Archiv der Kategorie: Cervelo Soloist

Mein zweites richtig gutes Rennrad. Sooo steif.

von bikesnob28hb | 6. Januar 2010 · 03:43

2 1/2 hours Freezing in Motegi

After the Ekiden ride on January 2nd, I enjoyed another another 100 km bicycle race at Motegi with some of the TCC guys two days later.

In preparation for this race I did two things: First, I rode up to Hakone on the Ekiden ride which made my legs feel like pudding and would gave me ample excuses for any bad performances on the track. Second, I spend the afternoon before the race at the house of my in-laws in Saitama which is extremely cold (it feels comparatively warm outside of the house) and which should prepare me for the winter hardships of the Japanese countryside.

As I have stayed there also in winter some years ago, I can assure that standing naked in the bathroom and waiting for hot water to come out of the tap can be the coldest experience you might ever have in your life time. The only thing that saved me then was the distraction provided by the set of false teeth of my mother in law in a glass of water (the teeth, not the mother) strategically placed on a cupboard at eye height.

I went straight to Omiya, then by Shinkansen to Oyama and the by Mito line to Shimodate within no time. From there I had to take the Mokaline to Motegi. Oh, you haven’t heard of the Moka Line　（真岡鉄道) ? Well it a one-car train, powered by a diesel engine as the tracks are not electrified yet (and they will probably never will) which leave about once an hour from Shimodate station.So I had to wait almost an hour at the station there (amusement provided by a big pachinko parlour in front of it), nothing much else. Oh right, I went shopping for 45 minutes at a 7-Eleven.

Before I could take the train which took another hour to Motegi. The last 15 minutes I was alone in the train, even all country pumpkins have left some stations before.

Phil and Clay picked me up at the station, train stop would be more appropriate and after a quick stop at another 7-Eleven we drove to Hotel Pomodoro where also the other TCC guys had already checked in.

I shared a room with Keith and while watching „Die Hard 4.0“ we all planned our race strategy., I didn’t listened too carefully as I was constantly amazed by all the wonderful things Bruce Willis can do and how is able to survive in a movie. Although I could help to notice that the shape of his head resembles very much the head of the water turtle we have some bought some months ago.

But I heard constantly the words „try to survive“ and „wheelsucking“ repeated all over again.

When I woke up the next morning at 6.00 AM it was cold. Outside it was even colder, definitely less than zero degrees. We rode up to Motegi and assembled our gear. And in no time we were lined up at the start line. Phil, Keith, Jessie and Yeap were all there and we took some photos of us shivering. Clay was already leading the race by this time.
Then the race started and I never felt cold again for the reminder of the day. We were not in the front line, but at last within the first 200 riders I guess. And the first two laps were behind a pacmaker and that was crazy as everybody was trying to get to the front and there were a lot of dangerous situations. For the first time I didn’t noticed exactly when the pace making car pulled away as the field was still packed and it took time to accelerate and get faster.

Opposed to the seven hour enduro race, one lap is only about 5 km long as the speed oval is not integrated (so no 180 degree hairpins luckily) and in addition the direction is the other way round. So one doesn’t have to ride up this steep hill (although the track is basically flat). In the opposite direction the climb is much longer and more gradual. It consists of a (relatively) steep first part, a flatter part in a S curve and a very gradual part until a wide 180 degree hairpin curve.
Now with the speed picking up I stayed within the first group of about 100+ riders for the next 4 laps. I also saw Phil again, first I overtook him, that he overtook me again on a downhill portion of the track. Then we were running up that hill and of course the thing happens that happens every time on hills, which is that a group of about 100 riders went ahead, a gap was created and I found myself in the second fastest group. And of course I felt miserable and I thought to myself, why I am doing this, getting up early in the morning, visiting my in-laws, freezing in the cold, exhausting myself for the rest of the week and and and. So in short, the typical thoughts that run to my head before more endomorhine kicks in, erase the pain, make logical thinking impossible.

So I was in a group with about 20 other riders and after some more laps I recognized the jerseys and we stayed together for the next 5-6 laps when we were overtaken on our lap 11 or 12 by the fast group. That group was still very big.
The speed of my group was not that fast, I could easily keep up and here I made the mistake not to jump on the fast group again. So perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to keep their speed but I should have tried at least.

So I continued with my 20 rider group, sometimes taking turns in the front. Amazingly I was faster up the hill then the other guys. I had more momentum on the bottom part, then I was slow at the S surve but had more power on the gradual climb up to the hair needle. So I always lost some places downhill but I made them up on the hill – quite extraordinary given the fact that I have to carry more than 100 kgs up the hill (heavy bike, lead frame with steel wheels) while the average Japanese competitor weights about half of that with his bike.

Then we were overtaken by another fast group which I thought in the beginning was the second fastest group (so we were only the third fastest) but this group couldn’t get away from us. So then I realized that they were actually the third fastest group and we were only too slow so that they have caught up with us.

And in this group we stayed until the end. I was feeling much better know and the last six laps I was taking it rather easy on the flat and downhills parts, going no risk while making places good on the hills. Also I saw Keith and Jessie again.

