Winter Oikaze 400km Brevet ... DNF After the End of the Winter Dry Season

I remembered last year seeing some Audax friends post about doing a winter Kanagawa Audax 400km "Oikaze" (tailwind) ride from the Nagoya area back to Kamakura. This year, I resolved to join it myself. The course looked not overly challenging, it stayed out of the mountains (essential for a winter course in Japan), it offered a mid-day (1PM) start so that no hotel was required and I (and many others) could travel from Tokyo the day of the event. And I needed the training before some February travel. So I signed up.

Winter along the Pacific Coast of Japan can offer some excellent cycling. All through December and into January, we get lots of dry, cool/cold weather, as we are in the "rain shadow" with storms hitting the Japan Sea Coast and dumping snow on the NW side of the islands. Weather only starts to turn ugly usually for February into early/mid March.  Late March/early April are hit-or-miss, but at least as by April the typical temperatures are far warmer, even at night, on a mountain pass somewhere. February is the coldest month, and a lot wetter, in my recollection, than January. So a February 1 brevet is a real roll of the dice.

The weather on Saturday morning February 1 this year was very nice. It was still sunny when I got to the check-in at Mikawa Anjo, the first shinkansen stop on the Tokyo side of Nagoya, SE of the city center (so we would not need to slog through as much urban area as a true Nagoya start). 

At the check-in where familiar Kanagawa Audax members - Maya Ide and Honda-san. Also there was Izumi Kurabayashi (that is her unmarried name ... she was a regular Audax staffer in Kanto, but got married and moved to Nagoya more than a decade ago). And there was some familiar riders as well -- including Tom Yahagi. 

Izumi and Maya at the reception

Honda-san gives the briefing

Tom Yahagi, super randonneur

It looked overall like a fast group for Audax ... it was

It was already cloudy by the time we actually started to ride, and rain was forecast for sometime that evening.  It was just a question of how much rain, when, and how cold. 

Well, I made decent time to Lake Hamanako and then Hamamatsu, around 95kms in, just as it got dark. Still dry, still not too cold. 

Approaching the Route Inn on the west side of Hamanakako where Jerome and I stopped on a 600k a few years back ... in torrential rain.

At Lake Inohana ... connects to Hamanakako

Local roads in the area around Toyokawa in SE Aichi

Plenty of old roads along coastal areas here. Lots of history. 

Not a tailwind, as promised, but also not headwind. I was riding with another Audax member, but he ducked into a pre-identified tiny local restaurant for an unagi dinner. I rode maybe another hour making, I felt, excellent time through the area close to the coast east of Hamamatsu. Jerome and I had slogged through here on a 600km event a few years ago, in Thursday rush hour traffic. This was much better -- deserted roads at 8PM on a Saturday evening. And still only a hint of drizzle, not enough to put on rain pants or even my rain shell. 

Soon that changed and the rain fell, light at first, and not too cold.  I put on rain pants and continued, but my average speed was slipping. My rain pants were sliding down my butt as I rode and I would need to hoist them again every 15 minutes or so. By the time I got past Hamaoka with its massive nuclear plant and into Fujieda area. It was late in the evening. And raining still.  

I climbed the hill between Fujieda-shi and Shizuoka-shi, and after a few mis-course turns finally got back on the correct side road to the check point, which was the major mid-course setup by the organizers.  The checkpoint was a kind of camp site, with some covered picnic table ... I think a kind of gazebo and some rain tarps, and they had prepared a massive amount of food for riders. A large number of potential participants had reported "DNS" due to the weather forecast so they were urging us to take as much as we could.  Tanaka-san, former head of Japan Audax and compadre of Honda-san and Maya-san, was there and said hello. 

My stomach was bothering me, but I ate as much ton-jiru (pork soup - carrots, other vegetables, miso etc.) as I could manage, rested a few minutes, and headed on down the hill.  There were riders arriving and leaving in significant numbers and I felt as if I was very much in the "middle of the pack", at least not one of the very last stragglers.  I knew this route and how the GPS course would guide us to cross Route 1 at a non-obvious intersection, then and cut down a side road that came out on the western side of Shizuoka City ... I led some other riders who were a bit confused in the dark and wet. Eventually I caught one rider who had an annoyingly, painfully bright, flashing rear light that got even brighter when he came to a stop light.  I told him his light was not good for riding in groups or at an event like this (banned by Audax, actually) ... and eventually we separated.  Another couple familiar zigs and zags, and we were onto the "Strawberry Line".  I got a bit of a second wind and pushed through to Shimizu. 

At one point I made a mistake in the course ... and went up onto an elevated section of road in Shimizu that I am 95% sure is prohibited for bicycles.  Oops.  Too late to go back now, so I took the next exit, but that was well over a kilometer along!  By now it was after midnight and there were no cars at all the entire way, so I figured it was a "no harm/no foul" mis-course, a tree. It was raining harder now, and getting colder.  

I continued along the familiar roads to Okitsu. I had been planning to power-through the night and maybe find a place for some cat-naps, but with the rain and cold, and stomach bothering me, exhausted, I really needed an indoor rest.  I had done 230km, with an early afternoon start, so felt as if I had made enough progress to deserve a rest.

In the cold rain, every move was a "major production" -- it took forever just to get out of my rain garb and get into the Kenko Land, go up to the locker room, leave my rain/outer wear, go to 2nd or 3rd floor and find a place to lie down in the "TV room", full of men sleeping in reclining chairs. Most of these were not Audax riders, so I tried to put my valuables in a bag next to me as I slept.  I stayed in the chair for maybe 2 hours, but could not have slept more than 30 minutes. This was not helping. So I got up, went to the lockers to collect my wet gear, and checked out. Not a moment to lose.

As I headed down to try to push onward, I saw Tom Yahagi, to my surprise. I thought he would be WAY ahead by now.  He said there were reports of snow/sleet at the climb/tunnel entrance of our route over Izu. The rain was harder now, and was a LOT colder.  Really nasty stuff. This was a real winter storm. Tom was gone in a flash, and I was still putting on my rain gear minutes later. 

Back on the bike, I made slow progress toward Fuji City.  My gloves were soaked, my core was very damp, and there was a headwind. My stomach had not fully recovered. The only food I could find was at convenience stores ... no place to eat inside, so consumed out front trying unsuccessfully to get a bit of shelter from rain and wind.

The forecast was for continued rain and headwind most of the way back to Tokyo, including very nasty headwinds on the east side of Izu.

I needed to get back to Tokyo to prepare for a trip the following day.  I was not at all sure I could make it within the time limit if I continued, and I was pretty sure that, even if I did, I would be totally wiped out by the effort and pretty much struggle to even pack and do the few required things before my trip. 

So I decided to ride to Numazu then make a decision on whether to continue.  At Numazu, still wet, and cold, and tired, now in the morning light but behind schedule ... I veered left and headed uphill toward the shinkansen station at Mishima.

I can manage cold, or I can manage rain, but the combination of hard, cold rain is not fun at all on a bicycle.  My gloves, jacket, and stomach were not quite up to the task. The headwind added insult to injury, especially for a brevet named the "tailwind" ride!  And knowing that I needed to accomplish in the 24 hours AFTER I got home ... it was the right choice. A decade ago, I might have powered through this one, but I am older, and wiser, and not as strong today.