Riding the Rindos of Odawara from Cycling Gypsy Cafe

A closed rindo above Odawara!

RAMAX was a joy to ride on mountain/forest.gravel roads.

Last Saturday morning, I was in the Odawara vicinity and had my RAMAX adventure/gravel bike with me. Finally, a chance to try the RAMAX on some mountain/forest roads!

Looking down to the NE from the agriculture/forest border region above Odawara

Looking down to the South toward Sagami Bay

Since moving to a neighborhood not far from Shinagawa Station five years ago, the fastest way to get quickly to some lovely rides is to hop the shinkansen from Shinagawa to Odawara (26 minutes, ~3100 yen) or Mishima (35-40 minutes, ~4500 yen).  Going to Odawara, I am in the countryside and on a climb within 15 minutes of leaving Odawara Station, instead of the 2 hours it takes from my home to, say, Takao. So far, trips to Odawara have involved climbing west up the old road (kyu-do) through Hakone to Lake Ashinoko, and on from there, or perhaps starting by going northwest around the hills and then climbing up toward Ashigara Pass from the east.  

But in recent years I have noticed lots of cyclists posting Strava rides on the network of forest roads between Odawara and Ashigara. And I knew that Michael Rice, who I’ve ridden with long ago on Tokyo-Itoigawa, among other events back in the glory days of TCC, had opened the Cycling Gypsy Café in Odawara some years back, though I had never made it there. You can see details here in an article from one of the Japanese cycling magazines about the café and Chapter 2 Bikes, which they are selling. Or you can see another article here, or a blog post here or here, and info about rental bikes here, or Gypsy’s Instagram feed here. (Mike is one of the hosts of NHK World’s “Bike Around Japan” show … from which some readers may know him.)  He has been posting some of his rides in the hills nearby on Strava, including a regular “grand fondo” he hosts for other riders, as well as shorter “test rides” he takes with potential Chapter 2 bike customers.

Anyway, I decided to stop by the Cycling Gypsy Café to say hello, before doing a ride based loosely on one of Mike’s Strava tracks. I met Mike and Glen (“Gypsy”), chatted a bit, then headed out. There were people waiting to test ride one of the Chapter 2 bikes.  The café is located within walking distance of the shinkansen station, and at a jumping off point for rides in the hills, and had a nice breeze on a hot morning. I could understand why he picked this place.

Mikey Rice -- Fully recovered from Gravel Unbound 2022

Glen "Gypsy" showing her strength ... and the bike's lightness .. at the same time.

The roads above Odawara were lovely. After climbing 15 minutes or so, mostly on quiet back roads, I got to the long “virtually no traffic” section of the ride. I continued and eventually hit the network of forest roads (“rindo”). I kept coming to large signs by the road that warned against “unauthorized” vehicles. They had a long list of exceptions, including 地元関係医者—someone local or connected with someone local. I did ride one rindo that actually had closed gates at each end and, according to the signage, was 8.9km long. But the rest were open with only the signs to protect them. I guess the idea is that people not use these roads as a short cut to avoid traffic jams on the main road from Hakone Yumoto up to Gora.

Closed road ... unless you fit in one of the many exceptions. These signs were all over!

There was even a Salvador Dali "melting" version of the closed road sign.

It was nice in the forest riding in dappled sunlight at around 500m elevation … but it was beastly hot on any climbs where there was exposure to the sun. I had taken 1.7 liters of water, topped off at Gypsy Café, and was running low already when I could not have been more than 40% of the distance I wanted to travel up to Ashinoko via upper Ashigara. At one point I missed a left turn (Mike had said the route generally “keeps left” to continue climbing the top of the ridge).  For some time I continued on the level. Then, as my bicycle started to point down, I got off and checked location. It looked as if I could continue along the side of the hill, gradually descending, then eventually I would point straight down toward the flat lands. 

I did so, got to the bottom of the hill, turned right to head back toward central Odawara, … made a couple short detours that involved really nasty little hills, and was back at the Gypsy Café in time for a nice vegan curry (*with cheese) lunch.  By now it was the hottest part of midday, but the veranda at the café was still cool enough to relax and enjoy lunch outside. 

