Archiv der Kategorie: Cervelo Soloist

Mein zweites richtig gutes Rennrad. Sooo steif.

von | 6. Oktober 2009 · 12:33

The Ducks of Endurance

Dear Mob of 2010,

This is the Mob of 2009 writing a letter to you on the evening of the Yokohama endurance race. I just would like to remind you that before you coax yourself and your friends into riding in the 2010 Yokohama endurance race you read this one. I am sorry for the shortness of the letter, this is due that every single of my bones seems brittle, my major muscle groups are still shivering in cramps and my tendons are squeaking and aching every time I try to get them moving. Yes, mob of 2009, I would like to remind you that this was not an easy race. Perhaps you forgot your experience from 2008 when you applied in 2009, but make sure to think about it when you consider of riding it again in 2010.

Yours sincerely

mob of 2009

If I would have known (or remembered) how hard this race is, I wouldn’t have registered in the first place. James has kindly written about all the racing aspects and our share of suffering and there is little to add but some personal observations:

When we registered, we met Fujikawa-San and his friend from Catteni Positivo; this being the other team supported by Nagai San’s Positivo shop. I met Fujikawa-San also last year at the race and we talked about the experience. These are nice guys and they also have their own blog where it seems that they are focusing more on brevet style rides.

Without wanting to appear to arrogantly I shall nevertheless remark that during the race we made it abundantly clear which is the Positivo A- and which the Positivo B-Team.

The next thing I remember was that James and me were standing in the starting field when the cheerleader performance began. I am not sure why, but endurance races in Japan do always field cheerleaders (Tsukuba, Yokohama) or at least Weider girls (Motegi) although the connection is not so clear for me.

„How was your last endurance race?“

„Great – we had a fantastic cheerleader performance“

Would probably be a perfectly normal conversation in Japan. Actually the ones which were performing in Yokohama were so bad, that even the rain stopped for a while. They also held posters with the words „Care“, „Fun“, „Joy“ and some others up (Not sure, I think the other ones were „lung cancer“ and „non-linear depreciation“) to inspire us.

The the race started. I tried to get into the first or second fast group, but had to give up after the third lap and from then onwards James and me stayed with the third fastest group. The first hour is always the hardest for me and when it started to rain really, really hard I was considering to throw the towel. I couldn’t see very much through my sun glasses as in the cavity between the sunglasses and the optical glasses inserts humidity was gathering, slowly obscuring any vision left. Luckily James rode in front of me and I could see his bright orange Positivo jersey, but some of the black clad („anti-globalization dress“, as David said) riders where hardly contrasting with the road surface at this point. I was very lucky that the rain stopped and I could regain some vision.

Next thing was, that I was leading the group and riding down the tight flyover from the stadium to the park. The rims were still wet and I braked too late and too hard: so suddenly my rear wheel blocked and I was fast going in direction of the barriers. But luckily I got the bike under control and could avoid a crash, but at the cost of stopping and getting out of the cleats.

„Daijobu ?“ I heard from someone of the Japanese riders in our group…. „Matte!“ I shouted in despair, clipped in and went in pursuit of our group. Luckily I could manage to hang on.

There were quite a few crashes, but not as manya and as hard as in Shuzenji in August. The amount of human suffering one sees at the ramp leading steeply (I guess 15%) up from the park to the stadium level is just amazing. Many riders were so exhausted that they pushed up their bikes; others took the initial swing to capitulate them up about a third and then they just stopped there and couldn’t go further on their own power.

My strategy was to stay in the outer front and shift down to my 27 teeth cog on the rear. That worked pretty well and I wasn’t so bad in sprinting up the ramp. But once I was up it was hard to accelerate from 20 km/hr again and than there is this ugly right curve leading into the stadium which takes the momentum out of the ride again.

This is not an easy course, unlike Hitachi Naka where you stay in the peloton all the time and go virtually straight for about 160 km. Yokohama requires constant acceleration and braking – add some attacks from the group – that takes it’s toll on the body.

One of my of legs after my semi-crash was cramping and I had a hard time to ignore that. Later on I was not able to let my leg rest in the highest pedal position when manouvering a corner. Cramps only stopped when I was pedaling.

So in the end I had no reserves and although we managed to decimate our group to only four or five riders over time, I couldn’t follow James when he sprinted away at the very end.

Nevertheless I was very pleased with our performance and I was sure that we had a good finish even before the results were released.

