Archiv der Kategorie: Autoren

Flipping through the back pages of the Positivo Espresso blog, I believe that we have now a quite impressive collection of roads and climbs in the greater Tokyo area and I wonder if it would be possible to publish them as a book. Clearly, Tokyo is not exactly first choice when it comes to the target selection for the next cycle holidays but still I feel that there are many people out who want to escape from the city on the bike and make day trips without too much hassle.

I thought about a structure with some general introduction to Japan, some information about Tokyo, cycling in Japan and general tips and hints, followed by a selection of routes we have taken in the past with maps or mapmyride links. The idea is to have them as connected modules, so you can add modules together and devise your own ride.

This is what I was doing when I rode out yesterday :

Module : Hashimoto Station – Tsukui Ko North road – Doshi Michi Entry at Mikabi

Module : Doshi Michi entry Mikabi – Doshi Route 76 Crossing at Aone

Module : Route 76 Aone – Route 35/76 Crossing

Module : Route 35 / 76 Crossing to Road 139

Module : Route 130 – Dosaka Pass – Doshi Michi

…. and so on.

Any idea how to tackle such a project and who would be interested in publishing this? Of course for me alone that would be too much of a task, any interest to join?

But nevertheless an interesting viewpoint on Japan.

The Positivo Espresso Team KILLER KRAEHEN KABUSHIKI KAISHA KKKK (killer crows) attending the table soccer tournament of the German Embassy Cup.
2 wins, 2 losses, out during the first group stage but still a lot of fun.

When I was living in Malaysia in 96/97, one of the thing I missed the most were good newspapers.

The Internet was just at the start and there was not very much to read. The only (serious) English malayian newspaper was the NEW STRAITS TIMES and it was divided into three sections: On the front page usually prime minister Mahatmir gave his comment on anything in life („Youth should not dress so colorful.“) if you want to hear it or not; that was complemented by some stories of modest interest („Fake Honey Factory raided“).

As basically every day a few factory was commissioned, a new bridge completed or a new product launched, in the middle were stories about receptions, dinners and other social events, I will explain that later. The last part was full of advertisement where the investing companies and their subcontractors congratulated the prime minster, some sultan or other dignities on the opening of their own factories, the roads or the new products.

Now, the „social event part“ consisted of photos of more or less prominent people sipping fruit juice. Some explanation were required below the photos, so there were always the same ones, like „Sharing a joke at the HP printer cartridge refilling station reception, from left to right: Mohammed Kazar, Datuk Sans Serif., ….“ in case even only the hint of a smile was visible at least at one of the faces or „Talking business at the HP printer cartridge landfill opening, from left to right: ….) when there were no smiles.

After having made some photos at the latest Positivo Espresso Team Party, I thought it might by nice to continue the new straits times style at this blog.

Sharing a joke at the new Positivo Espresso Team Wear inauguration wearing party.

Positivo Espresso Transalp farewell Gathering : Laughing for approximately 33 minutes.

Talking business at the POSITIVO ESPRESSO after reception.

Getting the news from foreign investors at the POSITIVO ESPRESSO Team wear fashion show.

Sharing a joke for about 33 minutes at the 1914-1918 Wada Memorial Meeting

Sharing a joke for about 33 minutes at the 1914-1918 Wada Memorial Meeting (ups)

Sharing a drink while discussing handle bar tape colors at the POSITIVO ESPRESSO HANDLE BAR.

Sharing a joke and a drink on the way to recovery.

Happy in their new outfits are POSITIVO ESPRESSO most happy couple.

I have to say that I wrote some perhaps nasty things about a rider in our midth who openly acknowledged that it too him 33 minutes to climb up to Wada Toge. To be more precise, I wondered if the gyrostatic forces of the wheels at this rotation speed would be sufficient to keep bike and rider in an upright vertical position. Another gifted rider in our group noted dryly that his best Togebaka time is roughly half of that.

Now, I have to admit that I got it completely wrong.

When I think about Wada, I am think about the steep approach from Hachioji. And I am thinking only about this approach because I have never ever tackled Wada from the other side. Why? Well first, all roads that lead you to the other side of Wada required at least a modest amount of climing (Otarumi, Kobu, Matsuhime, Sasago) so it is no fun to climb Wada from there. And second it is even less fun to ride downhill to Hachioji from Wada. Better take the rear wheel between your buttocks and start to squeeze to increase braking power. I mean, it’s a free fall, basically.