At the final hill I made up some places again, the went fast on the straight and down and sprinted up to the finishing straight. But I have somehow missed the info that the last part was divided into two lanes, the left one for the riders which were still continuing while the right one was for the finishers. So I ended up on the left lane and had to cross over to the right one. Later, when reading the results I realized that I have lost some time there and I came in about 30th in a group of 50 riders. At least I was able to catch the 2nd placed MTB rider shortly before the finish.

Well it could be expected that the competition would be hard as riding out in Motegi in the cold on January 4th is not exactly what people do if they are not really desperate for bike racing.

Interesting enough, Jessie, Yeap, Keith and me came in all more or less at 2:45 hr despite not staying together as group during the race. The complete race results are here.

It is interesting to note that there was a fast group with about 80 riders, all finishing in the 2:29 to 2:31 hr bracket (including Clay), followed by smaller groups of about 40 riders, all together and then another big group of 50 riders finishing at 2:45 very close to each other again.

As usual, you have to stay in a good group matching your speed, otherwise there will not be a good result.

I rode back to the pit where I saw Phil fully dressed, assuming that he had finished in the 2:30 hr group and now wanted to impress us with his fast change- clothing abilities. But in fast he had punctured and was forced to abandon the race which I guess is the maximum penalty life has to offer on a cold day in Motegi.

It was a nice race and I enjoyed the nice company on Keith and the others. Also I would ike to thank Phil for organizing everything and taking me back to a huge train station wher Clay and me rode the train home to Nippori and further.

I was pretty tired and very hungry as the contrast between the usual holiday meal and the scare food on the racing day was too much. So I visited a McD on the ay home – that shows how desperate I was.
Anyway, only four days in the year and already 250 km of riding done.
And good rides they were.

3 Kommentare

Eingeordnet unter 2010, Cervelo Soloist, Mob, tcc

von bikesnob28hb | 5. Januar 2010 · 03:30

Ekiden in Pictures

Rather than to add further writings about the Ekiden event, I post some of the pictures Ludwig and me took along the ride.Ok, I can not restrain myself and will add some comments nevertheless. This also should serve as a reminder when I plan the event next year again.

It took me about 45 minutes from my house to the meeting point at Route 15 at the Tamagawa. The meeting point is easy to miss if you come from Tokyo as one has to leave the main road and ride down from the flyover.

James and Dominic came shortly thereafter and as the Tokyo group was not in sight we started at 8:25. The first part is not so pleasant, I found. There is still a lot of traffic, many police on the streets and many red traffic lights. One is probably as fast as the runners on this stretch.

We kept our group together, had some talks with the police here and there and then one of the spokes of my rear wheel decided to break. As I was organizing and perhaps a little bit more nervous than usual, one spoke missing made me even more nervous. The wheel was still true but I limited myself to about 40 km/hr on the downhills.

We were late for the meeting point in Fujisawa but Kori has hold out there, so I was happy that this went well, after we have missed the Tokyo group or vice versa.After Fujisawa is there is a fast stretch on the coast road where we gained alot of time and where riding was fun with Fuji-san clearly visible right in front of us. Also Ludwig and David A caught up with us there.

Then we all had together a last break an a Combini in Odawara before the serious portion of the ride started. Now Ludwig was also pushing to start, so I could relax a little bit from my organizing role. It was clear that we wouldn’t stay together as a group on the climb from the beginning.

I don’t know why, but the road between Odawara and Moto-Hakone is not a very pleasant one. There is only a slightly incline, but it feels like 10%. And we almost got stopped by a policeman again, but Ludwig and me could ignore him and continue. We could also see another pair of pinchers from hell on the rights ide of the road, but they refrained from grabing us.

At the beginning of the official Togebaka climb at Asahikawa Bridge, Ludwig, James and me were together with me leading and the others were somewhere behind. We stayed together for about 6 or 7 minutes and then Ludwig and James went ahead. David A also overtook me some minutes later. But that was it, I overtook some more riders on the way up. The traffic was rather bad with a lot of buses and sometimes I had to squeeze my way up between a bus and a line of spectators. One time I even had to stop. And I was slowly running out of power. I particular dislike the slope after the Fujiya hotel which isn’t that steep again, but for some reasons hard.

Then I reached the huge Yunessun Onsen at about 600 m elevation and this is always the point on this climb where I think, OK I have almost made it and now it is only a few more meters. Some minutes later I was overtaking a struggling Japanese rider, I thought and shoute „Gambatte“ as encouragement, only to find out that it was Graham. I wanted to be up fast, so we didn’t talk too much and then I saw James taking a break at the roadside in front of me. Before he saw me, he started again and I could caught up with him. We then stayed together until the ENEOS gas station where he said „Oh, that was hard“, while I said „It is not over yet!“, as we still needed to go down one hill and do one more short climb. 55 minutes an something was not a shabby time for me, better than last year (always important) and much better than the 1:35 hr I needed some years ago. Ludwig was by now already at the goal.So James and me ride together into the finish area, seeing all the cheerleaders, hearing all the bands (Playing „Popeye, the sailorman“) and watching the Supporters of Tokyo Nogyo Daigaku (Agricultural University) swinging big radishes in support for their team.

I opted for the Assos Fugu jacket, which was the right choice for the first 20 minutes in the morning but was afterwards simply much too warm. Too cold was never an issue on this day. Luckily the day was sunny so I laid it upside down in the sun so that the sweat could dry.