At the start to the two hour race in the afternoon I was so tired, I could have slept on my bike. I was also incredibly dirty but luckily I brought some equipment for exchange. And at least the weather was getting better and the rain stopped.

The two hour race was not as good as the morning one. In fact I was even a little bit slower than last year. All the fresh new riders were overtaking me to the left and to the right and I couldn’t found a good group to draft with after I have lost contact with James.

I was so tired and so slow. I was cursing that I shouldn’t do this kind of stupid races any longer. Really, I was so exhausted. Nevertheless I made it to the finish and in the end we had a splendid result.

As the Prince Figure Skate Center – the location in town where my daughter and my wife spend more time than at home – was just around a corner and I knew that there was also a 7-Eleven, we went there and had some food and drinks. Looking at the girls coming from the figure skate center and comparing them to what we have seen in the Yokohama stadium, we were wondering if we shouldn’t‘ put a different focus in our sport activities. OK, at this poin tim time we weren’t looking exactly attractive. I would say the only thing that looked more dirty that us were our bikes.

James asked if we should lock them. I thought that he made a joke, nobody at the figure skate center knows want I bike is and what it is good for.

By the way, we were noticed. My wife told me some days later that at least one ugly-duck-becomes-olympic-hero-educating-mother has noticed us and described as later as „dirty, foreign perverts handing around at the entrance to the centre“. My wife wisely decided not to disclose her relationship.

„Dirty, foreign pervert“


So after getting back to the stadium and checking the final results (Complete surprise that TCCs Naomi and Alan and their teammate were also riding in the event, I haven’t seen them at all) we rode home.
I asked one a the reception if James would be eligible for a price with his 6th place finish, but I was told that only the 1st place will get something in the King of endurance category. Naturally, there can be only one king. So we have to be conten with the title of dukes, or, as Laurent remarked, ducks of endurance.

Riding home after the event was a 5 km monster brevet-like trip along long roads and high mountains. So it seemed. Which completely exhausted me. And after having a business meeting and entertaining my family with heroic stories at the local Yakitori restaurant I felt asleep, dreaming and cramping until the early morning light.

The next day I went hiking with a group of German friends. We started at Mitake station on the Ome-Ouktama line an walked up the road to the cable station. This road is well known as „The mother of all pointless rides“ by James, Graham and Michael. From Mitake we took a hiking trail to Hinode mountain and then further on to Tsuru tsuru Onsen (on the road from Itsukaichi to Umenoki pass leading to Ikusabata at the Tamagawa West of Ome). Quite nice and very painful. Perhaps a new trail to be explored by Tom and his new bike?

Anyway, after a good soak in the water and some good food and beers later at the Ishikawa brewery (= Tama Jiman, Positivo approved) I was ready for my bed and didn’t woke up until late on Monday morning.

My muscles are still hurting and I am not completely unthankful that the rain is stopping all biking activities for the time being. I wanted to tell our heroic deeds to the students at university but decided later that history of the Japanese zaibatsu would be equally interesting for them.

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Eingeordnet unter 2009, Cervelo Soloist, James, Mob

von | 27. September 2009 · 15:16

Silver Rides

The extened „Silver Week“ is now finally over and a lot of riding has taken place. It started exactly one week ago.

On Sunday Ludwig and me met in Ome, had breakfast with „Aurore“ the French mistress of the equally French bakery which is beloved by everybody and headed out in direction Chichibu. We tried to find Tom’s new road but had initially some problems. Not sure, neither Ludwig nor me are efficient explorers of new frontiers and we use google maps for the way to the toilet in our house.The matter was complicated by the fact that a Japanese rider tried to draft with us. When we let him do some work in the front he drifted against the curb in a right curve and almost fell just in front of me. That was enough: we increased the speed and almost had him completely exhausted when we noted that we had lost the way.But then we found the road and it was beautiful indeed. No traffic, lot’s of up and downs and a beautiful view into the main Chichibu valley leading to Yamabushi pass. After lunch a TT up to Yamabushi and a lunch at Shomaru we went down on the other side and up to Karibazaka. Many riders were out there and we continued along the green line to Sadamine pass, then took a turn North and went up the backroad over Kayunita pass to Nihongi. Boldly we decided to go further and discovered some new passes, such as Samugami, before we finally arrived at Nagatoro, the famous gorge which is mentioned in every sightseeing pamphlet about Saitama (although there aren’t many).

