On Saturday I joined the AR Nihonbashi 300km "around the world" brevet. Why "around the world"? Because the checkpoints were evidence of foreign culture and/or foreign enclaves in Japan -- a Dutch windmill, Thai temple, Sri Lankan temple, Brazilian grocery store, and a Mosque ... not to mention a Japanese shrine thrown in just to remind us of the host culture.
Winter brevets limit choices for the organizers. And early March can be decidedly wintry in Japan. This brevet would not have happened if it had been a day earlier, when there was snowfall in much of north Kanto, though sun and above freezing temperatures ensured it was all gone a day later. A ride in the mountains at night, on a 300km or 400km course, can be problematic. So courses tend to stick to the plain. Indeed, on the January Chiba brevet that I joined, one key goal was to get over the highest point before the "thunder snow" hit.
The difficulty with flat courses in Japan near Tokyo is that they tend to go through densely populated areas with plenty of traffic. And Saturday traffic tends to be worse than Sunday, with many more trucks out on the road. A 300km brevet usually must be held on Saturday, unless on a 3-day holiday weekend, since the finish reception for 7AM starters, for example, remains open until past 3AM the following morning. That does not work for riders or volunteers who have Monday to Friday jobs. So a winter flat brevet means a brevet with heavy traffic. Indeed, I did a winter AR Nihonbashi brevet back in 2015, and the congested traffic of that event was enough to keep me away from similar events for quite awhile. The only other option is a night-time Saturday start. That is actually my favorite if I can show up well-rested, as we are assured near zero traffic on the outbound leg and far fewer trucks on the return during the day Sunday.
On the other hand, a flat course is what I want--what I need--for the recumbent. I have done 2 previous 400 km brevets on the Pelso recumbent, plus the 1667 km ride across Honshu last Spring. But the Pelso has been gathering dust in recent months. Signing up for yesterday's event was strong motivation for me to get the bike out and put it into riding condition -- fine tune the 12-speed SRAM Eagle GX drivetrain I had got and installed last year, go back to the J-bars (I did not really like the steering tiller I experimented with briefly), and otherwise get it ready to use regularly. I managed 5 rides, each of 40-60kms, on the Pelso in the past few weeks. Was that enough preparation to use it on a 300km brevet? I was about to find out!
The other reason I selected this brevet was its start and finish near my home. Well, the start was at Odaiba, which, as the crow flies, cannot be more than 3kms from home. Even going across the Rainbow Bridge, it is more like 5kms. And the finish in Shinbashi/Shiodome is even closer.
Of course, the Pelso is not easily rinko-able, so a train to the start was out of the question. And with a 630AM start it is not allowed even to walk a bike across the Rainbow Bridge (pedestrian access is from 9AM in summer, 10AM in winter). So I rode via Kachidoki/Toyosu, 11.5 kms to the start, just as far as, say, an AR Tamagawa or Randonneur Tokyo event starting near the Tamagawa. Oh well, not such a great advantage to join a Nihonbashi event when it starts in Odaiba!
Jerome also signed up for the event. I knew he would not like the flat winter course and heavy traffic, but was glad that he would do it -- some extra motivation for me to show up even if the weather was bad, to finish if the chips were down. But he registered for a 6AM start, 30 minutes before me. I got to the start location after he had left and never caught up ... but at least could communicate via text during the ride.
The forecast was for typical early March weather. A low of just around freezing and high of around 11-12 degrees C (50-55 F). But the weather forecast on Friday night warned of a "winter style" weather pattern, with stiff winds from the NW. An online forecast showed that the winds would be strongest during the day from maybe 9AM until 4PM then gradually die down. Looking at the route, I realized the strong wind would almost exactly coincide with the time we would be riding ... to the NW. So a nasty headwind stretch of 120kms or more! The forecast proved remarkably accurate.
I left home by 540AM and was at the start area, next to a smaller replica Statue-of-Liberty in Odaiba, by 6:10. The ride to the start was lovely -- dawn rides often are near the waterfront.
After the bike check and lots of other riders admiring the Pelso (the only recumbent there, as is usually the case for events in Japan), one of the organizers said that the 630AM riders could start. No one else looked as if they wanted to lead, so I headed out. I managed to get around a corner, through a couple traffic lights, and onto the main road north past the Tokyo Big Sight convention center, and was sure any of those who started right after me must have been held up by one or more red lights. I did not see any other participants until 23kms into the ride.
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| Onto the course, alone. |
But I did have plenty of company. After 7AM on Saturday morning, the city was coming to life in this industrial/harbor-adjacent area. There were lots of trucks.
The route turned toward the East at around 20kms in. For the next two hours or so, I would be riding almost directly into the glare of the morning sun. This makes a huge difference riding a recumben, face upward. At night, I could see the constellation of Orion above me as I rode ... but in the morning, it was the brutal glare of the sun.