Dominic also made it in front of the runners, very well done. And Graham as well.
So after watching some of the runners, we rode up to the Michi no Eki restaurant where we had some Soba and Udon and told each other our stories. Ludwig and me wore our JCRC championship jerseys of 2008 and 2009 and we made some photos.There was nobody elase coming so we made our way down to Atami. The traffic was bad up to Route 20, but from there onwards it was OK. The road was beautiful as usual, but I was very catious with me spokeless rear wheel so I didn’t enjoyed it as much as I do normally.
And in Atami we were greeted by an assortment of Geisha in the 60 – 96 years age bracket who congratulated Ludwig on his JCRC championship while all of us got there „Otoshidama“ from them.
Then back on the Shinkansen, very crowded but only 25 minutes to Shinyokohama for me with a beer in my hand.A very nice start into the 2010 riding season. I felt a little bit sorry about the rider we have left behind or didn’t made it, so as some of the other have checked with Yair, I checked with Kori later. As we started also much more earlier the climb this year, than last year, there was also les stress that the runners would overto\ake our leading group. And of course we were faster but I would assume that the last runner of Toyo is stil faster on the stretch between Odawara and the finish than I was. Amazing.

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Eingeordnet unter 2010, Cervelo Soloist, James, Mob

von bikesnob28hb | 30. Dezember 2009 · 15:41

Upgrades

My bicycle fleet is now ready for the winter and the new season respectively.

I upgraded the Cervelo Soloist with the new Ultegra 6700 groupset except for the crank set where I prefer the old design over the new one. Both, brake and gear cables are now below the handlebar tape just as for Campagnolo. With less wind resistance I should be even faster up Wada Toge next year.
I also needed to exchange the callipers. They look very much Dura Ace and are much more bulky than the Ultegra 6600 brakes. I wish they would be available in orange.

The Bad Boy got a set of 700 x 30 Schwalbe CX Pro Cross tires to convert it for cyclo-crossing during the winter season. Despite the advise of some cycle shops, it was no problem to fit them on to the original 700 x 23 rims and there is also enough clearance to the fork and the brake bridge on the cable stays.

Seems to be cross fit as confirmed during a ride in the local park. There is an added rolling resistance which makes it more difficult to accelerate the bike, but hey: Tom, here I am ready to ride out with your during the winter in the snow. Come back from Helsinki. And road 76: Here we come.
Tons of new riding options.

8 Kommentare

Eingeordnet unter 2009, Cervelo Soloist, Mob

von bikesnob28hb | 23. Dezember 2009 · 15:17

Three guys under blue skies

Jerome, Ludwig and me decided on short notice to do another ride before Christmas, O-Shogatsu, family dinners and business trips will take their toll on our bodies and ultimately on our performances.

I left the house almost in the dark on my newly outfitted Cervelo bike. Nagai-San upgraded everything except for the crank set and bottom bracket at the beginning of the week after my forced conversion to single speed on the weekend before. I could convince him that I do not need a new crank set as I do not want this ugly piece called „Hollow-tec“ on my bike which looks like the DuraAce crank set. I could not convince him that I can also live with my old Ultegra brakes so there were replaced as well with the more bulky looking 6700er brakes. When everything is new everything shifts fine, so I guess the good performance is more to the newness of the groupset rather that to the improved design. The front derailleur works perfectly now. The rear works fine when shifting into lower gears, but shifting into higher gears is a little bit tricky and one needs to get accustom to the levers.

Whatever, design-wise the bike is hugely improved and this is much more important then vulgar activities such as „shifting gears“ or „braking“, the later normally resulting in less speed.

Jerome an me met shortly after seven in Shin-yokohama, mounted Shinkansen Kodama 633 to Odawara which was way to short a trip. We met Ludwig at Odawara station and before eight we were on the way to Hakone. I showed Ludwig and Jerome the old Tokaido road which was pleasantly quiet and we made it up through the hair needle curves at a steady pace. It was quite cold and there were some icy patches on the road in the shadows. After waiting for Jerome some minutes on the top, we continued along Ashinoko road 75 when suddenly Jerome got pestered by official telephone calls: A Japanese customer has found a bolt in a package of cheese he bought from Jerome’s company (I cannot tell the real nameof his company, but let’s call it „El Shacho“ here). He opened another package just to check and found another bolt in this package as well. Of course he was furious and demaned an explanation from El Shacho why the nuts were missing.Meanwhile we continued to route 138, but instead of going this boring road down to Gotemba, we continued to climb up to Nagao tunnel where the pinchers of hell were waiting for us as usual. This is a very gradual climb with almost no traffic and a dilapidated restaurant close to the tunnel where I would love to eat some day.We then went down on the other side, slowly as parts of the road seemed to be icy. Then we made our way through this urban mess and sprawl of Gotemba and Oyama until we came to Fuji Speedway and to the starting point of the Mikuni pass climb.

Urban sprawl and chaotic city planning brings up another topic: As we have already December 23rd and I do not plan any bike trips until the rest of the year in the route 20 area, I can now finally write that 2009 is the first year in serious cycling where I didn’t crashed in the (ugly) city of Uenohara. This fine tradition (since 2007) is finally disrupted and perhaps I should stay away from the city for the complete year of 2010.

