VENTURING INTO SAITAMA TERRITORY

A comment from the mob

What Toms describes below as a "short but powerful ride", was in fact a 180 km trip into hillclimb nirvana for me. Please take a look at the Ciclo data chart below:I met David by chance at Futago Tamagawa and together we rode to the Sekido Bashi meeting point. We then proceeded towards Ome station, and immediately one of the differences between Positivo Espresso team rides and NFCC ones became apparent: The Positivo team is starting full speed at the Tamagawa and we are very fast. Very rarely we are overtaken by other riders at the Tamagawa and we grind our way through all obstacles of human and other nature on the cycle path. Once we reach the mountains we are generally exhausted and climb at a leisurely pace. I contrast to this NFCC proceeds along the Tamagawa at a very low pace - it took me 2:17 hrs from my house to Ome station! On the way back with Tom after all that climbing and with a strong side- and headwind it took me only 1:53 to return. However, once in the mountains, the picture changes completely.

Also I believe Positivo Espresso would never consider to ride upstream along the left side of the Tamagawa for say 15 km, then cross a bridge and go downstream for 10 km just to turn to the left into Chichibu. No, we would ride ride on the right side for 5 km and then turn to the right. We have no time for such extravaganza, we would like to reach our goal immediately, no matter how fine the landscape or roads might be. Of course if the idea is crazy enough, we would just do it (like taking Wada as an intermezzo for Otarumi).

It was the first time I entered into the Chichibu area. It was also the first time for my to ride with a bunch of NFCC guys I hardly ever met. One has to be careful, it is just like going out for drinking I guess: It is acceptable to go drinking with a bunch of Russian sailors in your favourite joint in the Ginza; it is also OK to drink with your buddies in a small pub at the Odessa harbour. But don't go drinking with a group of Russian sailors in their favourite pub in Odessa harbour. You may end up to pay the bill. And more.

Once in the mountains the NFCC guys are very fast. I could not keep up with them but when I later checked the data I was also doing better than usual. Normally I am doing 600 - 700 m of climbing per hour regardless of the distance, on Tuesday I was more in the 800 m range.

We made a stop at Shomaru Toge where Tom promised that I would see Shinjuku on this very clear day. One could see Tokyo, but interesting enough not the tall buildings you usually see such as Tokyo Tower, Roppongi Hills or the Positivo Empire Building. But instead one could clearly see the huge white roof of the Tokyo Dome.

We then returned and when descending from Yamabushi Toge I could barely escape crashing head on into a car coming up on the wrong side of the road in a blind corner. I managed to escape by changing suddenly direction to the leftmost side of the road towards the guard rail - and the steep slope downwards. Unfortunately (or furtunately) there was a gap between the road and the guardrail in which I slipped with my bike and then I managed somehow to fall on the road rather than on the guardrail. All impact was taken by my head which crashed on the road sidewards and then slided over the surface for some distance. I looked like William Defoe in Platoon.

Jacques was so kind to help me to get set and my bike was OK so I continued to ride carefully in direction Hanno and Ome. After having this fantastic Royal White pastry, Tom and me continued to ride home at high speed. I was tired, but I could maintain the speed until right to my home. I like this long straight stretches of high speed in the flats.

An interesting an challeging trip. Everybody at NFCC was very kind and waited patiently for me at the top of the hills. It is good to venture out of the usually tracks and surely Chichibu has some nice roads to offer.

Original from Tom

Michael and I decided to join Team NFCC for a short but powerful ride into Saitama Prefecture. At Sekidobashi we parted from David who was on his short "morning-only" ride. The "approach ride" along the Tamagawa CR direction Ome was at a very leisurely pace - much too slow for Positivo Espresso riders like David, I'm sure. From Ome we rode direction Okutama and halfway, we crossed Tamagawa for a short U-turn to ride into Saitama Prefecture. The weather was simply perfect and the roads were not too crowded - no dump trucks for a change. Just when my bottle was getting empty, we reached Arai-Fudo-no-Meisui for a fill-up of delicious spring water! There were many cyclists on the road besides us; looks like the Saitama area is more popular than Yamanashi. We tried to get a good picture of Kabukicho from the top of Shomaru-toge but the whole Shinjuku area looked quite hazy. The team doubled-back for a downhill towards Ome and Michael managed to barely escape death in a blind corner where he evaded an uncoming vehicle by getting in the roadside where he slipped. Cervelo and Campagnolo wheels were intact but Michael's neck looked a bit bruised... Back in Ome, Michael took me to that famous Aurore bakery (bakery chain concentrated along Keio/Odakyu railroad stations). I must admit the favorite roll tasted great! Michael and I parted from the rest and we rode back in real Positive Espresso fashion...reigning the roads at full speed!