Spectacular paint job on this Chapter 2 bike

Chapter 2's gravel bike. No, it's not made of wood, just brown paint.

Cycling Cafe Gypsy is a great place to hang out, even on a hot day!

Delicious vegan curry.

My GPS somehow cut off mid-ride, but I could not have gone more than 40-45kms. It was a hot day and a very hilly course, so that was enough. I look forward to more, longer, cooler rides out of Odawara soon, once the peak summer heat has passed.

Welcome (Back) to America – Land of Freedom!

Voyage, Voyage, ready for the Cascade 1400!
3 water bottle holders, 3 bags, SV-9 SP Dynamo, SRAM eTap AXS 2x12 spd groupset.

Jerome and I each headed to the US on the evening of June 17, well in advance of the start of Cascade 1400 at 5AM on Friday June 23, Pacific time. We were on the same flight to San Francisco, but he stayed with relatives in the Bay Area while I continued on to Seattle, arriving late at night, from where I would head for Portland to spend time with my parents, each of whom is suffering from various health-related issues.

My flight got to Seattle at 930PM. I rented a car and headed south. But I did not think it would be safe to make the 3-hour drive to Portland in a jet-lagged condition late at night. I had booked a hotel near Olympia, south of Tacoma, to sleep then head on to Portland in the morning without hitting any Seattle/Tacoma area traffic.

I pulled off Interstate 5 at the designated exit and found my hotel in a cluster of Quality Inn, Holiday Inn, La Quinta Inn and others, with a Denny’s restaurant and McDonalds nearby. I had booked a Super-8 … one of 22 brands owned by Wyndham Hotels, just behind the Quality Inn. I don’t remember having stayed at one of these before, but all I needed was a clean bed and a shower. As I approached, I noticed three large police Ford SUVs parked at odd angles, as if they had raced to a stop and run off somewhere with guns drawn. But there was no sign of activity, so I went into the lobby. 

The 3 police SUVs looked like this. In fact, all the police vehicles I saw
in the USA looked like this. Ford has cornered the market.
Only one police officer per car!
(I guess they need to arrest someone before they can go in the HOV lane?)

The 3 policemen were behind the counter with 3 persons who I assume were the manager, night desk staff, and maybe an older relative of the manager -- in fact, I would not have been surprised if the three staff were all family. They ignored me and kept talking among the six of them for about 5 minutes. No one was wearing a mask, of course.  “Do you want to press charges?” one officer finally asked the night desk staff.  She said “I won’t press charges if they check out and leave like I told them. Otherwise, yes.” I cleared my throat loudly. Again. After more waiting, they still did not even acknowledge my presence.  I finally said “excuse me, I have a reservation and would like to check in”.  This caused some confusion, and a lot of discussion between the manager and night desk staff.  She asked him “should I put him in 129 or 131”.  … he said to her that someone was already in 129. So 131? She raised her eyebrows … as if that was a room no one in his right mind would want to stay in.  I asked what was wrong with it. … “The last people who stayed there, they had pets.” I said that I had pet allergies so could not stay there unless it had been thoroughly cleaned. The manager volunteered that no, the room had not been cleaned, as only one housekeeping staff had shown up for work that day for the entire hotel. The others were AWOL.  I guess it is difficult to get people to show up for crap jobs these days in the USA. One of the follow on effects of the pandemic. Or maybe the rest of the staff were all out sick with Covid-19? 

This was a big relief to me. As soon as I entered the lobby, I had been thinking “how can I get out of here without getting charged for a reservation that is non-cancellable/non-refundable at 11PM on the night of?”  I bowed out after confirming they would not bill me, leaving the 3 staff and 3 policemen to continue their business, and drove 50 meters over to the Denny’s to get some food and take time to find another hotel further down the road (in America, it is practically illegal to walk 50 meters if you have a motor vehicle). 

Denny’s was relatively quiet for a Friday night, given the hour. I did notice that I was probably the lightest weight person in the entire restaurant. And I am no light weight. I ordered a “grand slam” breakfast and on my smartphone found a Quality Inn that had a room available 30 minutes further toward Portland, in Centralia area. I called ahead to make sure that they really had a room, and that it was clean. It would make my morning drive that much shorter.