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| The route turns East here. |
As the route crossed the Arakawa, there was a steep ramp up to the bridge with no shoulder. I was waiting at a light with numerous trucks and did not like the idea of riding next to them up that ramp. So I went down a side road and walked my bike up the levee to the pedestrian/bike crossing on the North side of the bridge. This was fine, except I lost time, and even more time at the far end of the bridge, where cyclists and pedestrians needed to descend a looping, slow pathway. As I reached the bottom and returned to the main road, ... a group of at least 5-6 riders, a healthy share of the 630AM starters, had passed me.
I caught them at the next traffic light and trailed them for around 10kms ... until I noticed that my front tire was noticably soft. A slow leak, or open valve that got bumped from time to time? I pulled over at the next opportunity and pumped up the tire. Perhaps it would hold? By now, we had left Tokyo Prefecture behind and were passing through Ichikawa and Narashino, Chiba. Here we were on smaller roads -- one lane in each direction, and the traffic had become heavy -- long lines of cars waiting for red lights, in some places without room to pass and pull up to the front of the line even. This was shaping up to be a long brevet.
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| Heavy traffic ... in many places without this much shoulder nor any sidewalk, and wide trucks, so impossible even to pass by the cars on the left. |
The tire was soft again. I pulled off at a 7-11 parking lot, flipped the Pelso over, removed the front wheel, and changed the tube. The first tube I tried to insert was around 10cm too long. Very poor quality control. The second tube worked, at least, but it seemed like the change had taken 3-4 times as long as it should have. My knees were starting to hurt -- riding the Pelso does put a lot of presure on them, something I never experience with a normal upright bike -- and I had some pain in my left rib cage going back to a minor accident on the Pelso on March 1, that I think I stressed it somehow when I did some manual labor around home on Thursday, or perhaps even when slept on it Friday night. My rib injury was causing more trouble today than it had in the past week, so I was moving slowly off the bike. On the bike, reclined on the Pelso, it was not a serious problem.
New tube inserted, I was back on the road and into the congestion. This continued most of the way to PC1. Finally, we had left the city behind and were in the countryside. The PC was at a park that included a lovely, functioning windmill.
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| At PC1 |
By now, there was what felt like a gale force wind from the NNW. We were still heading ENE, so it was a cross wind. About 500 meters beyond the PC, my Wahoo beeped at me that I was off course. I had followed 3 other riders who were continuing ahead, when the course turned left. I hollered and the nearest 2 riders (a couple), turned around. The furthest of the 3 continued along, at least for the time being. I looped around 270 degrees and then entered the side road, which went up a steep hill, 9, then 10, then 11 and 12 degrees. I got off and walked, the couple passed me. Anyway, it was a short steep bit so I was back on the bike in under a minute.
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| Wind coming at us across a lake, just past PC1 |
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| Finally, some low traffic stretches ... but the crosswind gusts were deadly. |
The next part of the trip involved less traffic and even some quiet country roads, but vicious winds mostly from our left side. At points, I felt pushed across the road, even though I leaned over to the left side of the Pelso seat. It was like riding a sailboat port tacking close to the wind ... except a bicycle lacks a keel. The vicious wind continued. I saw a couple riders headed the other direction. ... They DNFed and were headed back to town or a train station. I took some ibuprofen for my ribs and knees, which seemed to do the trick.
A few times I needed to get off the bike, the wind was so strong. Eventually, far into the 30km stretch between the windmill PC and PC2 (at a Thai temple), the couple who had passed me on the hill ... came heading back down the road. DNF, they said. They made a good choice, I think.
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| At PC2, Wat Pakna, near Narita |
After the second PC, we turned to the WNW. Our route would be pretty much straight into the wind from here (82kms) to the third PC at Oizumi (198kms). It was slow going, especially the first couple hours. I was creeping along at between 15-18kph, but was still passing more riders than passed me. At least the lower position of the recumbent makes it a good choice on a flat course into headwinds.
Somewhere early in this stretch, before Tsukuba, we went through an area with some short ups and downs and I downshifted, taking advantage of the wide gearing on my 1x12 drivetrain. The chain ... rode up over the innermost gear and jammed in between spokes and cassette. It jammed hard.
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| Unjamming my chain. ... first of many times. |
I spent at least 20 minutes trying to get it unjammed, finally succeeding after removing the wheel (a huge pain with the Pelso!) and a lot of elbow grease. My hands got sliced a bit on the teeth of the cassette. Bloody. Why did the chain slip inside when it had not had any problem since I had tweaked the "b limit" adjustment screw a week earlier to solve some other shifting issues? This 1x12 setup is new and really only had gotten use on the rides over the 2 weeks before the event, but all had been dialed in and going smoothly the past week. Smooth shifting into all gears. Why did it need to develop a problem now, on this slight upslope in Ibaraki near Inashiki?