TTT

Yes, yesterday was the TTT (Thursday's three Toge) ride, an annual event initiated by Positivo Espresso with a long tradition dating back to 2008. I like this Japanese tradition of having none and showing off with it. How many times have we read slogans painted on cars on signboards such as "We have good nature and we want you to know. Since 2007."?
In any case, just after work I rode along Tamagawa and Asakawa looking for some distractions. Boy's day is close by and carp streamers (koinobori) are everywhere to be found. I saw a very nice example along the Asakawa close to Hachioji. There was an even better one at Kosuge [Matsuhime] some weeks ago, but I didn't took a photo.

There were lots of children let loose from school or Kindergarten and playing in the river. The teachers were constantly chasing after them and tried to get them back behind closed walls. Once captured, the kids were forced to stand to attention at the drill yard.
So it was a typical beautiful day in May in the country of Japan. After some time I arrived at the Takao 7-Eleven but instead of making a break I decided to give Wada Toge a try instead. I have been there only once in 2006 with Tom, Juliane, David, Jerome and Laurent so I didn't know the way, but I found the small road leading to Wada. Before that I crossed the Tokyo cemetery at Hachioji where there is a long and straight decent and it is easy possible to speed up to 70 km/hr - just the right dosis of speed before it is getting very slow towards the top of Wada. There were a lot of gales and strong winds this day, so sometimes I couldn't go too fast.

I was surprised how long one need to ride until the last bus stop before the Wada Toge ascent, I took a short break there and then I attacked Wada. Wada is hell for me. Wada is about 350 meters up at a distance of 3.7 km, so the average slope is already 10%, but in some places it seems more like 20%. With a standard 53/39 crank and a 12/27 cassette AND my body weight it is somewhat difficult to stay in motion at all. My speed was partly dropping to 7 or 8 km/hrs and I wouldn't have been surprised if some hikers would have overtaken me. It is virtually impossible to demount from the bike, because once you do, you can never gain the momentum to mount again and clip the shoes in. You simply fall down.

So I had a very hard time, but I didn't gave up. In the end I was saved by two Japanese guys who turned up with their car behind me. Two men, sitting in a mini car branded "Bistro" with small stuffed animals all over the seats and dashboard and God knows where and shouting with high-pitched voices "Gambare!". Please draw your own conclusions, but my one is : Real men don't buy cars which are named BISTRO. So having the choice to be sodomized or speeding up I decided for the later.

This brought me to the witchhouse on top of Wada Toge in 23:07 min. Not bad an improvement, if I consider that it took me 41 min the first time I went up. OK, mostly I walked up in 2006. But please take a look here.
This is the official blog of the crazy Wada tribe and obviously some of them do it in less than 15 minutes. OK, they are also less than 2/3 of my weight. So there is still way to go.

At the top of Wada I stayed away from the witch who as usually had some older male companion and was bitching around ("..good that no children are here..."). The last time a group of us went up there, they were all bewitched for one hour as we can see in this evidence photo. Juliane is in front with obviously Jerome. If there was ever any question about.

I then rode down the road I have came up to Wada because I was not sure about the roads on the other side and anyway I refuse to ride through Uenohara these days. I then took a well deserved break at the Takao 7-Eleven and then started to attack Otarumi, the second Toge of the day. I was pretty lame on the first flat part of the road. Then I experienced the first LSD trip of my life: I was coming closer to the top of Otarumi, but the road didn't got steeper at all. It was like to whole world has been flattened out indefinitely - the distance was still there, however there was no elevation at all. I had been dragged into a two dimensional world, where the word "hill climb" was not invented yet.

That was the experience - in fact of course it was the after effect of climbing Wada. After the 20% slope of Wada everything seemed to be so .... flat. I wasn't too fast but also not too slow, it was just very, very easy to climb up; it was the best LSD trip I never had.

Sorry to emphasize this LSD thing all the time, but the inventor of LSD, Dr. Albert Hofmann died just this week at the age of 102 and there is a very good post at BSNYC about him and his connection to cycling. I think it is a very amazing story, in particular the part that he [probably intentionally] took some LSD to check out for himself when there was no particular effect observed when administered on animals in the lab. Nobody would do this today, just imagined if somebody from the lab had tried an overdoses Viagra in the Tokyo subway during rush hours on his way home from the lab. These things are dangerous today!

And that he chooses to do that a second time just before he went home on his bicycle. I would like to propose him for a honorary membership in the Positivo Espresso team.

OK, so after the trip ended, I descended on the other side and went in one stretch along road 412, 413 and 64 to Miyagase lake where I made a small break at the entrance to Yabitsu Toge. Then I started the attack on Yabitsu Toge. Wada Toge is hell - but Yabitsu is really one of my favourite Toges in the Tokyo area. The ascent is so gradual the first kilometers and the landscape and the river is so nice. Constantly concrete slopes are added on the sides of the road unfortunately but looking at the state deficit this will not continue forever.

