95 %

I was thinking about doing some track training with Hiroshi in Kawasaki but I couldn't reach him on the phone. Damned, I should have called much earlier! Because of the track, I canceled also the Shirokuma ride with TCC. And I didn't know that Tom and Goro planned to take on Miura Hanto. AND I was idling around in the morning, so finally I was leaving the house at noon. What now?

So I had to decided fast and I decided for a fast, short and itense Otarumi - Tsukui trip which would bring me back home hopefully before darkness.

With a strong tailwind, everything was going according to plan. In no time I reached Sekidobashi on the Tamagawa and continued along the Akigawa towards Takao station. I have ridden this road now so many times, I wonder why I even bother to write about. As I was late, I decided to skip the break at the Takao 7-Eleven and charge Otarumi immediately. I didn't planned to go for a good Togebaka time but I also didn't wanted to slack. And then I saw a Nalsima rider about 200 meters in front (two legs this time) and of course I wanted to catch him, which I did. I stayed behind him for a while as he was going faster with me in his back but when he lost his power, I overtook him and then I saw another rider about 100 meters in front. And I also caught this one, although I was running out of steam. But once in front I didn't wanted to be overtaken so I charged on until the very end. 15:06 minutes, not my best time but very good for this part of the season. And already after a little bit more than 2 hours on the bike.

There was no traffic on route 20 and going down to Sagamiko was fun as always. As I know the road now well I am going a little bit faster and more risky. Along road #515 / #517 and #412 (Doshi Michi) I continued until the point where one take a left turn at the Sunkus Combini. This time I found the right fork to the spectacular hanging bridge over lake Tsukui and the small and nice road along the slopes of the lake on the North side. Beautiful - thanks to Hiroshi and David to introducing me to this one.

Then it is a little bit boring to ride through Hashimoto and I don't know where the "tank road" is. After a little bit more than three hours I took the first break at the 7-Eleven in Hashimoto close to the military ground.
In no time I was on the bike again on Kan-One and continued in direction Tamagawa. I have never seen Kan-One as congested as today - OK, this was also only the third time I rode there. But sometimes there was no speed riding possible as I had to pass lines of cars waiting in front of traffic lights.
Still there was tailwind and some of the downhill parts were fast and finally I arrived back at the Tamagawa. From there it took me another 45 minutes home through Yokohama, going fast on a second power wave.

Overall it was a very fast trip in good weather with very few breaks. When I checked the Ciclo data tonight, I found out that the total trip time was 4:44 hrs, whereas the riding time was 4:29 hrs, meaning I had only 15 minutes of breaks, including traffic light stops and .. everything. 95% of the time out there actually riding on the bike is very good. So I good curious and checked the other two trips I had made, virtually taken the same road [one 3 km exception]. The riding time was 4:38 hrs and 4:30 hrs, so almost identical, however the total trip time was 5:54 hrs and 5:49 hrs respectively. In other words, one hour of breaks more ... what a waste of time.

So let's try to keep the breaks a little bit shorter if we do want to cover longer distances in winter/spring season.