After taking a short break at the foot of Mikuni we started finally the climb. The break is not required for anything useful in preparation, I guess we just do it because we are afraid to start anyway. Mikuni is pretty hard. It is about two times the distance and more than two times the elevation difference that the Wada challenge (Takao side) has to offer. It doesn’t offer much resting places along its first 4 km and even stretches with 8 or 9% slope are considered nice recovery places. I was also pretty tired after the Hakone climb and felt the beginning of a bonk (as opposed to bonking) so I barely made it up to the top. To be honest, I was zigzaging on some of the steeper parts.

Just looking at the „Hall of Fame“ website of TCC, it amazes me that Clay can ride up there in less than 33 minutes.After that we made a short break at the approved Yamanakako 7-Eleven where we met another older Japanese rider who was much engaged in brevet activities. He told us that one need to attend at least 3.500km of Japan Audax sponsored brevet events before you are even considered to be registered for Paris – Brest – Paris and that Japan has the largest population of brevet riders worldwide. We spoke about the Itoigawa fast run and David’s heroic attempt of the 400 km brevet this year. He said „Oh yes, I was up on Yanagizawa and I saw a colored (黒人) rider coming up during the brevet.“ We said, that was probably not David. But thinking it over now, perhaps one may look colored after 400 km of riding and it was David indeed.
And off we were on Doshimichi in direction home. Ludwig and me were in front and crossed over Yamabushi pass, then went almost to the Michisaka pass road where we waited for Jerome at a Daily Yamazaki combini.

We waited quite a while but then Jerome rode past and we went in pursuit of him. There was a nice tailwind, Ludwig and me worked together and in addition the weather was still sunny and the road was in good and fast shape. But nevertheless we were not able to catch Jerome. Ludwig finally caught up with him after 18 km, close to Aone, but it took me another 7 km or so before finally the three of us were together again.

The rest was more or less boring riding on the South side or Tsukui lake and through Hashimoto. But we were incredibly fast: We did the 52 km between Yamanakako and Hashimoto station in 2 hours and this included some climbing plus riding through urban congestion.

There we split. Jerome and Ludwig took the Onekan to the Tamagawa, while I took the train home form Hashimoto. For me 130 km or riding, about 2.300 meters up under blue skies in fabulous Japanese winter weather. It is hard to get out of the bed in the morning, but once on the bike there are no regrets.
Tomorrow is Christmas (I promised my family not to do any bicycle riding) and after that I Will be in Okinawa between 25th and 28th (with son and bike). Perhaps I will do another trip before the end of the year, but that’s it before the new season starts traditionally with the Ekiden ride on January 2nd.

Tour GPS of today.

6 Kommentare

Eingeordnet unter 2009, Cervelo Soloist, Jerome, Mob

von bikesnob28hb | 14. Dezember 2009 · 05:05

Tokyo Enduro Race Report

A team I may consider to join.

I woke up at 6.30 hr in the morning after having dreamt that my connection flight from the island of Huahua to Seoul has been canceled forever. These are the times of dreams I normally have before a day at the races.

However, for the credit of this trace I have to say that the weather was much better than for the same race one year earlier. One year earlier I decided to stay in bed after looking out of the window. This year there was no excuse. As this is one of the only four races I can actually ride to from my home (the other ones being Yokohama Stadium Endurance, Tour du Japan Tokyo Stage in Oifuto and Fuji Hill Climb), I couldn’t possibly miss it.

For some reason, the Tokyo Enduro is a jinxed race for me. The first bicycle race I ever attended, not as a racer but as a spectator, was hold in October 1990 on precisely that track in Tachikawa. I came to watch my former youth idol Joern Kinzel, inventor of the famous Kinzel K1. Since that it has always been my dream to race there, I applied in 2005 to attend the possibly first Tokyo Enduro, only to find myself unable to attend because of a very bad ear infection. In 2006 I missed the deadline for application. In 2007 I don’t recall what has hindered me to attend, but something did. And last year I registered but decided not to ride because of the weather.

So all propped up and riding against a strong headwind I made my way up to Tachikawa. There were many riders out at the Tamagawa, most of the probably heading in the same direction and it was hard to restrict myself not become to competitive as I wanted to keep some power for the race. I arrived and met Tom just by chance at the gate. James and his family got already in and set up a place and a tent at a very convenient place to the pit stop. The TCC riders were also coming in and we had a few chats but just as we, everybody was nervous and in a hurry to get ready for the race. The Catteni Positivo guys also came and set up their tent just next to our one. The first part of our strategy went very well.

That is, that James, our first rider went to the startline early and got into the top 50 or 100 rider group so that he could hang out with the fast guys as long as possible. He did just that for the first seven laps and when he made the last of his laps he sprinted ahead of the group, entered the pit and changed to Tom so that he could also enjoy being part of the fast group. After four more laps Tom changed to me and when I came out of the pit there was no fast group to hang on to. This is really the key to win the race, if you are alone on the track, there is no way that you can go fast for a longer period of time. So I did my four laps all on my own, killed some wheelsuckers and passed to Kaori who did her part and passed to James again.

The president of Corratec, shooting at random riders who don’t use his bikes.

After a while I went to check the results at the monitors and saw that all of the TCC teams were doing very well and that we were in 9th position in the mixed class. We were way faster than our original plan which was based on the idea that we should be faster than the winner last year.