I went up the first time in 05 or 06 with Juliane. It was a typical Juliane trip. It looked like it will start to rain but Juliane convinced me that this was just an illusion and that surely it will stay try until we reached Hadano station. She stated this was her usual confidence, just like she used to say "Sure, I have three cartridges with me." So once we started to climb heavy rain started and didn't stop. It became more and more unbearable. At some point a huge wooden ship was floating next to us and a guy with a long beard looked from the ship at us and said: "Now that I see you guys, it comes to my mind that I forgot to take two cyclists on board. How about, join the other animals?" But Juliane declined with confidence that it will stop raining soon anyway. Oh, it did eventually. The next day when I came back from work.

I took me a little bit more than one hour until I reached Yabitsu Toge, the third T of the day. It was a little bit colder up there and I started to descent without a break. Also for the first time I passed five cars on my way down who were just driving to slow. A big truck didn't want me to overtake him so I had to play it a little risky.

I arrived at Hadano station, having done 150 km and about 2.000 meters of climbing. There is this huge bento shop at the station with more than 600 cheap bentos on display - but I didn't felt like eating at all. Anyway, Hadano is the bento capital of the world.

Then I took the train to Noborito and rode home the last few kilometers. I liked one of the labels that TOM attached to one of his posts so much that I added a slightly improved version.
Updated some Toge Bakas at home.

KEIRIN VISIT ON MAY 4

One more idea. I was thinking about actively engaging in family service on May 4th (Sunday). But that doesn't mean that this is not related to cycling by default, right? So I was thinking of taking my son on his own bike and my daughter on the slipstream bike to the Keirin race track in Chofu where we always pass by on the Tamagawa road (at Chofu, between Sekido Bashi and Futago).

From the website I assume that there are races on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, starting at 15.00 hr. So we can leave in the morning, ride to Tama Jiman with our families, have lunch there and return then to the Keirin track. My wife will probably come by car (or I need to buy two more battery packs for her electric cycle]. Enjoy some races as long we enjoy them, make some bets as long as the pocket money lasts.

The ride home between 17 and 18 hrs, maybe the kids by car.
A nice family event. Of course we can also go to Matsudo Keirin Track.

GOLDEN WEEK RIDES

I thought about making two longer trips during Golden Week, also in view of preparation for the Itoaigawa Fast Run race on May 17th. After consultation with my family we agreed that I can have two days for cycling on Saturday (May 3) and Monday (May 5), while enagaging in active family service on Sunday and Tuesday. Here are some ideas :

SATURDAY - IZU HANTO

Leaving by Shinkansen from Shinagawa early in the morning to Odawara.
Along the East coast to Ito (not so nice, but to get some warm-up) then riding West to Reikawa Toge (500m) to Shuzenji. Through the countryside southwest until we reach Yugashima.
From there to Kazahaya/Niba Toge (well known) and the descent to the West coast. Start to check if we got pumps or cartridges. Along the West coast on road 136 to Matsuzaki, then go to Jaishi Toge and finally along road 136 again to Shimoda.

Jump into the sea, have curry pasta at the gaijin house. Is James in the area on Saturday? Then jump on the train back to Tokyo. Plenty of climbing, plenty of fun.

MONDAY - OME CHICHIBU

Always wanted to ride more to the North from Ome, but I do not have any experience. Tom has been recently up in the area with the NFCC and TCC guys, so perhaps we can organize a tour to the North, eventually gathering at Ome station in the morning.
Ome -> Iino -> Yamajo Touge (?) -> Seibu Line Yokose Station -> Shiraishi Toge -> Higashi Matsuyama Train and back.

Or any other ideas for Saturday or Monday ?

Broke 2 Otarumi records this afternoon!

My titanium VLAAMS helped me break my previous 2 Otarumi records....took a flying start at the 7/11 though starting my stopwatch as I drove by at full speed...disqualified? On the other hand, I almost got hit by a stupid old women getting out of the parking lot on the left...yes, almost an exact repeat of David's close encounter! Did the Tour de Sagamiko (a.k.a. Charles' sanctuary)...precisely 101km back and forth from my home. Splendid weather. Planning to take a yukyukyuka this Friday for a ride to Yamanakako....

At the risk of riducule could I suggest we need to be organised and disciplined to survive the Itoigawa long ride...?? Here is how to travel efficiently as a group "through and off"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/sol/newsid_6900000/newsid_6906000?redirect=6906084.stm&news=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1&nbwm=1&nbram=1

how about a bit of practice beforehand? (do I get thrown out of P-E for this suggestion??)

and some top tips on distance riding (from a German bloke - so they must be good ;-)
http://www.bitrot.de/bbook_riding.html

happy to ride tomorrow - but not all day!!