The next day, a few hours after getting to Portland, I went to a CVS drugstore and got my second booster shot … almost 5 months having passed since my first booster. I knew there was  a lot of Covid-19 around – loads of reports of people having gotten it over the past month or two, many not showing up in statistics.

On the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island

Our ferry's US Coast Guard escort, complete with bow-mounted machine gun.
I felt greatly reassured that no Puget Sound pirates would attempt to board our vessel!

Well, the booster was not in time, and apparently the vaccines and boosters don’t stop many infections anyhow with the latest Omicron variants, they only reduce the symptoms. I started to feel a bit “off” on Monday night, self-tested negative on Tuesday, but positive on Wednesday after meeting Jerome at Seatac Airport and traveling together to the start of the Cascade 1400, on Bainbridge Island. Now feeling as if I had a bad summer cold, and another positive self-test just before the registration on Thursday … and I could not join the event.

I must have gotten infected within 48 hours of landing in the USA. Land of freedom, and no masks. I wanted to thank plaintiff the Health Freedom Defense Fund, and Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, who struck down the mask mandate on planes, trains, and in airports or stations, in the USA. Thank you for the freedom, and for the Covid!

My isolation quarters.

Instead of registering for the ride, I extended my hotel reservation until the following Tuesday morning at the Marshall Suites on Bainbridge. I followed the “live track” on Spotwalla of the Cascade1400 riders, and sent Jerome what encouraging words I could muster. 

It was not so bad. My hotel room was at least 3-4 times the size of a room in a Japanese business hotel, it had a comfortable bed, and large windows looking out at beautiful green trees, for a not-outrageous price. It also had a refrigerator and microwave. Jerome left me some groceries, and the pizza place across the street actually agreed to drop off a pizza outside my room … and did not add a delivery charge. On Saturday morning a friend who lives on Bainbridge (who told me he and his wife had gotten Covid-19 a month earlier traveling in Europe, … and she had just tested positive again), also dropped off some groceries. Meanwhile, I kept hearing reports of others who were getting sick in the US. The statistics were 100,000 new cases daily nationwide. The actual number must be 20, 30, or 40 times that much. 

And this DNS was not so bad. After all, Peter Sagan and 50 other riders left the Tour de Suisse earlier in June because of Covid-19. So now, I have even more in common with Peter Sagan than I did before.

My symptoms were mild – basically felt like I had a cold, though some fatigue lingered. I slept a lot, and on Saturday, the 5th day since I had felt symptoms, I self-tested negative. 

From the bridge that leaves Bainbridge to the NNW

Chief Seattle's grave in Suquamish

Looking toward the North Cascades and Seattle from Suquamish

After another good night of sleep, and another negative test to be sure, I decided to go for a short Sunday bike ride over to Poulsbo for lunch. I thought, if this goes well, I can do a 200km or 300km “permanent” the following day. On the way, I passed Suquamish, and Chief Seattle’s grave. I was tired enough after just getting to the next island north of Bainbridge that I had pretty much given up hope of doing a real long ride on Monday. Too much fatigue still, not enough time past since getting sick.

Gary's truck -- that ended my bicycle ride.

As I headed from Suquamish toward Poulsbo, having ridden maybe 15 kilometers in total, I was hit from behind by a pickup truck. I was not hurt, just a few scratches on my shoulder and elbow. But my rear wheel was crunched, and my derailleur sheared off, leaving the bolt in the derailleur hanger/dropout. The pulleys also were destroyed and the outside edge badly scratched up.  The rest of the bike looked okay … just some scratches on the saddle. Of course … it is always possible that after a few weeks riding other cracks will appear. Been there before.

Rear wheel and rear derailleur are done. Seat is scuffed. Otherwise, seems okay.

Ouch.