And indeed coming from Hachioji, the best times are well below 33 minutes. The Positivo Espresso record, hold by Ludwig is at 17:24 minutes as one can see on the right of the blog.

TCC has a similar hall of fame, and here the best time is hold by clay, an unbelieveable 14:15 minutes. Clay must be made out of carbon fiber with kevlar knees and aramid tendons.
There is one more Japanese web site, Hill Climb Time Trial, where the all time best is an even more unbelievable 13:39 minutes. I mean come on, that’s the time I need at least to make up my mind to tackle the bloody thing and get the shoes against all better knowledge clicked in the pedals.

So, Wada always meant Hachioji -> Wada for me. And that was wrong. Because yesterday I found out just by chance that small m (the rider in question) tackled Wada from the other side (West side) in 33 minutes. Now this is a completely different story. OK, according to the same TCC site, Clay can do it in 20:23 minutes, but that’s almost 2/3 of the time and not less than half. And a very respectable rider like Naomi with whom I have ridden in the past, still needed 27:55 minutes.And let’s not forget that we don’t know where small m started to record his time, as there is no official Positivo Espresso convention. The TCC definition is this one.

So, summarizing, 33 minutes is a quite OK time and I have to apologize that I got it wrong. I don’t think that the emperor was faster.

Did it took you 33 minutes to read this apology? No? So please read it again until precisely 33 minutes have passed or Michael Jackson will not go to heaven.

Perhaps we need an official Togebaka entry for the West Wada approach. Or perhaps not, perhaps we have more than enough rules and traditions already. That was the thing that went to my mind yesterday when I was riding out with Dominic and James and Dominic asked us to stop. In front of a Circle K convenience store. I was holding my breath, all muscles except the obvious ones were in full tension … should I say it … or should I wait for James to state the obvious „This is not a 7-eleven“.

But luckily later on the trip all of us ran out of water which gave us some food for thought why we should stop even at our combinis.

I was some kind of associated member with Juliane of a Japanese cycling club in 2003/2004, all of them nice guys, and I even meet them today from time to time and we chat at the Tamagawa. They have a hang out close to the Noborito bridge and they really taught me a lot about cycling. The reason why I don’t cycle with them any longer are many, but one important one is that they had such a unified and strong opinion on some things in cycling, that it was hard to have another, own one. One day, when we were riding up to Sengenzaka and Juliane had a flat tire (tubular) and throw it away on the spot, they were all moaning and telling her that this was the most impossible thing to do.
The tire should be properly kept and brought home where a piece of it should be buried in the garden behind the house and at least an „Otsukaresame, Tire-sama“ should be mumbled in reverence to the good service provided.

Well, that was the end then and we should be also be very carefully not to fall into the same trap. It is nice to talk about „traditions“ and rules, but we should not stick to them if they are not coming in handy. James made a good remark, when we stopped at the Family Mart in Matsuzaki: „Oh yes, that is the local traditional one.“ so let’s see it in this light.
Positivo Espresso always had a slight anarchist flair to it, not to adhere to rules (traffic ones or others), not to put too much restrictions on it’s members. We were not even able to draft in a group of four and change position for more than 50 meters. I think this is defining the spirit of Positivo Espresso best and that makes it easy for other riders to join us. Sometimes it is hard to organize a trip or a race, not to mention to design a jersey which everybody would like to wear, but that is the price we have to pay for a club of which Bakunin or Kropotkin would have been proud to join.

Two parties on Saturday and Sunday night and no riding on Sunday forced me to leave the house today despite cloudy, threatening skies.

I took the train to Hachioji and rode up to the Takao station.

Where I didn’t took a break at the 7-eleven. By the way I am so glad that David clarified which restaurant one has to visit at Okutamako finally. Many times I rode by with empty stomach and no power left but as I didn’t know which restaurant the Positivo Espresso approved one is, I mumbled „shikata ga nai“ to myself and kept on pushing to the Western most convenience store at the entrance to Okutama village.

I guess what we need is some kind of stickers, which we could take with us on rides, paste here and there and which clearly state:

On Friday I tried a mid-distance ride with a lot of climbing, leading me to various places previously unconnected by one continuous ride.