Well, as I mentioned already for the Motegi race: Racing has not become easier and the competition is becoming stronger year by year. We are not racing against an ever faster competition but also against age and our chances to win are very slim indeed now. For example the mixed team from Catteni Positivo, that made 2nd place last year came in 11th this year, full two laps behind us.

James made a very good run that and put us back into podium reach, by the end of his tour we were in fifth place and 2 minutes away from the third placed team. Tom made further time good and passed the baton to me with about 40 minutes to go. As the pit closes 15 minutes before the end of the race we decided that I would do three laps and then pass to James for the last two ones. Again I was alone on the track but after a while I found one guy one could keep up me and we were pulling each other until we were overtaken by a fast group of five riders to which I could hang on.

Later after moving into the pit and checking the results I realized that one rider in this group was the 4th placed mixed team. I should have stayed out with the fast group and ride to the end as I was also feeling good enough to stay with them, but I decided to stick to the plan and handed over to James. This cost as not only one minute time because of the pit stop but James was now alone on the track again which cost further time. I moved out as well, waited until James finished his first lap and then drafted him 2 km or so before I ran out of gas again.

In the end we made respectable 5th place in the mixed cat, but I am sure that we could have made podium if we would have had better race infos and reduced our number of pit stops.

I guess this is the lesson from the race:

1. We need to get wired.
2. Four riders = three pit stops

Anyway, we had a very good time. Tom’s wife also provided us with some nice Belgium waffles which fueled us up through the race. Nichibe-san also showed up to support us. TCC had a very strong showing. I helped James to pack the tent and transport all the stuff to his car, then I went on to the next race which consisted of a 35 km ride back home which I had to make by 5 PM as my wife wanted to go out and I had to take care of the kids. I finished 5 minutes behind the deadline.

2 Kommentare

Eingeordnet unter 2009, Cervelo Soloist, James, Mob, Nishibe, tcc, Tom

von bikesnob28hb | 13. Dezember 2009 · 10:25

TOKYO ENDURO RACE RESULTS

MEN

Winner 33 laps 3.56.38 hr
4. TCC A (Thomas, Sergey, DeeJ, AlanW) 33laps 3.58.03
22 NFCC 30 laps
36 Catteni Positivo Torino 29 laps
41 TCC C 29 laps (David, YellowGiant,…)
45 Catteni Positivo Trevis 29 laps
70 Catteni Positivo Napoli 28 laps

WOMEN

Winner 28 laps 3.55.02 hr
2. TCC G 28 laps 3.59.38 hr

MIXED

Winner 32 laps 3.53.41 hr
5 TCC A PE (Tom, James, Kaori, mob) 31 laps 3.57.39 (=15th place in men cat)
11 Catteni Positivo Milano 29 laps

More to come. First a bath and some food.

All results are here:

SUNDAY

SATURDAY

5 Kommentare

Eingeordnet unter 2009, Cervelo Soloist, James, Mob, tcc, Tom

von bikesnob28hb | 18. November 2009 · 04:36

Chichibu shines

Yesterday night I watched the movie „THE SHINING“ by Stanley Kubrick. I guess one has really fallen in love with cycling when one cannot help thinking during the opening scenes that this might be a beautiful place to make long cycling tours. Despite the music that preludes the horror to come.Also motivated by the blogs of David, Ludwig and Tom about the great tours they made under beautiful skies on Sunday, I decided to ride out on my own to Chichibu the following day. The weather was not as perfect as on Sunday but it was warm, dry and without to much winds so I decided to ride from my house up to the Tamagawa and further up to Ome instead of boarding an overcrowded train as I normally do.

The „Tamasai“ ex-cycling, now pedestrian with dogs obstacled road along the Tamagawa was as boring as ever. I noted however the increase of homeless settlements along the road, in particular under some of the bridges (Sekidobashi) which somehow links cycling to the ongoing economic downturn in Japan. Or for the cycling fanatics among us I would like to provide the proper analogy: These poor guys can barely afford mama charis and even hybrid-bikes with Shimano Sora group sets are well beyond their reach.

In order to reflect the actual situation I believe that the Japanese flag shall be modified: The red circle, symbolizing the sun, should be partly covered with a not so precisely round blue tarp which is so often used in homeless settlements. The final curtain is closing quickly in front of the Japanese sun.
Well, all the land between the river and the embankments is designed to be flooded in case of heavy rainfalls in the upper reached of the Tamagawa and that is why it is not such a good idea to settle there. The older members of the team may recall the floods of early 2006 and the devastation it brought to portions of the cycling track. The park close to Mutsumi bridge was closed for almost a year before it was finally reconstructed and opened again.

Naturally with these gloomy thoughts it took me almost 2:15 hours to reach Ome station. In no way my physical conditions can be blamed for this one.

There I conducted one of three fatal mistakes of the day: Instead of buying the fantastic „royal milk“ at the Aurore bakery which provides plenty of energy for the rest of the day (I mean any day, regardless of the time when eaten and degree of physical activities), I opted to buy only two smaller pastries and subsequently I bonked later in the day when riding up the slopes. Which again provides a good argument to keep with approved team traditions.

The ride I had in mind was to do the most ridiculous routes, accounting for the longest distance and the highest elevation gains to finally reach the fabulous capital of Chichibu, fanciful and aptly named Chichibu-City. The former a promise, the later a joke.