Tom -- Thank you for a memorable ride on Sunday.
Tom and I rode up the Tamagawa, over to Itsukaichi and up Kazahari; stopped at Tomin no Mori briefly then over the top and down the rear side to Okutama-ko. (no TT effort today ... but my climb still beat last month's TT by 15 seconds). We ate soba at Juliane's favorite Okutamako cafeteria, then climbed the back side of Tsuru and Tawa Toge, and came home via Uenohara/Takao. (The back side of Tsuru is ridiculously steep -- lots of 13-15% grade, even though it is only 350 meters elevation gain from Okutama-ko to the top). All in, the ride involved well over 2000 meters of climbing and 183 km (115 miles) for me. Weather was perfect, except for cold (8 degrees celsius), foggy and with some wind on the top of Kazahari. We decided not to try the "kazahari rindo" because the road would have been wet, making it almost impossible to climb the steep grades with road tires.

Ride on Tuesday anyone? Next weekend?




Thank you for joining yesterday's ride David...my legs felt rather heavy on the first half of the Kazahari and I was happy you did all the pulling for me. Yes, at the pace you were going, you'll be in perfect shape by May 17th!

Next time let's all go for the URAKAZAHARI!

Tom

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Titanium Jewel

this is the best cycling movie ever - watched it years ago. Does anyone have access to a copy? If we can get it I'll host the movie party!!   David J

TOGEBAKA No. 9 number 9 number 9 number 9 number 9

number 9 number 9 number 9 number 9....yeah I really love that psychedelic Beatles song!

Guys & Gal(s)...I took the liberty of adding Togebaka number 9...."URA KAZAHARI" a.k.a. Kazahari Rindo 風張林道 !

I've done this crazy slope (grade of 18% here and there?) several times in the past but never measured my time until I read my friend Hiroshi's (our age) blog...he did it in less than 35 minutes.

How about a little TT this weekend ? - either day is fine with me. After the climb we can add some distance (go around Matsuhime?) by way of Itoigawa training...yes, why not add Togebaka No. 8? David, I agree the starting point for Togebaka No. 8 is preferable at the T-junction rather than the remote Kosuge Town Hall (of course this one we can keep for the sake of variation).

This is how average-level roadies fare on the URAKAZAHARI !!

anyone coming out for a Sunday ride?

weather lookin' good.

where we gonna go?

train out, ride, train back in?

It is someone's birthday today and she got a present.

Which one do you think?

The one on the left or the one on the right?

Sunny Tuesday

After the epic ascent of Enzan on Saturday, I felt rather restless. There is a race scheduled at the Gunma CSC next weekend and I definitely had not trained enough; I wanted to go into the mountains again before the race. So on Monday afternoon when I looked up the weather forecast for Tuesday and found out what a lovely spring day that would become (most likely) and then checked my schedule and found out in addition that I had no appointments for the day and that all things considered, all things could be postponed to Wednesday anyway, I decided to take a day off.

As my wife started to work this month, I have now to take care of my daughter and prepare her in the morning to withstand the forces of the Japanese education system. Getting her out of the bed is not easy. Getting her into clothes is also not easy. Usually the first question is: "Has Mama picked this shirt? Are you sure?" Yes I am, if I wouldn't be sure it would be refused immediately. We then continue in a lighter mood with Yogurt eating competition and making toasts for each other (She : Salami and cucumbers, me : cherry jam). Combing and fixing her hair is a real challenge for me. But I like this moments alone with my daughter and it is good to learn something new and challenging. Sorry, the last paragraph was about my life outside of cycling. Yes, there is one. I shall refrain from blogging about it too often.

So, with my daughter out of the door I was next on the Cervelo + GravityZero wheels plus Assos jacket (but not the Fugu one). I rode in one stretch the first 50 km to Ome station, I could hardly wait to get some more of the Royal White pastry there - simply delicious. I took only a short break and continue to ride to Okutama station, Okutama lake and then over the bridge towards Kosuge and Matsuhime on road 139. It was still "traffic safety week" and many tents were erected at crossings and many, many policemen and volunteers were sitting in the tents and ... well, were basically chit-chatting and drinking tea. But this caused many undesired stops.

At the crossing where david ignored the light and the subsequent shouting of the assembled West Okutama police force, the tent was empty. It can be reasonably assumed that all of them committed suicide to take the blame for not being able to stop a gang of four ignorant foreigners on arguably fast bikes.

The landscape was wonderful and so was the weather. I came home sunburned and to take the Assos jacket with me was a mistake - in the back of my head I still remembered seeing snow on Enzan the previous Saturday. Unfortunately the beautiful landscape is under further threat as many public works construction site were under way. Why - it is only April, the fiscal year has barely started. Should this give us some secret hint; could we use this information as an indicator of increased Japanese government budget deficit for 2008? Shall we sell this information to MorganStanley and the like? Financial analysis and hill climbing were never so close.

I continued to ride to Kosuge where I took the second break of the ride in front of the town hall. Kosuge is a nice village and Tom is right to propose to go there in summer and jump into the Onsen, perhaps even staying the night there. The boys day is coming closer and a long wire with many carp streamers was swaying in the wind over the river.