As per new riding doctrine, I rode up to Nakayama station on the Yokohama line and took a train out to Hashimoto. This helps me to avoid the boredom of the Tamagawa, the Kan One and other roads ridden so often, so far. It is only 7 – 8 km through Hashimoto and then one is at the Tsukui Ko North route which is a good start for a longer ride.

I decided to give Doshi Mishi a try, it has been a while since I have ridden there with Ludwig and it has this continuous but not too steep climbs which I was looking for in order to improve my performance. And also I wanted to start a new Toagebaka which leads from Mikage crossing on route 413 to the entry of the tunnel on Dochi Michi at it’s highest point just before Yamanaka lake.

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/jp/kanagawa%20ken/824124546708879622

I was not very fast. In fact I overtook a hobby rider on his Cannondale bike and was overtaken by him again after 5 kilometers or so. My legs are OK and I have stamina to function on longer rides, but the speed is much too slow. In short, a performance disaster and the wore humiliation since michael and me got (almost) dropped by a one legged rider on Kan One.

So it took me almost 2:40 hours for less than 40 km of distance and 900 meter elevation which is now recorded as Togebaka No. 13. Please try to break this record, it shouldn’t be that difficult.

Luckily there is a 7-eleven at Yamanaka lake so I could take a break there, the first one since starting in Hashimoto more than three hours before. I continued to ride along the lake and then rode down in direction Gotemba on road 138. Please take a note:

ROAD 138 – TO BE AVOIDED.

Boring, a lot of traffic leading to the Tomei highway. Moreover, because of the nearby SDF training camp a lot of military vehicles on the road.

My plan was to ride up to Lake Ashino / Moto–Hakone from there and as I still felt OK I gave it a try. Luckily there is road #401 forking off from 138 so I gave it a try. This was a good decision as the road was almost empty and the climb very gentle, hardly more than 5% slope in any location. And so I made it to the top at Nagao something tunnel where I discovered a monument to traffic safety in sorry state.

For some reasons, and we must leave this to future generations of archaeologists and anthroposophs, many traffic safety related monuments have this shape which you can see in the photo below. It seems that there were mass fabricated by an unknown company in the seventies or eighties and distributed in strategic locations where passing car drivers would marvel at their beauty and zen-like composure. The company that made them has probably met the fate of so many previously famous companies (Wedgewood, Karman, Maerklin, Commodore …) so we cannot ask them for a logical explanation any longer, but for me the symbolism is very clear:
When you are driving your car, autobike or bicycle, you should always be aware that if you act against traffic rules, there is a slight chance that the ground will open next to you and that these pinchers will appear, screaming and shaking in anger and they will grap the sinning you and drag you down to a place deep below the surface of earth where you will be tortured to no end by retired police officers in traffic psychologic training classes. For a first hand experience I recommend the lectures at the Samezu driving licence office.

Anyway, I rode along further, back to road 138 and then to road 75 which should have brought me quickly to the shores of lake Ashino. So a last climb and then I would coast along the lake. Hm, I was already way higher than the lake but I thought, OK, this is the ridge I need to take before coming down to the lake and finally I did. The road there by the way looks like a sign monument to corporate Japan: Nissan, NEC, IBM Japan, Kawsaki Shinko Ginko … a lot of famous companies seems to have their resort or seminar houses up there. Judging from the state of some of the resorts, it seems to me highly probable that the company itself will be in a similar shape pretty soon. Maybe this would make a good indicator, similar to the idea of the McDonald index for countries.

Anyway, so I finally descended to the lake and was looking forward to a short ride to Moto Hakone. But what was that? The road made a 180 degree turn and led me up to the ridge again! From there it was a constant up and down and down and up until I have finally reached known ground at route one.

ROAD 75 IS A BLOODY ELEVATION-METER VAMPIRE !

I ten took a final break in Moto Hakone, please take a close look at the attached Mapmyride link to check WHERE exactly I have made the break.

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/jp/kanagawa-ken/854124546795029058

So finally I decided to take route 20 down to Atami. Of course it was wonderful, route 20 is so beautiful, so nice and gentle, it seems one can ride there forever at 40 – 50 km/hr an hour and never brake. The bike moves perfectly through all the curves, rarely disturbed by traffic and it feels like moving your hand slowly down the spine of your girlfriend a long time ago.
Sorry, couldn’t come up with any more actual example.
But all this comes to an end at Atami Toge where the final kilometers to Atami have to be conquered in almost free fall fashion. I am still lacking power and grip in my left hand so it was a real torture.