So I started to ride along prefectural road 28 in direction Hanno and took #70 to the West until finding the entry to the fabled Hanachiba-Naguri Line. The climb was fast and I was completely alone after the first Y section. How I love the silence in the woods, away from all the noise at the Tamagawa. I then descended on the other side to road #53 leading to Yamabushi and Shomaru Pass which we have conquered also quite often by now. But before reaching Yamabushi, I took a right turn on #395 to Amamezasu Pass which at 480 meter elevation is slightly lower than the mighty Van Hai pass.

I like this climb. It is only 2.6 km long but covers an elevation difference of about 220 meters so it is somehow similar to Wada but not as demanding. Also it is very quiet and completely in the forest.From the top one has also a nice view on the hair needle curves that are waiting for the adventurous downhiller on the other side. So basically I went up the same ridge from the South that I went over first from the North and now I was heading on National road 299 back in direction Hanno.

In Agano I did a left turn on #61 and went up the slopes of Koburi Pass (顔振峠). Although this road is also no stranger to the Positivo team, I guess it is less frequented by us. But the climb is really nice, short, less than 3 km, but covering about 300 meters up and at some points there are breathtaking views over the Chichibu mountains. The view compensated me very well for bonking. Plus I lost my water bottle somewhere, which was the second fatal mistake of the day.

I don’t care so much about loosing water bottles. I have plenty at home and they keep accumulating naturally after attending races. However, this one was special at it has a very unique one directional flow valve attached to it. It is big and red and one has to pull it out with the teeth before starting to drink. I think it is the right bottle for somebody with a big mother-complex. Which I am not, but nevertheless the bottle was always good a for a laugh or two.

The skies were not as clear as on Sunday, but that gave the far mountains an interesting shade of different greys, almost like in an old Chinese ink painting. At precisely 500　meters elevation, Koburi Pass is even sightly higher than the mighty Van Hai pass.From there onwards I rode along the Green Line. What makes Chichibu so different from Okutama and other places I have went so far is the unbelievable variety of paved roads criss-crossing the hills. There is always the feeling of choice and uncertainty. Why not taking this small road here for a change? Why not trying this one today? Sure, there are many rindos in other parts of the Kanto region as well and also many we don’t know yet (the North approach to Wada until recently a good example). But Chichibu has so much more.

It is always tempting to take a new road, but not without water and at 4.00 PM on a mid November day in Japan. So I made my way up over the Mini-toge of the Green Line to the mighty Karibazaka Pass (at 818 meter higher than the mighty Van Hai pass, Shiraishi Toge (higher than the mighty Van Hai pass) and finally Sadamine Toge (still higher than the mighty Van Hai pass).

The mother and daughter ramen operations at Sadamine Toge had already closed , perhaps for the rest of the season and I started to make the final descent into Chichibu city on road #11. It was getting dark already and I just arrived at Chichibu City limits, famously serenaded by Ike & Tina Turner in the Seventies.

OK, so here I was at Chichibu city on a Monday night at 5 PM.

Which reminded me of the only joke from my home town of Moenchengladbach which I really appreciate. See, I am coming from a non-discript town with almost no hills (the biggest one being artificial, the garbage dump), so we didn’t managed to bring even one famous cyclist to the circuit. Our biggest claims to fame is the local soccer team which I unfortunately support since they were good and famous in the seventies. And which brought only sorrow and tears in the last 20 years. And then we have Nick Heidfeld, a formula one racer and Joseph Goebbels.

Anyway, the town is close to two bigger towns called Duesseldorf and Koeln (Cologne). These cities hate each other, which probably has something to do with the historical fact that one of them is catholic (Koeln of course, with its cathedral) while the other is dominantly protestant. They compete in many aspects, soccer, ice hockey, economical …. Duesseldorf became the capitol of the federal state, Koeln has all the media … character-wise I definitely tend to Duesseldorf and I even lived there for some time in the 80ties and 90ties.

Now, back to the joke. Tuennes and Schael, two immortal characters from my home town (actual Cologne claims them as theirs as well) meet each other and Tuennes says:

“ I bought a new motorcycle. That is so unbelievable fast…… If I start in Moenchengladbach at 7.30 in the morning, I arrive in Koeln at 8 already.“

Whereas Schael answers:

„So what to you do at 8 in the morning in Koeln then?“

Same question, different context: „What do you do in Chichibu City at 5 PM in November?“ Yes, it is along way home by train from Chichibu. I finally made it home by 9 after a 4 hour train ride, partly because I was too stupid to board the right train in Hachioji (again) which in turn allowed me to have look at the nightly silhouette of Ebina city. Third fatal mistake of the day.

All train, no joy, makes Jack a dull boy.

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Eingeordnet unter 2009, Cervelo Soloist, Mob

von bikesnob28hb | 2. November 2009 · 04:30

Seven Hours in Motegi

„And this is the brake, yes !???!“
„No, there you can shift the gears.“
„So, where is the brake, then?“

Should one be worried, if the rider next to you in the pit during a bicycle race is getting instruction from the friends like this? Well, the weather was fine in Motegi and the course has wide roads, so all kinds of beginners and the usual assortment of fluffy animals, kappas, ultramen and riders dressed as cockroaches can be tolerated I guess.