I then started the attack of Matsuhime, made the 571m ascent in about 52 minutes and added Togebaka No. 8 on the blog. There were almost no cars on the road and the views from the road are spectucular. From a landscape-point-of-view, Yabitsu and Matsuhime are my favourite climbs. I felt pretty OK going up, never it doubt that I would make it in one go.

I went down on the other side - more construction works, mainly slopes and some tunnels. Why should there be tunnels in this part of the country? There is no traffic anyway. There are hardly any people living there. There are plenty of good roads. The only reason I can imagine is, that these are not real tunnels, but that this is in fact a miner and tunnelling engineering primary school and that tunnels are built for education and training purposes.

My legs and lungs felt pretty OK on the descent, but my back starting hurting - I used too much arm muscles on the ascent. So going along route 20 back towards Sagamiko against a string headwind was a drag. Then I entered Uenohara. From my previous posts you might know that I hate Uenohara. There is absolute no reason to built a city in this ridiculous hilly terrain in the first place. All this unnecessary ups and downs leading either to nowhere or to country clubs. But again, perhaps I am wrong and this is not a city, but a city planing school for juvenile delinquents.

Also I crashed in 2007 in Uenohara and was almost killed by a 7-Eleven delivery truck who suddenly started to move in reverse direction on the main road.

This time I crashed again and now I really, really hate Uenohara. When I passed some cars on the left, waiting for the lights to turn green ["blue" for Japanese readers], I did not saw the level difference between the asphalt surface and the curbstone and there I was falling over to the left. Luckily only my body touched the hard ground, preventing any damage to my beloved new Cervelo bike. Bruises can heal - scratches in the frame are much more costly to cover up. I only had a bloody knee, that was everything. But my GravityZero rear wheel was not running straight any longer and fixing that will be a complicated exercise. The spokes can only be adjusted once the tire, tube and rimtape has been removed. I need to use my Campagnolo wheels again and get used to the slacking.

The good thing however was, that shortly after the crash my metabolism must have released a huge amount of endomorphine or whatever as a result of the shock of falling plus hatred for Uenohara and after the crash I did not feel any pain or any fatigue any longer. I decided that this must be the perfect race strategy : crash first - race later.

So I continued to Sagamiko and then took the train to Jiyugaoka where I paid a visit to Nagai-San. He fixed my bike and I showed him the GravityZero wheels and explained in all glorious details the advantages of the hub, like I did already to almost everyone of you. Like everyone of you he was not very impressed.

Nevertheless, it was a beautiful day out in the nature and I felt somehow gaining form and loosing weight. If I pass the pass/fail racing criteria in Gunma next weekend I should be happy.

The art of pass/fail racing

Taken from the Bike Snob NYC website, another good advice.

Cycling should be an enjoyable endeavor. However, sometimes despite our best efforts we wind up in situations on the bike that are simply no fun. Such situations include: having accidents; getting caught in severe weather; and, perhaps worst of all, becoming involved in an amateur road race. Of course, the first two circumstances can be avoided or mitigated with caution and preparation. As for the third one, though, chances are that if you find yourself in an amateur road race in the first place you’re the sort of person who seeks suffering rather than avoids it. If you simply must participate in amateur road racing, here are some tips to help ameliorate the adverse effects:

Know Your Limits

There is a fine line between ambition and delusion. The former is the fuel for success, and the latter is the way to ruin. I believe it was either Sheldon Brown or Ben Franklin who said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” This is especially true when it comes to road racing. Basically, if you’ve never won a race before, you’re not suddenly going to start winning them now. So settle down, pick a wheel to follow, and stay out of trouble.

Unfortunately, though, too many people fail to realize this, especially in the lower categories, where everybody stupidly sees him-or herself as a potential winner. When everyone’s going for the podium the result is a pile-up. It becomes like some moronic slapstick routine where eight people bend down to pick up the same $100 bill and just end up bashing their heads together as a gentle breeze carries the money down the street.

The reason the higher categories generally see fewer crashes is not because they’ve acquired better riding skills over the years; rather, it’s because higher-category riders have been psychically beaten into submission. Their wills have been broken, they’ve admitted to themselves that they don’t have a chance, and they ride accordingly. In real life, if more than like 50% of the country believes it should be running it, you’re going to have a civil war. In a race, if more than half the field thinks it can win you can expect carnage on wheels. So don't be part of the problem.

Race Pass/Fail

So you’ve admitted you’re a loser. Congratulations, and welcome to mediocrity! Please come in and make yourself comfortable. Would you like a Shasta? Believe it or not, embracing your inner “meh” is one of the most positive things you can do as a cyclist. And now that you’re coming to terms with this, it’s time to re-evaluate your goals. Clearly, winning is out of the question for you, so the next best thing is helping someone else win. Well, that’s all very nice, but what’s in it for you? More importantly, once your job is done and the winning break is up the road what’s your motivation for staying in the race?