From there onwards we rode further North and rode over Mase pass, a somewhat harder than expected climb before we finally arrived at this Shinkansen Station which is supposed to actually have a meaning. Somewhat. I am talking about Waseda-Honjo.

A nice ride and something more of Chichibu discovered.

The next day I rode to Shibuya to register for the Cycle Messenger World Championship. An event which is tailor made for me. I realized this when I came to the registration bar: I was the only guy with a road bike and also the only one who demounted by moving the right leg over the rear wheel. Everybody else swings the right leg in front, get somehow ride of the hands and the handle and turns the leg over the handle bar. Still much to learn. I checked for the jerseys but they were sold out already – only S size left. Also the XL t-shirts were gone. At least I got a free snicker bar. The registration was chaotic. David also wanted to register, but despite the fact that he went there two times he couldn’t in the end.

My ID card was still in the made but I had to leave as I wanted to visit Positivo with my son and choose his new bike. We made a very reasonable choice (I hope). I would have loved to make the less reasonable choice.

On Wednesday Graham, Michael and me met at precisely the same spot in Ome and rode out in direction Chichibu again. WE took the fast run route this time. I „pushed“ Michael over Yamabushi, staying behind him and applying psycho-terror tactics in order to make him fast over the hill. That worked pretty well and he made it in about 20 minutes up.

After a fast run on route 299 and the Laurent/Dominic/mob 7-Eleven on road 140, we continued until the intersection with road 37 and made a turn to the North. From there onwards we found the perfect point to follow our main tradition „the pointless ride„.

You see, every time Michael, Graham and me are riding out, perhaps also in a group with other riders, we are obliged to do at least one stretch to an obscure location which involves heavy climbing and does not serve any other purpose than to arrive at this point for the sake of arriving at this point. We started this tradition this year, when I volunteered to show James, Michael and Graham the entrance to the incredible steep climb up on Mitake mountain, completely forgetting that the road to the entrance is already longer and steeper than anything we normally climb anyway. All of them were very favorably impressed and our bold undertaking and my leadership skills were the topic of many conversations made when the rest of the tour led the group up to Kazahari Toge in great pains.

So this time we decided to make a pointless climb up to Tsuchizaka Toge, a nice 700 m high pass connecting West Saitama with the Eastern Democratic Republic of Gunma-ny, famous for strong winds and tough women (Angela Merkel, and some 100 kg female hammer throwers, shot putter and discuss virgins). As the border was tightly controlled by tough women that hide so well that they were not seen AND this was our pointless ride anyway, we went back where we came from and rode further North to enjoy a fast lunch at a „michi no eki“.

Michael and me took a new Keirin „0,00%“ beer and when we tasted it we found out that was something missing. It was not only the alcohol but also any hint of taste similar to beer. I found also out that Graham is the other person in Japan who has read Julian Barnes. He is also the only person in Japan who has read „Peeling the onion“ by Guenter „Waffen SS“ Grass in a simplified English version.

And when we continued to ride and I wanted to shoot a photo, I was stil so dizzy by 0.00% of alcohol, that I forgot to un-cleat the leg I wanted to stand on and felt flatly on the road, much to the amusement of Michael who continued to tease me about the lack of alcohol resistance for the rest of the ride.

And then we made it to Nagatoro again. Beautiful and serene it is indeed. Actually it is so quiet, that almost all tourists who come there fall asleep immediately as we can see in the photos below. Also Michael, Graham and me took a nap and we woke up when we were kissed by a beautiful prince. But this is a different story. Again, a fast ride over Mase pass, one of my new favorites and then further on to Waseda-Honjo where we took the Shinkansen home, had a real beer in the train and made it home well in time for everybody’s mongen.

The following two days were stuffed with commuting 41 km to the university and doing a training ride for the track race event of the CMWC at the Tsurumi river close to my home.

And then on Saturday I rode to the Keio Kaku and wanted to take part in the CMWC race there. The usual bunch of gaijins and Japanese messengers was already there: more tattoos could be seen than on the bodies of the Kansai chapter of the Yamaguchi-gumi, piercings enough to supply raw material for the great leap forward in China and haircuts like I would have had if I would been 20 today. Fine.