The pickup truck driver was elderly, and he was uninsured. He and two adult sons lived just up the road. He must have pulled out to pass me but pulled back in because of a car coming the other way. And he must have braked some … since he was not going fast when he hit me. The sheriff wrote him up so he will get an uninsured driver ticket. I’ll try to collect what I can from my insurance to cover the cost of repair, and will count myself very lucky that I was not hurt.

Anyway, I got a lift (with bicycle) back to the hotel from one of the pickup driver’s sons, and went back to watching Spotwalla. I had done not the Cascade 1400, but the Cascade 14.

There were four riders from Japan registered for Cascade 1400, one DNS (me), one DNF (T.K.), and two finishers, Jerome and Peko-chan. 

Peko-chan (@ab_peko), who tweeted during the ride to her 11,000 Twitter followers, was riding strong and in the front third of the pack all but the last day (she slept late at Mazama, the final overnight control, and got a slow start – I guess she is used to 1200ks, but this was her first 1400 with the fifth day of riding added). 

On day two, Jerome rode with T.K. Early on Jerome flatted and T.K. waited. Soon after T.K. was struggling. Perhaps jetlag, perhaps something else. Anyway, Jerome stayed with him until the last few hours to Packwood, that night’s control, when Jerome went ahead so he could get some decent sleep. 

The following day, Sunday, Jerome started early. T.K. started late, DNFed, and got a ride from Ellensburg back to Seattle. (On Monday, T.K. took his PCR test for return to Japan … and got Tuesday a positive result. He ended up spending an extra week in the US before he could get cleared to return to Japan).

Jerome was solidly in the middle of the pack on days 3, 4, and 5. As usual, he just gets stronger as the ride goes on.

On Tuesday, I left Bainbridge, rented a car and went up to the finish, in north Arlington, where I already had a hotel booked. I could greet Jerome, Peko-chan, and many of the other riders as they finished, chat with some old friends from other rides, including the organizer, Susan O. 

Congratulations on completing the ride! 
(When has Jerome ever NOT completed a long ride?)

Jerome trimphant at the finish!

The signs go back into storage, until the next SIR brevet.

Onc Canadian rider did Cascade on a Pelso Brevet! 

A typical randonneur setup. Brooks saddle, full fenders, and 3 water bottles.

Susan O. checks in riders at the goal. Mark T., in black T shirt on the right, observes.

Wednesday I helped some with logistics, getting T.K.’s drop bags back to Seattle, and getting Jerome and his gear to our friend Vinnie’s house above the Puget Sound in Federal Way, south of Seatac airport, before going on to San Francisco to visit family (including my younger son and his partner, who had just tested positive on Friday for Covid-19), and eventually return to Japan.

Eric Larsen, a San Francisco Bay area randonneur who had done Cascade 1200 in 2012 when I joined, and did the 1400km version this year, posted some lovely photos of the ride to his Flickr account.  The photos show some lovely sections of the route, and the great diversity of physical environments along this ride. They also show the wide range of bicycles and set-ups used. I would estimate that somewhat over 50% of the riders used dynamo hub lighting, split between SON and SP Dynamo. With the overnight controls, drop bags, and opportunities to recharge battery packs most nights while resting, an LED battery light with high power/weight density lithium ion batteries, is now a practical option, but the dynamo hub remains my strong preference -- just set and forget it. Light 24x7. Jerome used an SP Dynamo SV-8 and a Busch and Mueller light.

In San Francisco for the end of my trip.

Walking at the Presidio. I walked over 20kms on Friday ...
more than my total cycling mileage for this trip.

Golden Gate Bridge

The DNS was a big let down, but there was nothing I could do about it. Training for Cascade 1400 gave me a lot of motivation, and a reason to do some very memorable and tough rides this year, and to plan more for the future. I think with my training I got into decent cycling condition and had a good chance to complete the ride.  And I live to fight again another day.

When I got back to Tokyo, the latest issue of American Randonneur, magazine of the Randonneurs USA group, was in my mailbox. There was an article about plans to do many more audax events on gravel/dirt roads, with additional time allowance. Why? Well, the growing popularity of gravel riding in the USA. But more important, the desire to avoid highways with traffic. There are just too many unsafe drivers in the USA. I could not agree more.