In this case we can look to the halls of academe for an answer, and that answer is to race “Pass/Fail.” This simply means finishing=passing and getting dropped=failing. Over the years, I’ve learned that riding for a place is discouraging. However, if you treat simply finishing the race as success you can strive for—and attain—something close to perfection. Remember: success is how you define it. And when it comes to defining things in a manner that suits my own purposes, I’m like Robert Cawdrey with an Erasermate.


Employ Tactics

Road racing is all about tactics. Unfortunately, the tactical advice you get from books and magazines is intended for winners or for people who aspire to be winners. As such, it doesn't apply to you. Using that stuff for pass/fail racing is like trying to assemble a piece of Ikea furniture by following Mapquest directions to Chuck E. Cheese. You’re not interested in winning, you’re interested in surviving. Here are three key pieces of advice for the survival of the pass/fail racer:

Go Where The Most People Are

If you see a group of people go up the road that has less people in it than the group you’re in, stay where you are! What’s happening is that a selection is being made, and trust me when I tell you don’t want to be a part of it. The first rule of pass/fail racing is to avoid breakaways. Being in a breakaway is like going from a cushy job at a big company with a regular paycheck to a really hard job at a tiny company where you have to work 16 hour days on commission only and people are always yelling at you. And trust me—someone will yell at you. Every break has a self-appointed driver who is really mean and constantly shouts stuff like, “Short pulls!” and “Rotate!” and “Pull off into the wind!” and then gets indignant when you say “But I don’t wanna rotate!” since just want to sit on the back crying because you miss those fun cubicle days when all your friends were around and you didn’t have to do any real work. I mean, seriously, if you want to suffer do a cyclocross race.

Conversely, if you’re in one group and you suddenly realize the group up the road has much more people than the one you’re in, that means you’re probably being dropped. If possible, get back to the group with more people in it. (Shouting at someone else to “Close the gap!” can be helpful here.)

Savor the Slowness

There are times in the race when the pace will slow for no apparent reason. This is a good thing for the pass/fail racer, as it is an opportunity to relax and enjoy. Occasionally though, you may be tempted to try to lift the pace or “make a move.” But it is absolutely essential to always remember the first rule of pass/fail racing and stay where the people are. Because if you do go off the front, nobody’s going to follow you since you’re a pass/fail racer and they are too and they know better than to get mixed up in some fool’s errand with you. Then you wind up alone in no-man’s land. If you don’t know what no-man’s land is, it’s kind of like that period after you learned what the cycling-related jokes on the Primal jerseys meant, but before you figured out that it was totally uncool to wear them, so you just rode around alone wearing a Primal jersey and looking ridiculous. And that’s what will happen if you go off the front. You’ll wind up alone, between the field and the break, looking ridiculous.

Work Only Out of Craven Self-Preservation

There is only one situation in which it is acceptable for the pass/fail racer to accelerate or attempt to move up through the field, and that’s at the beginning of any sort of incline. This is a widely-known rule, but it’s one of the few that’s actually designed for the pass/fail racer and so it bears repeating here. What you want to do is move to the front of the group at the start of the climb so that as you continue up it you can slowly drift back through the group instead of struggling to stay on. Hopefully, by the time you get to the top of the incline you haven’t already been spit out the back. This is the equivalent of periodically selling something you own for quick cash so you can enjoy a few months of easy living instead of simply working hard all the time.


Premature Withdrawal

Road racing isn’t like other types of racing. In a cyclocross race, you stay in the race until you finish or until you’re pulled, even if nobody’s near you. In a mountain bike race, you keep racing regardless of your position as well, unless you’ve got an irreparable mechanical problem, or unless you’re me and you just wanna go home. But in road racing, if you find yourself dropped and alone, you stop racing. This is perfectly acceptable, and it’s because, unlike other activities, road racing is not done for fun. It’s done out of obligation. So once your race is over there’s simply no point in carrying on.

Of course, there are times you may want to leave the race even before you’ve gotten dropped. Technically, this is unacceptable. However, there are a few ways to do it while saving face. They are:

Get a Flat

Be honest: who hasn’t prayed for a puncture during periods of extreme physical duress? If you simply want out, try to steer towards gravel or bits of broken glass. If possible, ride in the gutter, where these sorts of things accumulate. Also, if there’s any kind of neutral wheel service, be sure to start the race on a bicycle that is incompatible with modern-day drivetrains. There’s no way the mechanic’s going to be able to cram a 10-speed wheel with 130mm spacing into your 120mm-spaced frame quick enough for you to get back in the race. And even if he does, it's not going to work with your Huret rear derailleur. Best of all, you can blame not only bad luck but also bicycle marketing and gimmickry for your failure to finish.