Then they didn’t let me register because I was on a road bike. You can read the whole ordeal here on their blog site where I vented my complete frustration which these guys who are as flexible as the Hamamatsu police officials when I asked for my driving permit in 1998. OK, they are dressed differently, but the concrete in the head unfortunately remains the same.

Luckily David was there so I didn’t felt so alone and after we have watched the TT event we decided to ride out on Onekan, have a coffee and talk about our favorite subjects: International Law and Jerome.

I was still so angry that I decided to ride to Takao and try to achieve a good time at Otarumi, which I did – first time below 14 minutes despite the wind plus with a heavy rucksack on the back.

And as I was still angry I thought that I could also add Yabitsu on top of this, so I continued. I started the climb at precisely 5 PM and when I made it to the top it was already pitch dark. Strange noises in the Forrest, wild animals and „warumono“ cracking through the underwood … alone almost as scary as Sasago tunnel.Then down on the other side – very slowly in the dark and right into a big matsuri at Hadano. Luckily the famous bento capitol of the world was still open and I had an excellent Oknomiyaki for 240 Yen.

In the end it was a beautiful day. Or a beautiful night.
So what’s next : Yokohama endurance race on Saturday !

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Eingeordnet unter 2009, Cervelo Soloist, David, Mob

von | 20. August 2009 · 14:17

S C A R Y T W O

Last night I dreamt that my father was checking my body temperature. I had a high fever and so I called Tom, who had taken a day off from work, to cancel the planned North side Ootoge ride. That was how I scared I was.

Of course I had no excuse not to come and to undertake a renewed approach on this monster of a climb in the middle of nowhere, with hornets big as A380s, bears on amphetamine and silent strangeling monkeys.

So I dressed up in complete Positivo Espresso wear, kissed my sleeping wife and children, put the files with the life insurance policies on my desk so that my wife would find them easily, deleted the history of my web browser and left for the station.

As usual Tom was riding out on his bike while I took the train and we met at Saruhashi Station. Then we proceeded quickly up the slopes in direction of Matsuhime Toge until we reached the picnic place and tunnel at elevation 650m that is the entry to Ootoge. Riding up as a pair is much less scarier than riding up alone. Although Tom was as usual in good form and went to ride in front which I thought was OK because then the bears wouldn’t be so hungry when they met me and might be content with an arm or (worse) a leg.

Luckily we went up on a weekday, when the road is not that crowded by monkeys, snakes, deers and foxes driving with their families to the river in the valley. Also the trucks driven by bears, transporting food for the hibernation period up on themountains can be a real hassle.

And so Tom and me were completely alone.
We climbed up the first 600 meters until we reached the gate and we started to discuss how to proceed, left or right. Tom was in favor of going left, I was also in favor of going left because going right is definitely very scary; but the map mounted at the side of the road clearly indicated right. Then suddenly we heard a noise: No, not bears raping Japanese hiking groups or a swarm of hornet in low flying attack formation, but the sound of a car. A Tokyo Power (Tepco) 4WD was moving down the road in our direction and stopped at the gate. So we asked one of the guys where to go and they said that going right was impossible and that we should turn left. This used to be the right information at precisely the right moment, almost like a miracle. Thank you TEPCO. I will take care from now on to pay my electricity bills in time.

Then the rest of the climb was a piece of cake, only some 250 meter up with a splendid view on the mountains in less than 30 degree temperature before we reached the gate at the top of Ootoge. We had made it. By the way, there are no „semi“ (cicada) up there so the noise environment is completely different than on the normal lower climbs.
We went down on the South side where the road is in much better shape and also much wider, also like a race track. But definitely is the North approach the more beautiful one.

After a lunch of cold Soba in a nice traditional restaurant close to Otsuki station (The type of restaurant where they have photos of the emperor in his car .. driving by) we continued on Route 20 and then climbed up Suzugane Toge and Hinazuru Toge following road 35 and 517 all the way to Hashimoto. As I said, Tom is really in good shape and he had to wait all the time for me, but it wasn’t that long that he had grown a beard or so. I mean, this is the pleasure of riding out with friends one knows now for so long, such as Tom, David, Jerome and Ludwig.
As a final piece de la resistance we added a North Tsukui lake ride before coming to Hashimoto where I took the train home and Tom made a final run on the One Kan.

More than 200 km for Tom and slightly more than 100 km for me, but close to 3 km of climbing up for both of us in the sun made this a very exhausting and happy day.

Once home, I put the insurance files back in the shelve and called my father.