One Last Ride on the RAMAX before Departure for Cascade 1400

We decided to head out on take the route of a recent 600km brevet that went out of town to the NW, then along the edge of the mountains in Saitama, and eventually through Takasaki, Maebashi, Shibukawa, and eventually into Niigata and down to Echigo Yuzawa.  If the weather held, we might get to a connecting route to Nagano -- Iiyama, then Nagano-shi, or even further, before heading back the following day, as both of us had commitments on Sunday afternoon.

Saitama rest stop

The Akagi Ice Factory -- where Gari-Gari-kun ice treats are made. 

Finally, Takasaki!

We made decent if not spectacular time (averaging 23.5kph moving speed for the day), grabbed an early lunch at Takasaki, then headed along as the road slowly, slowly turns up and eventually begins a grindingly long climb. 

Between Shibukawa and Numata

On the lower stretches of the Route 17 climb - water everywhere!

After a few raindrops leaving Tokyo, the weather stayed essentially dry until we got to the real climb toward Mikuni Pass (between Gunma and Niigata, not one of the other "Mikuni" Passes in Japan). At Akaya Lake, we could see that the weather was closing in and thunderstorms were approaching.

Looking back down the hill from Lake Akaya, our U-turn location

Coming soon - thunderstorm!

We headed back down the hill .. and up another nasty short hill ... to Jomo Kogen Station where we could hop a shinkansen home.  Jerome made it before the rain started.  I had trailed him on the last climb, and at the top paused to get out my phone and check that I would take the most direct route to the station. ... The heavens opened up when I was about 750m from the station, and the cooling rain felt wonderful.

We did not quite make it to Echigo Yuzawa ... we were easily within an hour of the tunnel that leads to Niigata and a fast descent past Naeba and to Yuzawa. But would have been a wild, wet, and dark descent in the thunderstorm if we had tried. And we certainly did not get to Iiyama. But it was a decent 200km day ride, my first trip up Route 17 from Shibukawa toward Mikuni in quite a few years.

Finally a dynamo light on the RAMAX -- the last ingredient for long rides.
The fork is not drilled for a rim brake so I attached the light at the back of the fork and used the attachment hardware creatively. Seems to work.

There is little clearance between the light hardware and the tire. Would not work with any larger tire. Eventually I will need to find a better solution.

New Wheels Day - Joining the All-Road Bike Revolution

The RAMAX has proven a fast and comfortable bike for long day rides. So far, the longest trip has been the 300km Beef Line/Green Furusato Line brevet in Ibaraki.  I have not yet ridden it on 400km or longer rides because of the lack of a front wheel with dynamo hub that fits with the 12mm thru axle and disk brake specification.  For a 400km or longer ride, I don't want to worry about battery life for my front light. Problem now solved!

On Friday, a beautiful new set of handmade GS Astuto EV36+ wheels arrived. 

The carbon rims are WIDE, 32mm outer width, and 36mm deep. For comparison, my typical Velocity A23 or H Plus Sons Archetype rim, which once were considered "wide" rims, similar to the early HED Belgium rims, have a 23mm outer width. The GS Astuto EV36+ are more like the Miche Graff Route wheels ridden by the winner of last week's Gravel Unbound, Ivar Slik. as he went 200 miles (322 kms) on a variety of surfaces at an average speed of 34.4 kph. They are a similar hookless carbon rim, 36mm deep, 30-32mm outside width. Even the current Zipp 303 Firecrest tubeless rim, which has a definite "road" racing heritage, now has a 30mm outer width.

Since the EV36+ rims are carbon, hookless and disk-brake specific, they can be both very light and strong. Indeed, the box they arrived in felt ... as if it were empty!

Hookless rims are lighter weight and easier to manufacture than hooked ones. They should only be used with a compatible tubeless setup and at lower pressures than a typical road bike. Given the width, of course, they must always be used with larger width tires that are designed for lower pressure. (The tires should be 30mm wide or greater to fit the EV36+ rims.) Hookless rims will help drive the high end of the cycling market toward the conclusions Jan Heine of Bicycle Quarterly/Rene Herse has been preaching the past decade in numerous Bicycle Quarterly articles and his book, The All-Road Bike Revolution: wide supple tires run at lower pressures are as fast or faster, and a lot more comfortable, than narrower tires run at higher pressures.