Our team for the seven hours endurance race in Motegi consisted of David „Jerome“ Litt, James „Augustin“ Machin and me, Michael „Michael“ Kraehe. With the exception of James Augustin, who is 11, we were all at least 18 years old.

Therefore the objective was not to win the race, but to race as hard as we could and have a good time.

What has the above and the below in common?

We started the night before at the Positivo shop where we had last minute maintenance to our bikes. Why?

Answer: The gravity zero wheels emitted more noise than the average right-wing truck. I bought this wheels some time ago from David Marx and they are not only the most wonderful wheels I ever had but also for sales. I was very excited when I unpacked them the first time and then I found the owners manual which clarified that „high performance = high maintenance“ and that every time I ride in the rain with these wheels I need to disassemble the bearings and re-grease them. So when riding home from the race in pouring rain with the bike mounted on top of the car I could hardly think about anything else than the bill Nagai–san from the shop will present me after having done his part of work on the wheels.

We left for Utsunomiya to stay at the Richmond Hotel. The next time we meet, please ask me how we parked in front of the hotel because the story is so long and complicated that it can only be verbally transmitted.

But it’s a nice hotel nevertheless and father and son can save a lot of money as a single bed seems to be wide enough to accommodate both of them. And in addition there is also space for our bikes in the room.

An early start next morning saw us crossing through an ugly Utsunomiya. This is not the pearl of the orient, in case you wondered. This is in fact really the problem mid-size towns in the Japanese country side have: They are not old, so nothing of historical interest or beauty is left in town. They are also not new: in times of prolonged economic crisis in the countryside (basically since 1990) and few investments in the last 20 years, everything is modern but old, poorly maintained and not built to last. There is also no natural beauty left. Go to any of these smaller towns in Japan and leave depressed.

Working for a Japanese construction company in the early nineties I had a superior who bought a house in Utsunomiya and commuted by Shinkansen every day to Tokyo. This made sense in pre-bubble Japan for two reasons: first land prices were still rising in the city and it was almost impossible to realize the dream of the own home close to the center and second, working for construction one needs his own own house in order to stay true to the system.

He was a particular bad tempered guy and after having seen Utsunomiya, his fate, I may begin to understand why.

Sorry for leaving the red line of this story, the only positive thing was that there was thick mist so not all of Utsunomiya was revealed to us.

We arrived at Motegi, secured a place in the pit and made some training laps. The course is basically flat, two difficult corners, 7.2 km long, I like it and it is the third time after 2006 and 2007 to race there. Also the weather was becoming better: warmer and blue skies.

I was the first rider at the start and as I was late I ended up pretty much at the end of the field, composed of more than 300 riders. But I could make my way up into the top 50 or so during the rolling start, which lasted for one complete lap. The race then started for earnest and I managed to stay with the top group and climbed up the first small hill at 30 km/hr+ always with the top 20 – 30 riders. So the second lap went good and the third lap as well. Slowly the top field was also becoming smaller and smaller. At the end of the third lap only 30 riders or so were left with the fast group. And you need to stay with a group as otherwise you loose so much time fighting alone against the strong wind.

But then the inevitable happened.

As I pointed out alreday the track in Motegi is very flat, expect for a small hill which can be easily over-sprinted. This statement is true, but only for the first three laps of the race (in total we made 36 laps). I am not sure, but one of the two things written below happened after lap #3:

Hydraulic mechanisms located under the hill and operated by the race organizers jacked up the slope for about 100 meters so that a relatively modest hill became a murderous slope for the rest of the race or
Tectonic movements had the same effect on the slope.

In any case, I was fighting my way up the hill and lost contact with the fast group in lap #4 and once lost and basically alone in nowhere land between the very good and the good racers, it is a lonely and futile fight against the wind. I handed over to Jerome in 36th position and he fighted the next four laps before handing over to Augustin who made one lap with Jerome providing draft for him.

The endurance races are very hard and one is pushed to the limits: One has constantly to motivate oneself and make contact with riders in front. And that is pretty much how the race continued: Having small breaks, trying to stay focused and motivated. Then out on the track, finding a good groups of riders to stay with.

I thought that the pit would close half an hour before the end of the race at 15.30hr, so I tried to squeeze in four laps between the closure of the pit before handing over to Jerome who would do the last three laps. This worked just perfectly, I made in about 30 seconds before 15.00hr into the pit only to realize that the pit closes only at 15.25hr. OK, but now it was Jerome’s turn to finish the race.

Which he did in a very good manner. I haven’t see the lap charts yet, but as usually I would guess that he would loose not too much speed compared to the start of the race because of his big, big stamina. Augustin was also doing very well, averaging 30 km/hr on his laps.

And then the race was over. I checked our position and we had finished in 50th position with 36 laps in 7:05:51 hours. Not too bad, I thought at first, considering that we only had three guys on the team, one of them (James Augustin) only 11 years old.

But more surprisingly, I checked against the performances of 2006 and 2007 once I was back home and I found out that:

Racing there in 2006 with Stephen and a guy called Larry Banks (actually a motorcyle guy) we finished in 39th place with 33 laps. With our 2009 performance we would have finished in 8th position, with the winner doing 38 laps. Not bad.

In 2007 our team consisted of Tom, Marek, Stephen and me and we finished in 11th position, also covering 36 laps, but one minute slower. OK, it was raining hard that day and the race would have been faster if the weather has been better, but nevertheless, we had beaten our strongest club team in comparison.