I looked for any upper/lower limit adjustment screws, on the top, bottom and rear of the rear derailleur. There did not appear to be any -- nothing visible even with the bike upside down and wheel off. Odd. Maybe the Eagle GX did not have them? Oh well, I thought, I will just need to be careful as I shift to the lower gears.
It did not work. I think over the rest of the ride I counted 7 times where the chain jammed. Sometimes I could quickly pull it out and reset it. Other times it took 15+ minutes and I needed to remove the rear wheel. I tried to avoid the innermost gear of the cassette ... but somehow the chain jumped over and into the spokes even when I thought that I still had at least one cog left. I tried to ease the chain up a gear as gently as possible ... which usually worked ... but sometimes did not. This killed a LOT of time and set me way back over the final 200kms.
At least the tires held after the first tube change. ... except, except, the tire had not fully sat onto the rim, in some places still not all the way expanded to the "hooked" intersection with the bead, and so there was a perceptible "bump" as the front tire turned. I never fixed this (which would have required much higher tire inflation, then deflation back to a good level). I was on rough enough roads so it did not really make a big difference, but it was a minor annoyance for 250kms.
After passing through Ushiku, the route took us SW of Tsukuba along a 4-lane road that had some trees and other landscaping. There were still plenty of trucks, and lots of "otaku" engineer types driving "car-guy" models of cars. (Audis, BMWs, the new Prius PHEV, etc.) on weekend outings -- maybe a quick trip to the pachinko parlor, or the golf driving range. But at least with 2 lanes in each direction there was plenty of room for them to pass. Tsukuba has a different feel to it, because it was developed as a kind of science and technology city. Lots of research institutes and corporate R&D facilities, I think, as well as the pre-existing "inaka" (countryside) stuff.
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| PC3 Sri Lankan temple |
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| Combini pasta stop just before PC3. Already almost 3PM -- behind pace! Does my recumbent rear bag carry as much magic as Doraemon's bag? Well, today it was missing a few things. |
We had a nice stretch on some local roads, and a couple long stretches on national route 354, in traffic. I stopped a few times, and chatted with other riders. By now, I was mostly in the vicinity of riders who had started at 7:30AM, an hour after me. I had made slow going of it, and I think most riders slower than me had given up already. At every PC I was at or just slightly behind the time limit ... but the organizer was not enforcing intermediate time limits, as the PCs were designated "tsu-ka check" (just need proof of passage -- the photos -- not proof of time). I figured I would catch up on the return into Tokyo, once there was no more headwind.
I texted with Jerome from time to time. Over the first stretch he had gone WAY faster than me. ... but then on the headwind he noted it was "tough going", even for him. He was still perhaps 80-90 minutes ahead of me, though he had started only 30 ahead. But the gap had stopped increasing.
As I took my Wahoo off the bike at a convenience store to recharge it a bit while I stopped, one of the ziptips broke through the base that held the unit on. After a few more kms, the material I had used to bind it tightly to the handlebars (a rubbery base -- but might as well have been a cut piece of an old inner tube) fell off somewhere, leaving the Wahoo rattling around and slipping off. I held it in my hand for awhile, then eventually used some electrical tape to secure it. I had forgotten to bring my stash of zipties.
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| Crossing the Watarase-gawa west of Koga, Mt Fuji in the distance. 545PM! |
As the sun went down, I passed from Ibaraki into Gunma Prefecture. My dynamo light was pointed too far down so I tried to adjust it ... and it came loose in my hand. I had not secured it properly to its base -- amazing that it had not fallen off over the past couple weeks, and today's first 150km+. I also had forgotten to bring the correct size of Torx star-shaped allen key wrench to fit it into the base. So I just used my back-up light for awhile.
Eventually I made a pitstop for a hamburger at a McDonalds, a few kms before the Oizumi PC. I had a message from Jerome that he had stopped not long before at a burger place AT the PC -- a Brazilian supermercado. The headwind had died down to a fraction of its former self after sundown ... just before we turned, finally, in a different direction.
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| The supermercado PC |
I realized that my backup light would probably run out before I reached the finish. I could have recharged it if that happened, but it would have taken too long for me to have any hope of meeting the cut off. And the beam was not nearly as good as on my "Supernova" dynamo light, properly aimed. So I used the rest of my electrical tape and managed to secure the dynamo light. It pointed slightly to the right, into the middle of the road (and oncoming traffic), but was low enough so as not to bother the drivers and it held to the finish.
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| Electrical tape -- one essential I remembered to bring along. |
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| The missing torx wrench, Sunday morning at home. |
After passing SW through Fukaya, Saitama, the road eventually turned south and the SSE through Ogose, Moroyama, and Hidaka. This is a very familar route. I remembered it has having more up and down than it did. The recumbent was just fine to climb on going over these "rollers" ... except when the chain slipped off and jammed into the spokes again.
