the day before. We never do that. Normally we have big plans, which tend to be too big, such as: "OK let's try to go to Ensan and then we cross over to the Araikawa." And then we end up going up and down the Tamagawa. But today we had a perfect match. I didn't want to overdo it today as I plan to attend the JCRC race in Narita tomorrow, but we went quite a brisk speed to the Takao 7/11 and then further on to the Wada start point. There we went for the first TT of the day, the Wada climb. This is a very hard and steep climb and we were all pretty much exhausted when we reached the top. The start is a little bit flatter (that means 6%+, but then it is 11% average, alternating in the 9 to 15% range. Sometimes my speed dropped down to 6 - 7 km/hr and I could only go up by riding in circles. And once you are on the top, there is only the teahouse witch waiting for you, trying to blame you for not buying something .... so it is really not a pleasant climb. But we wanted better times for our togebaka records and all of us did. One could see the effect of the Fuji hill climb last week. After that we went down the long slopes on the other side, returned to route 20 and started the next TT, the reverse Otarumi time trial. After Wada, everything is flat and a thing such as a slope ceases to exist. So all of us again were very fast up the Otarumi (see Togebaka) and David please note that I voluntarily added 10 seconds to my time in order to compensate for the wrong finish timing. Today we had a lot of longer breaks, but once on the bike we went very fast, also despite headwinds on the Tamagawa. I was back home by 14:30 and even before that we had the traditional coffee break at the Futago Tamagawa Segafredo (since 2008). It was a good and fast ride and I think it is a good idea not to strive for longer and more demanding rides every weekend, but also do some shorter ones. Not that this one was easy although. Thanks to David and James who kept pushing me through at the right points. Please feel free to add some photos. [Photos added by David L.] 
The sign at the bottom of the Wada Touge hill climb TT -- "only" 3.7 km of pain ahead. 
James and Michael share a joke at the bottom of the Wada Touge TT, next to the famous Jimba Soba noodle factory, "Under [the] Mountain Shop." Also be sure to visit James' blog (Jimmy from Shinagawa -- link on right hand of page in "important people" -- for another photo.
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