The beauty for me is that the Shinkansen takes me home from Atami to Shin-Yokohama in 30 minutes and then I assemble the bike an ride home which is perhaps another 30 minutes.
So I just made it in time for the dinner.

Looking forward to the Sunday ride now.

Dear Readers, the following piece of correspondence from a desperate fellow rider has reach my desk in the afternoon (obviously it has been written during work):

Sate, I was plodding up Wada last Sunday (on my own) and realized again, as I slowly turned the wheels up the hill, that my big dura ace 52 crank is not designed for me! I bought my bike 8 years ago and so it only has a cassette of 9 gears on the back so I am very behind the times.
So, I am wondering what to do without buying a whole new bike (which is delayed until my wife thinks there is no chance of me being laid off at work).

• Option 1. Buy a new dura ace compact crank only. If I do this, will all the other dura ace bits on the bike work with this new crank without me buying anything else?

• Option 2. Do option 1 and also buy a nice new 10 gear cassette. If so, will I need to change gear levers and all?? (If so, this is probably not cost effective for one more gear.)

Any thoughts much appreciated. Good to hear that you are back cycling again.

First I would like to write that I am glad that your problem are not punctured rear tires because I should be considered the last person on earth to give advise on this problem. Now, I think you have given the answer to your problem already. As any decent 40 year plus amateur rider from Positivo Espresso will tell you, you need a new bike, preferably with Shimano Dura Ace Di2 and an investment cost close to the defense budget of Mozambique. It should have however one small flaw on which you can blame any lack in performance, for example that the handle bar tape is not matching with the saddle leather. But this is probably not the answer you would like to hear.

Also, the other reasonable advice, that you should leave everything on your bike just as it is and get up your butt, finally do more training and loose some weight so you can fly up Wada like a mini car driven by two gays would only be honored by your lovely wife and not by your good self.

OK, let’s try something unreasonable :

It would be my educated guess that you can combine Dura Ace 9 speed components only with other Shimano 9 speed components, such as Ultegra and 105.

You can probably not combine them with any components from the newer Dura Ace with 10 speed (7800 series) (different chain width) and also not with the new 2009 Dura Ace (7900 series) (one way chain). The same is true for the newer 10 speed Ultegra and 105.

So if you are looking for an economic solution which would give you more choices on steep climbs my advise would be to upgrade with older 9 speed dura ace components, which are still plentiful available as they were replaced only in 2004.

CRANK

Obviously you would like to exchange your standard crank with a compact one. Perhaps there are also other options in the market, not only from Shimano. Check also the crank length; all lengths in 2.5 mm steps from 165 mm to 180 mm are available. I am using a 175 mm crank, so perhaps a 172.5 or 170 mm should work well for you.

Of course you can also consider a very uncool triple in the front, not sure if there is one with dura ace specs although.

REAR CASSETTE

I do not know what you are using now, my guess would be 11/23 or 12/25? If you just change the standard crank into a compact one I don’t think you will need a new rear cassette if the biggest sprocket is 25 or bigger. Anyway, the biggest one available from Shimano for road bikes is 27. But I believe that in order not to loose too much on your maximum speed in the flats or downhills, the smallest sprocket should be 12; 11would be better.

12/21, 12/23, 12/25 and 12/27 9 speed cassettes are available here.
The alternative would be 11/21 or 11/23, but that’s nonsense for climbs.

Don’t laugh, my first pro bike had a default 10/21 9 speed – I was suffering in the mountains and I had no idea why.

If you have a standard crank and a 11/21 rear cassette mounted on your bike, I would guess that just changing the rear cassette to 12/27 would be good enough.

I am not convinced that a 10 speed offers so much more advantage over a 9 speed system. In most cases it seems to me that the smallest and biggest sprocket mounted are the same, so you have more variety in between with a 10 speed system. But you also need to do more shifting when you want to move from a climb in a low gear to a downhill stretch in a fast gear.

If you desperately want to move to 10 speed, my suggestion would be to change to Shimano 105. In this case you would need no control levers, new front derailleur, new crank, new chain and a new rear cassette. With 105 compared to dura ace this is somewhat affordable and I don’t believe that this will have any substantial impact on the performance of your bike. Except for the weight, perhaps 300 gram more. So take less coins with you in your wallet if you decide for this solution.

If you have tons of time, you can also take a look on what the authority is saying:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/dura-ace.html