I was at my wit's end, crouched beside the bike in the dark and cold, trying to get the chain back on, when another rider (730AM starter) came by. He pulled off to ask if I was okay, and I expressed my frustration. Another 10-15 minutes wasted, by now several hours in total. Why wasn't there an upper and lower limit screw on this derailleur? He took a look and shrugged his shoulders. By now I had started to cough occasionally, and the cough seemed to be originating in the area of my ribs/lungs that had been bothering me earlier. That was not a good sign, but at least the coughs were seldom, not frequent.
Anyway, the chain dug out and reset, I made it up the hill, through Moroyama -- a very familiar location -- and took the turn off to go to Hidaka Jinja, another PC. I don't think I had ever taken this short detour, but it the shrine was very impressive and worth the deviation. I'll stop by again sometime when it is actually open.
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| At Hidaka Shrine |
It was now 1140PM. I was 30 minutes behind schedule to make the 2:30AM cutoff at the finish. One more chain-caught-in-spoke incident on the climb out of Iruma. I sent Jerome a text telling him about the cough, that I would not make the cutoff, and could meet him somewhere between the goal/finish and our respective homes for a bite to eat if someplace was open. But I did push on.
The climb out of Iruma was much shorter than I expected ... the route turned left to the SE rather than going South over the ridges to the tea-fields of Sayama/Oume. I was expecting several more hills but instead we traveled on a long, long stretch of mostly flat to 1% downhill. I was making up some time, actually a fair bit of time and moving at a good clip. I passed several riders. With no more headwind and no more traffic, only the red lights held me back. I tried my best to time them, and to use the ones that I hit for a short rest, a sip of water, a check of the route and time.
I got a message from Jerome that he finished just before 1AM. A few minutes later I sent a note that I would "go for it". I was within 30kms, and still had 80 minutes left.
Then I hit red light after red light. On Oume Kaido, I rolled up to a red light watching the cross-light turn yellow, then red, and started through just as it turned green. I had not noticed a police car on the far side of the 6 lane road. He barked at me with his loudspeaker and I gestured up at the green light as I accelerated on. The car did not turn or follow. But the lights got more frequent as I got into town, around the Ogikubo area, then down Kan-nana. I was riding near other brevet riders now, though none whom I recognized, and no 630AM starters I am pretty sure. At red lights I pulled to the front and said "excuse me, I'm a 630AM starter, I'm out of time and need to hurry." At a red light were we turned onto Inokashira Dori, I just inched around the corner and continued on -- a technical violation but a harmless one at 2:10AM. I snapped my last PC photo, the mosque at Yoyogi Uehara, at 2:11AM. There was a note from Jerome that he felt ill to his stomach and was heading home.
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| The Mosque at Yoyogi Uehara, 2:11AM |
Now I was on familiar roads ... taking a route I have often ridden from Uehara through Omotesando and to Nishi Azabu. In fact, I had ridden it on the Pelso within the past few weeks. But I could not do anything about the red lights -- at Yamate Dori, then before Yoyogi Park, then at Meiji Dori, and again at Aoyama Dori. Each light killed a minute or two that I did not have. And in the city there was still cross-traffic, even in the wee hours taxis racing back and fro.
I got to Nishi Azabu Crossing at 2:28AM. 300kms into the brevet course, but still 3.7 kms from the goal in Shiodome, and no more time.
So I rode home, picked up some food at a convenience store, bought milk for my morning coffee, left a voice message for the organizers announcing my DNF, ate, bathed and slept.
The next day, in the morning light after sleeping in, without the panic of trying to reset a chain ... I searched online and found the youtube video on how to set the limit screws for a SRAM 12 speed Eagle GX derailleur. I got out my Torx star allen wrenches and reset the front dynamo light properly and securely. And I will reset the Wahoo base securely.
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| Wahoo secured with tape after the base broke. |
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| No limit screw visible from the bottom (nor from the top) |
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| Two small limit screws, tucked way in underneath. Argghh!!! |
I think that with a bit more thoughtful and careful bike preparation, I would have completed this event within the time limit. And the Pelso actually handled the short rolling hills of this course better than I remember from last year's events. It is still not a good bike for longer or >10% climbs, and not great for riding in heavy traffic with narrow tolerances. But it is great for looking at the stars, and it is easy on the back, neck, arms/wrists, and butt. If I rode it a bit more and actually trained on it, it should be faster than a regular bike on a course like this, especially with the nasty headwind stretch. I worry a bit about it putting too much stress on my knees, but I think I can manage that by spinning a higher cadence/lower gear and moving my position.
I did not get "credit" for homogulating a 300km event, but I did ride 313km in difficult conditions. So not a bad training outing. And a good learning experience with the Pelso.