A 39th place in 2006 and an 11th place in 2007 adds up precisely to a 50th place in 2009 which is the weakest position so far but still the best race we made. The competition is also getting stronger, the winning team this time made 41 laps.

So there was much to talk about on the way home in the car, during prolonged hours of traffic congestion and at a nice yaki–niku dinner somewhere close to Tsukuba. It is really a joke, we raced almost 260 km in seven hours, and then it takes as 5 hours to ride home in the car 140 km.

We were all done but as usual proud of ourselves. And of course we can do this again any time (see next posting).

PS Sorry, I forgot to take my camera with me, so no photos this time.

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Eingeordnet unter 2009, Cervelo Soloist, Jerome, Mob

von bikesnob28hb | 24. Oktober 2009 · 05:36

I Y

Dominic, Ludwig and me decided to turn Wednesday’s workday into a more pleasurable past time.

Ludwig and Dominic met for the first time on the train to Hashimoto, where Ludwig was pretending to read the Financial Times which caught Dominics attention as he was holding it upside down. Actually Ludwig has two reasons for that, first he wants to see rising curves on financial related charts more often and second it is just too easy for him to read a newspaper the normal way.

I was 10 minutes late but we started early at 7.30 in direction Tsukui lake, where we parked our bikes at a 7-Eleven to take supplies. (my one in the prescribed position).According to Ludwig that was the worse 7-Eleven he has ever visited, justified in particular by the missing assortment of Soyjoy bars. So we declined politely the official approval.

We then continued along Doshimichi and after finishing our pointless ride through Aone village (please check this club tradition which is now a must for every ride) we entered route 76.

Trucks have long been a source of cyclists dissatisfaction on the roads outside of Tokyo, but recently many improvements have been done to make the cyclists fate more bearable. Thanks to the support of the All Japan Truck Drivers Vehicle Beautification Association, cyclists can now enjoy the backside of trucks even more.

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Anyway, we moved further along the TCC winter shortcut to road 35 leading to Akiyama and Hinazuru tunnel.The manju shop passed approval procedure without any problems (although they only had anpan manjus, miso manjus were sold out). Dominic was surprised that, given the state of the building, the age and state of its inhabitants and the open fire burning in parts of the houses, that they actually owned a telephone.

He was also surprised to find his front tire punctured. Ludwig, who was anyway only in for the morning went ahead to catch a train from Otsuki, while we repaired the tube and buried the old one in the garden behind the manju shop as old Japanese cycling tradition requires.

A short climb up to Hinazuru, followed by a quick climb up to Suzugane, peaceful as always and a quick visited to a combini at Sarubashi resulted in a luke warm lunch at the resting place in front of the old Sarubashi.

And then after preludio (Hinazuru) and allegro (Suzugane) we started the main climb of the day, Matsuhime Toge (Furio). Dominic became recently stronger and stronger and we decided in view of the fact that he has applied for next years L’etappe du Tour that I will coach him for the event and that this would be our first training ride.

So from this point in time on I have the right to address him as „O-mae„, „Kimi„, „Baka“ or whatever I feel just, while he has to use the most intricate forms of „irassharu“ and „itadaku“ when daring to approach me while scrubbing my back in the local sento. For this I will teach him the secrets of cycling which, honestly, consist mostly of suffering.

So we were happily going up the road and I was pointing out to Dominic that the small grey strip up high in the mountains before us IS actually the road we will need to ride up. And suddenly we saw another cyclist about 50 meters in front of us. He looked like a short hippy with long grey hair and old fashioned glasses, on a bike with backtray, somebody left over from the occupation of Todai’s Yasuda clocktower in the sixties.

In turned out to be a women, I Y, as we later learned, who happens to cycle quite a lot and was not even very strong, (we could chat and ride up Matsuhime while Dominic had to stop and was much more silent in general) but who knows also every single road in the area. I mentioned some of the roads we have found out recently (Arima Toge, Haccho Tunnel, Nennogon) and she knew all of them and many more I haven’t ever heard about (Nijumagari Toge) which seemed to be the most interesting places.I must say that I was very, very impressed. Since 8 years or so she is riding out regularly two, three times a week with the bike and we have never met despite the fact that we have done more or less the same roads all the time. She would definitely become a good addition to our team, however unfortunately she does not race.

After having a short break at Matsuhime we took the road back to Okutama where we left I Y at the parking place (she clinged to my back wheel all the time even when I tried some macho accelerations) and Dominic and me continued towards Ome.

Dominic was quite done and every movement was accompagnied by an assortment of noises indicating pain and disaster. But these are the rides that make adults out of boys and separate the guys who are standing in front of the toilet or sitting on it.

In Ome we had our meal at the approved Aurore bakery and watched a group of foreign school kids running around the block. No Japanese school kids in sight, perhaps some kind of punishment or special training for the Ome marathon?

Then we made some Japanese local girls laugh when they saw our „Shingo Mushi“ mark on the back of our bib shorts.

And then we rode home by train.

Koyo leaves were beautiful by the way starting from 1.000 meter elevation. Temperature was just right and all in all it has been another beautiful day.

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Eingeordnet unter 2009, Cervelo Soloist, Mob

von bikesnob28hb | 8. Oktober 2009 · 17:44