A nice trip report on James K's blog.
And one on Tom's blog.
And Japanese language reports from the Jyonnobi Team (A. Wood -winner) blog/site, the Ovest "boss no blog" (Shop Owner/Mgr [Nishitani] - second place, first in age group), and Hiroshi's report of his assist to Tom during the leg after Nirasaki.
... still waiting for James M's report of his bicycle being attacked by savage tire-destroying birds and any other as yet not-fully-reported drama.
Very nice report indeed, James K.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to all of you. Very well done, at a nice speed. And I'm glad nobody got hit by a truck - my biggest fear.
I applaud you doing a lot of pace lining, among yourselves and with other riders. That's a good strategy.
I did the same for Stage 1 until Sasago, having started at 6:00am, without registration. Working as a team with a group of Narushima riders of similar strength, I made an average of 30.0km/h to Sasago. Of course that's already stupidly fast, as it is clearly not sustainable to continuously ride heart rate between 150 and 170.
Tom had followed his usual individualistic tendencies and was on his own. I brought the support troupes to him, but he refused to play along, wanting to go it all alone, and of course just wasting his energy without being any faster to Sasago.
I dropped out at Sasago as I found the traffic just too bad. The motorway was crowded and so a lot more cars and trucks were on route 20 even so early in the morning, unlike last year. I knew it would get only worse beyond Sasago. And having cycled to the Japan Sea on a harder route just six days ago, I had nothing to prove to myself.
So instead I did the old Sasago, Kaminikkawa and Yanagisawa - altogether a 263km loop for the day, with over 3,000m of climbing, and a 1:45h race between Takao and Sasago.
Having not fully recovered from my cold/infection, this took its toll and towards the end my lungs hurt so much I could no longer breath deeply, and had to go at a modest pace against the headwind back into town.
It is time for some strong anti-biotics!
The group I was riding with was part of the Jyonnobi team (some with Jyonnobi, some with Narushima jerseys). And some of those that were even faster were too, so I guess I can feel quite good :)
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