Easy Riding from Iwaki -- 400km pre-Golden Week Brevet

The original Easy Riders

It seems I am not getting in enough longer rides this year. In March, I got in only 2 rides of over 150km. In April, only one -- this brevet. I had other plans during Golden Week. I did get some shorter rides in the early part of GW, even some climbing for a change, but then later on I was traveling by car, enjoying onsen and a few short hikes. No cycling then, and work earlier.

So it was with less than my usual confidence that I approached the 400km brevet I had signed up for with the Iwaki audax group. This group is only a few years old. I remember when it first launched, many Tokyo-based riders were joining their events -- but I had not gotten the opportunity until now. An early start from the seashore near Iwaki, in SE Fukushima, meant an evening train ride from Tokyo on the Hitachi super express -- at least two hours -- then an 11km ride to the Iwaki Shinmaiko Heights hotel/onsen/sports facility where the start and goal were located. 

It was a dark and lonely road from Iwaki Station at night, foggy.  I went to a convenience store down the highway from Shinmaiko Heights to get some food for the morning, as we would leave long before breakfast. The clerk noticed my bike and cycling wear and asked me about my event. He said he used to ride long distances too, and made me feel welcome. 

The hotel room was basic but spacious, and clean, for 6000 yen (around $40). And there was an onsen on site. I was the only one in the onsen after 11PM.  It was difficult to sleep, somehow. Pre-ride nerves?  When I got up shortly after 5AM, I was a bit shocked to see that my Garmin sports/health watch told me my "body battery" had barely increased at all. Fitful sleep -- not the best way to start the longest ride of the year.

I ate my convenience store breakfast and headed out for the sign-up and briefing.  There were maybe 15 riders, a couple looked familiar but no one I knew by name. ... until one of the staff came out. It was Shishido-san, who goes by "chari-ken" online ("chari" being Japanese slang for bicycle).  I remembered that he was based in Fukushima. He is a Japan audax regular, friends with all of the old guard. And he drove a van that looked as if it included plenty of spare bike parts and tools, as well as perhaps a sleeping platform -- everything needed to serve as a touring Audax rider/staffer.

Shishido-san at the Choshi Control Point

Last year the Iwaki group had done this brevet ... in the opposite direction. The course went down then up the coast all the way to Choshi -- the furthest east point in Kanto, on the Chiba side of the Tonegawa at its mouth.  Last year they had gone down the coastline and back a more interior route. This year we would go down the interior, back up the coast. 

The first 30kms was relatively flat, through coastal Fukushima and to the Ibaraki border. Just before the border we headed inland and uphill, and into a delightful section of rural roads with lots of fresh Spring growth and flowering trees on all the hillsides.  This was northern Ibaraki at its best.  We took a stretch of the Green Furusato Line, which Jerome and I had ridden during the monster April 2022 300km ride with over 5000 meters of elevation gain, training for Cascade 1400 that June. 

At least I knew this road, so I knew that we had skipped the northernmost, highest bits. And we would not continue on the Beef Line, but leave the hills and head down a gradual valley at Hitachi Ota toward and through Naka then the prefectural capital of Mito.  Still, this stretch between km 30 and 85 had all of the real, tough climbing of this 400km event. In my fatigued shape, it was not easy, and by the time I emerged into a headwind on the hot, flat section north of Mito, I was pretty cooked.

Still, it was far better to tackle these hills early in the ride than near the end. And better to do this section in the light of day than in the dark of night. The coastline road on the way back from Kashima to Hitachi (and beyond) was definitely nicer at night than it would have been during the day.

Entering central Mito

Ibaraki has a lot of traffic ... just like much of Japan and all urban areas near or in Kanto. It was a slog to get through Mito. Then we were on more rural roads until we got near Lake Kasumigaura, around 155kms into the ride. From there to the Tonegawa was more slogging, in heat and traffic. 

Somewhere south of Mito, my feet started to kill me. I think they had swollen in my shoes with the heat and were no longer getting good circulation -- just like when you lace ice skates too tightly. The pain was searing as I removed my shoes and the blood returned to them. For awhile, misdiagnosing the cause, I added a second pair of socks to give a bit of "compression" to the feet. That worked for an hour or so, until the pain returned. The second time, I removed my thicker wool socks, and kept only the thinner ones.  That seemed to do the trick and from there on my feet were tolerable, if not happy. Feet pain issues are a recurring theme with me while cycling.

I rested and lay down for a few minutes beside the road near Lake Kasumigaura. An ambulance passed. (I later learned, at the start of the Utsunomiya 600km in June, that an Audax rider had taken ill and was being carried in that ambulance, with his bike, to the hospital where he was checked out and eventually released -- he was fine, I guess just exhausted or maybe dehydrated).

The headwinds continued and got much stronger as we approached the Tonegawa. Heading down the river toward Choshi, it was tough going. But at least the forecast suggested the winds would continue in the same direction, so we would get some benefit on the return leg.

Shishido-san was at every control point until the turn-around. I found this very encouraging -- a familiar face and ready advice on the course.  I was exhausted, but not about to give up, and I knew that once I made it to Choshi, I could pretty much roll back up the coastline, only a few smaller climbs at the end, and even if I was slow, I was within the time limits comfortably.

After the Choshi PC at a Seven Eleven, I headed out toward the actual turnaround point -- a photo spot at the lighthouse at Inubo-saki. At the lighthouse, I tried to organize my receipts ... and could not find the one from the Choshi PC.  Fortunately, our return course went very close to the same store, so I stopped by and got another receipt!  Whew. Sure, Shishido-san had seen me check in, but in Japan audax, "rules are rules", and no receipt means no completion (homogulation).

The return trip was in the dark, at night, without much traffic once we passed Kashima.  Some slower riders were passing me now.  I stopped a couple times to rest, laying down beside the road on the sidewalk in the dark, or at a convenience store.  The most memorable site at night was all of the Tokaimura nuclear facilities -- a very long and un-Japanese barbed wire fence marking the perimeter on the inland side of the coastal road.  

Empty, concrete.

Scenic Kita Ibaraki?

In the dawn light, I passed by the massive Nakoso coal-fired power plant in Kita Ibaraki. Some find it beautiful, apparently.  I felt like the air quality was bad. Maybe I was imagining it?  

Nakoso Power Plant at night

Anyway, I made it back to the goal with nearly 90 minutes to spare. Very slow given a relatively "easy" course and relatively good conditions and one of the last (the lantern rouge?) of the group to finish, but I will take it.

At the goal, the "cycling station" was now dominated by a group of other "riders" -- Easy Riders. Harley Davidson fanboys out for a Sunday morning jaunt, most a bit on the elderly side, most riding tricycles. It was good to see them enjoying themselves. 

The group zoomed by as I rode back to Iwaki Station ... but at least did not seem to be trying to make the maximum noise possible, as some "bousouzoku" motorcycle groups do in Japan. Maybe they would need to turn down their hearing aids if they did so?