Unfortunately, getting a flat on purpose isn’t always easy, but you’ll just have to try your best until I start selling my Deflat-O-Mat 3000, which will instantly induce double-flats via a discreet handlebar-mounted trigger disguised as a cycle computer.

Have a Mechanical

There are innumerable ways to feign component failure. My personal favorite is the Hincapie ‘06. Remember the moment his steerer tube broke in Paris-Roubaix and he sat there for a moment studying his disembodied handlebars in disbelief before he crashed spectacularly? You can easily replicate this yourself by simply carrying a multi-tool in your jersey and subtly unbolting your stem. When it’s time to throw in the towel, simply slide the stem off the steerer tube and you’ll be out of the race in no time. (You can also do a Hincapie ’08—wheel failures can be induced by opening a skewer with your foot.)

And of course this all leads to the best but most dangerous way to leave a race:

Have a Crash

A good crash requires no explanation. Of course, it might require hospitalization, so this method should be used sparingly. If possible, steer towards grass or haybales.

The big dude always plays the tuba. It's a rule.

A piece on climbing..

Some excerpts..

"Hills are death for fat guys or big riders."
"You just can't get up even a slight incline without working much harder than a little guy"

"How you climb as a big guy has to be totally different, get over the idea that you will just grab a wheel, hang on, and spin up a hill. That won't work for you Charlie, because you aren't built to spin up hills. You need to whip out your Testosterone Bucket, take a drink, and really believe"

"I'll never be good at steep, long climbs - power to weight is a tyrant. But shorter, shallower hills - the sheer power of a big guy, fat and strong or just big and strong, can be a tyrant to a small rider."
"It’s hard to accept that you can actually do well on hills when your mental picture of a “hill” is a painful place where you get dropped by little tiny bastards, the Secret Elephant Graveyard where your races and group rides go to die. You start thinking of yourself as unable to climb."

We don't have 'rolling' terrain here.. its flat or straight up.. "Tom-Land" :)

As we approach the Fuji Hill climb again this year (June1) and I stare at the scale which will not budge below 185lbs, I wonder if I'll ever get up the bugger in under 90 mins..

Yanagizawa Toge

Mission accomplished. David and me rode the first 47 km from his house to Ome station in 1:47 hr, a little bit more than the 80 minutes I have anticipated. If only I would have know what wonderful supply of pastry was awaiting as at Ome station, I would have rode 10 minutes faster.

We almost maintained our speed then going up to Okutama station. And then the rather hard part began. A short but steep climb through many tunnels to Okutama lake where the two Davids added valuable minerals to the potable water supply of the Japanese capital.
A speedy trip along the shores of the lake, then crossing over a red light in front of the assembled police force of north-west Okutama and the the really hard part going up to Yanagizawa.

Luckily we met Tom, which allowed for a first break and then we made a second break before reaching the top. The restaurant at the top is a remarkable break from the Japanese tradition: In former times, when there was a famine, the older people were taken in the woods and let alone. Most of them opened restaurants, for example on top of Wada Toge. As society wanted to get rid of them in he first place, they are normally grumpy and unfriendly people.
The Yanagizawa restaurant however was ok.
We then rode down to Ensan, over huge bridges and then into a town full of peach blossoms.

Sasago was a little bit too ambitious for us yesterday, so we stayed in line with our great tradition to have great plans and less long actual rides.

In 2001 I was riding to Ome and got back on the train. This used to be a long weekend ridefor me. I graduallt expanded to Okutama and Okutamako in the following years, but always took the train back. Ensan is probably the limit, hard to imagine to go any further.
But then again, who knows.

To be sure, I added Togebaka #7 on the left : Okutama Station to Yanagizawa Toge.

New Togebaka added

yes, 1,560 meters high...

I have added No. 6 on our list...a fantastic climb about 16km long and going up at an average inclination of 8% or so. Vertical drop from top to Magi Intersection is about 1,100 meters.

Here's the map ①~⑩:

http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/japan/otsuki/944673340

When the wind is blowing from the right direction splendid views of Fujisan are guaranteed (Fujisan as depicted on the old 500 yen bill was photographed from this O-toge).

Midway, the road is closed to normal traffic meaning paradise to hillclimbers and monkeys the latter breed present in far greater numbers!

(This incredible hill was introduced to me by YellowGiant of TCC. Thanks Travis!)

Weekend Ride April 12/13

Mission (partially) accomplished! We made it to Enzan ... but hopped the train from there rather than going back via Sasago. It awaits another day.


View Larger Map

Near top of Yanagisawa looking behind

The haunted Sasago Tunnel

The weather forecast looks good for this Saturday (11-19 deg, 10%) and somewhat ok on Sunday (10-15 deg, 40%) so I was thinking of a nice trip into the Yamanashi mountains on Saturday.

I realized how tired I am to go along the Tamagawa, so I would like to propose to meet in Ome at the station at 10 AM - those who like can go there by bike (ca. 80 minutes from Futagotamagawa) and those who don't go there by train (for example Shinjuku 8.54 hr).