The RAMAX finally as it was intended--An all-road adventure bicycle.

Both front and rear wheels have 24 Sapim CX-Ray spokes. CX Rays are the best spokes by far, in my experience.  They combine strength, light weight, and aerodynamics. Unbeatable. Not cheap, but worth every penny. I used to break spokes regularly. When I switched to building (and in this case, having built for me wheels with CX Rays ... the problem pretty much went away. For an aluminum clincher rim, I would hesitate to use a 24-spoke rear wheel, even with CX-Rays, but for these wide, deep and stiff rims, with fatter tires running a lower pressure, a 24-spoke setup should be fine even for challenging, off-road conditions.

The rear hub is an OEM/private label model made for GS Astuto, and the front is an SP Dynamo PL-7. The hubs are for Centerlock disk brake rotors -- Tim Smith tells me that the Centerlock design, a Shimano standard, is better, and I now agree. It is a lot easier to put the Centerlock rotors on (and take them off) and to get them in exactly the right position than with the 6-bolt style I am accustomed to using. And indeed, the weight of the dynamo hub for Centerlock is 10g lower than the corresponding 6-bolt style from SP Dynamo.

The PL-7 is SP Dynamo's newest model, released just before the pandemic. It is about the same weight as the SV-8 models I have used in the past, but offers more power output at the same speed. It is noticeably lighter than SP Dynamo's previous disk-brake specific versions, but it looks and feels just as solid. The hub is designed for the now-common 12mm thru axle specification, which offers the possibility of a stronger axle than a 9mm QR. (Some hubs can be converted between QR and 12mm thru axle by changing the end caps, but most older hubs cannot).

For tires, one of Tim's suggestions was the IRC Boken Plus 700x32mm version. It is a gravel bike tire with a slick middle strip so that it can go fast on tarmac as well as handling rough or muddy surfaces. IRC is a Japanese brand that is not as widely known as some European tires (Conti, Vittoria, Michelin, et al), but IRC was one of the early adopters of road tubeless technology. IRC stands for Inoue Rubber Corporation -- headquartered in Nagoya and with production facilities in Sendai as well as in SE Asia). The Boken Plus has gotten some good reviews so I was happy to try them.  They feel as if the side walls are relatively supple -- crucial to making a tire fast. And IRC has a lot of experience with tubeless -- these hold air extremely well and, Tim reports, set up very easily.

Matched with the wide EV36+ rim, the tires actually measure at 35.5mm width -- and seem to have a large air volume similar to the 700x36 Challenge Gravel Grinder tires that were on the loaner wheels when I first got the RAMAX.  So while, for gravel tires, they are near the "narrow" end of the spectrum, for me they are huge. I inflated them to 55psi or 3.8 bars of pressure. I will try 45-50psi or even lower for rough surfaced roads. But years of riding at higher pressure has gotten me stuck in my ways, and it will take awhile to change the prejudice that a tire needs to be "hard" to the feel to be fast. 

I took my first long ride with the new wheels on Saturday -- 200 kms entirely on tarmac. The ride feel was comfortable and smooth as silk. My overall moving speed for the day, 23.5 kph, was about what I would have expected for a 200km ride with ~1500m of elevation gain, a long gradual uphill grind and much less downhill, in humid weather.  If I struggled at times, it had more to do with the humidity and that farewell party for a friend that I attended the night before than it did the wheels. Indeed, the wheelset is so light that even with the heavier gravel tires they do not feel heavy or sluggish -- a feeling that has turned me off of gravel tires in the past. Even with the gravel wheels, the bike still climbs well, and it descends like a dream on tarmac. What once might have been a kind of "white knuckle" descent at high speed at the end of the ride, was very relaxed though my top speed seemed no different.

I look forward to many years of riding with this wheelset.  Tim is already suggesting that I might want to try them with a pair of super supple, lighter Rene Herse tires at some point ...but for the time being the Boken Plus will do just fine.