A more factual account of the day is written here.

Also Tom and me had the same idea, that we should make some investment to enjoy future trips by having something like this. I heard that every Belgian has one, it is like Takoyaki grilling pads in Osaka. As I have studied in Aachen, city borders touching Belgium, I might also be eligible to buy one.

2 Kommentare

Eingeordnet unter 2009, Cervelo Soloist, Mob, Tom

von | 23. November 2008 · 04:05

Positivo Cervelo

Addition to the stable.

Wow. I think we should seriously consider a renaming of Positivo Espresso into Positivo Cervelo. In consideration of all the money we have spend with this company, we deserve some kind of sponsorship.

Still puzzled why the left side of the bike is barred from viewing with flickr (private photo) whereas the right side is not.

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Eingeordnet unter 2008, Cervelo Soloist, James

von | 1. November 2008 · 15:47

High Intensity

Met Ludwig 8 AM at Futago Tamagawa and we headed out for Wada. Beautiful autumn weather, blue skies, Fuji in the background but strong gales and a nasty headwind when riding out. We met Charles at the Tamagawa, every time I meet him he has a new bike. This time it is a Cervelo R3SL with the ultralight Lew Racing wheels.

We skipped the break at the Takao 7-Eleven, instead making one at the Combini at the entrance to Jimba Kaido, then proceeded along the river to the Wada TT start point. After a short break we were getting serious. Perhaps I overdid it a little bit in the beginning, starting too fast. 2/3 up I saw Ludwig only 20 to 30 m behind me, he on his first Wada climb. Then a last sprint to the finish, and he actually overtook me on the last meters. Respect, considering that I had my best Wada time ever, 21:10 minutes (See Togebaka).
One of the NFCC guys (forgot his name) was training at Wada. He went up there three times today.

We then started the descent to route 20, Ludwig then parted to head for Yabitsu, I had an early 門限 and headed back to Sagamiko. I still felt OK and there was a good tailwind, so I tried the Otarumi TT from the Sagamiko side. Again, 17:11 minutes was a new best time for me.
Then the nice descent from Otarumi followed by the rather boring roads along the Asagawa and the Tamagawa in direction home. I met the NFCC guy at the Tamagawa, he had a crash and his front deraileur didn‘ t functioned any longer.

I went to my favourite bakery, Kaysers, bought some nice stuff and started to take care of my family at home. Not such a long distance today, but two nice high intensity rides, app 50 – 70% of the Saiko duration. Another shorter trip tomorrow, followed by one in the mid week and I should be in good shape for the Saiko race.

Otarumi Toge in 1933 [no joke]

[MvH adding:

It was very nice riding on to Yabitsu. Very clear views of the mountains and emerging autumn colours. Too bad I did not bring my camera that day.

From Miyanomae the way to Yabitsu looked familiar. I had taken it before in July, with Michael, David, Juliane and others. Painful memories returned as I was climbing upwards. Only that this time I did not feel any pain at all and was wondering why the same trip had been so much harder just a few months earlier, even without the Wada sprint. The heat must have made a big difference. And maybe the fact that it had been the first time I ever did a bicycle ride over 100km long and bigger mountains up? This time around, the 124km and something like 2,000m climbing seemed like a gentle weekend ride.]


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Eingeordnet unter 2008, Cervelo Soloist, Mob

von | 30. Oktober 2008 · 12:36

Bike weight vs. bike aerodynamics

This is an interesting technical presentation from Cervelo, discussing the importance of bike weight and bike aerodynamics. I hope the link works on your PC, otherwise check here, „Col de la Tipping Point.“

The company’s conclusion in a nutshell:

„Let’s look at the 2007 Etape du Tour, held on one of the toughest stages of the Tour. Our model predicts a time of 8h00m35s (including turns, stops and group riding) for the aero bike. This is 35 sec faster than the light bike with the same 250W rider – despite the very hilly course.“

My conclusion:

„At the average 30 minute duration JCRC race, a better bike would bring an advantage of 2 to 3 seconds. This will probably not be enough to close the two minute gap between myself and the second last rider (unless, Stephen Coady attends).“

Still, I love my Cervelo. As I loved my Cannondale.