Then we travel from Ome to Okutamako along route 411, cross Yanagizawa Toge and take a break at Ensan. Depending on the energy level we have left, we continue then to Sasago Toge and cross over to route 20 to Sasago and Otsuki. We can then decide to take the train home from Otsuki or continue to Hachoji or home.

As an idea.

Sasago Pass closed to traffic until April 10-11-12?

Winning race strategy

Team - this is the way forward! We can win everything if we enter the tricycle section at race events.

Assos Product Review

Outside it is raining and the last cherry blossoms are falling to the ground. The complete atmosphere is somewhat melancholic and there is little reason to spend time with work related matter. Everything can wait until tomorrow.

However this winter I bought a lot of stuff from Assos through David Marx and I promised him to write something about this stuff on the Positivo web site. As the winter is gone by now and all stuff was thoroughly tested I can finally make good on my promise :

So the most important Assos gear I bought was this yellow Fugu jacket. Only the jacket, not the yellow trousers. Also I noted that in my jacket I look completely different - but it would be hard to blame the jacket for this.

But it is in fact a very warm jacket. According to the Assos website in should be worn at temperature from -4 to + 7 degrees. Please note that the temperature should be measured INSIDE the jacket. Really, I was wearing it one day when I crossed Otarumi with Tom and the temperature outside was around 3 degrees. We made a break at a Soba shop close to Takaoguchi and when I undressed from the jacket it was completely wet on the inside. Tom can confirm that. So every degree more than seven will extract 500 ml of sweat from your body. But nevertheless it is a very nice jacket and it has this huge one pocket on the backside for all kind of stuff and this nice collar and it really feels good. It is expensive yes, but it brought me well through the winter season.

There is little I hate more than riding on a bike and having cold ears. I used to be sensitive against rain but after riding last season almost completely in the rain (10 hours in Sadogashima, one hour home from lunch with David, david and a summer associate in Tama Jiman and and and) I lost that arrogant attitude. So I always wanted to have this robo cap from Assos and in fact it is very comfortable and warm. Again it looks different on my head, but I am not working as a model in Switzerland. This was a very good purchase and I threw away all other kind of winter bandannas, caps and tutus after getting this wonderful piece of gear. David Litt has the same one in red. Of course he had one in red so I wanted on in orange,my but then I had to compromise on the yellow one which might not fit so well in the color scheme of new Cervelo bike.

Oh yes, I also hate cold feet. So I bought this Assos shoe covers which were neither available in orange nor yellow. I have bought Pearl Izumi and Shimano in the past, but they do not have a long life duration when used by someone like me. These things are good, they keep the feet warm (OK not dry, but which shoe cover really does?) and they are easy to put on despite my initial judgement as the zipper cannot be opened fully on the back. The only drawback is, that the zipper is made out of metal and in the shape of the Assos logo. Therefore it is really hard to pull the zipper up and one of them has been lost already. David was so kind to send the shoe cover back to Assos in Switzerland for repair, but honestly speaking I would prefer a small strip of plastic attached to the zipper as in case of my old Assos airblock jacket rather than to have this fancy logo which hurt my sensitive manager fingertips. But nevertheless, these are the best shoecovers I ever owned.

But the most wonderful items I bought from Assos are these early winter gloves. They are available in yellow and red, among other minor colors. They are just wonderful warm and it is hard to imagine that you need anything else for winter in Japan (at least in the greater Kanto area). What I particular like about these gloves is, that they have no velcro fastener. They are very long so they can be worn over the sleeves of the jacket and it is so easy to put them on or off. Really of all the items I bought from David this year, I like these gloves the most. By now you might think that I am getting paid by David for talking so much good about Assos. I really like the gloves, shoecover and the robo cap and also the fugu jacket is nice. It is not the fault of the jacket that it just didn't get cold enough in Japan to wear it. But I bought some more items which are just standard or even sub-standard :

This lycra shoecover from Assos is what I wore when racing in Kawagoe in March this year. It has to take part of the blame that I finished in 25th position. No, I was just joking. But in real life the color is not as half as nice as the photo to the left shows it. I mean, in the photo it looks like your foot is filled by divine yellow light. No, this is not the case. And after using it only once, it has now two holes. Maybe I should have bought the red version.

The Thermic socks socks have also a problem : They are just not warm. Maybe it is my feet, but after the experience with the fugu jacket I expected something hotter than 1.000 suns protecting my feet against the cold - and I was disappointed by these socks. So I almost exclusively wear them at home with my blue slippers which provides a nice color matching.

Again I bought some other socks which are good but nothing special. Please take a look at the socks photo gallery below.

All in all I had a very active winter season thanks to the support of David Marx. He also provided an excellent service, exchanging the fugu L size jacket against XL size when I was too confident about my body measurements and taking care of my all too many whims.
Thank you David.