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Eingeordnet unter 2008, Cervelo Soloist, Mob

von | 21. Oktober 2008 · 15:08

Matsuhime Loop

With the decisive race in Yokkaichi/Mie-Ken around the corner next Sunday, I thought that I should include a brutal ride into this weeks training regime and add some substantial distance. So far I did rarely rides of more than 200km distance: Itoigawa Fast Run, Shimoda, that’s it almost. So I decided to go to Matsuhime and back, something I have done with Marek, Jerome and David last year in the rain and which turned out to be a most memorable trip. This time I tried it solo.

I left the house a quarter past nine, much too late already. I tried to contact Mike from TCC from which I knew that he would go to Matsuhime as well. Also I mad sure to wear my Positivo Espresso jersey to be easy recognisable.

I took it slow, but not too slow and went along the Tamagawa river towards Ome. Got into a quarrel with an idiotic truck driver.

As I was already late, I decided to skip the break at Ome station and ride on to Okutama Station instead. This was a very hard decision, as it meant that I would not be able to ate the famous royal milk bread from the Ome station bakery. When I passed the station I closed my eyes and tried to think about something else: lung cancer, Bayern Munich, cricket – anything just to forget the royal milk bread. It was one of the most terrible moments of my life.

When I arrived at Okutama station I was less than 3 hours on the the road and the sky was blue and the weather just awesome. I took a short break and pressed on to Okutama lake, then to Kosuge village where I refilled my waterbottle. So far I have been on the road for 4 hours.

I then started the time trial up to Matsuhime Toge. The Positivo Espresso time trial point is the signalled crossing in Kosuge [I guess it is the only signal in town], however that’s quite inconvenient if you would like to do Matsuhime Toge after coming from Otarumi through Tawa and Tsuru Toge. In this case the crossing of both roads is better. Just in case I took both times.

From Kosuge signal it is a gruesome 10 km climb of about 570 m elevation up to the top Matsuhime Toge at 1.2４0 meters. I started to go up at a regular speed and fully under tension. This went very well and I was able to keep the tension up to 1.050 m elevation. Then I lost it a little bit, but after going into survival mode for some minutes I could speed up again. Very fast I could see the signboard shortly before the top. I tried to sprint the last 100 meters up but I was completely done. I checked my time: 42:05 minutes – a huge improvement compared to my July run. I know that I was in good shape as I felt just like Mario Pantani when I moved up the slopes [Note: Mario Pantani in his heydays, before he died, that is]. So after that I felt very comfortable going to Yokkaichi.

After a short break on the top I started the descent. Strange things were going on in my head. This synthetic melody popped up again and again and somebody said: „..to seek out new climbs and mountains, to boldly go, where no rider has gone before ….„.

Not too far from the toge I saw something liquid, green and fast coming up the mountain which looked like this:Well it didn’t look exactly like this as the Liquigas jersey zipper has been opend fully to reveal the manly body below. This view however should be restricted to the over 20 years old I am afraid.

It was Mike from TCC who has started the attack of Matsuhime Toge from the other side. Obviously he didn’t wanted to stop his brutal onslaught of the mountain, so we exchanged only very short greetings. Nevertheless I feel that in the TCC Hall of fame he is qualified for a 20 second deduction of the recorded time.

It was only one of the very few times I met some of the strong climbers from TCC (Thomas, Travis, Phil, Philip, Deej, Sergey, Keren and others) but I heard much from Tom about them. They must be awesome.

I then descended further in direction of Sarubashi and at one point I hit the 67 km/hr mark. Everything was just wonderful. Until I head route 20, which is just one nightmare. I mean, it is better going towards Sagamiko then in the other direction, but with all the trucks and traffic it isn’t a very nice road to cycle. route 246 is even worth but 20 is close. Somewhere I wrote something about the similiarities between route 246 and my marriage (actually I met my wife the first time on 246 in Aoyama).

And then comes Uenohara, with its ridiculous amounts of hills and climbs and of course I had more crashes in Uenohara than in any other country of the world, including Japan, excluding Uenohara. But this time I came through unharmed and after a short break at a 7-Eleven at Sagamiko I made the last serious climb of the day over Otarumi and checked out the location of the Family Mart starting point on the other side of the climb. My estimate is, that it takes about 4 minutes from the Takao 7-Eleven to the Family Mart, or, an Otarumi time trial time of 19:30 min (my best) would be aquivalent to 15:30 hr on the TCC scale.

I continued my way home through Hachioji and then along the Asakawa and it was already twilight. Then something happened, what never has happened before: A flying bird hit me unbraked in the face. The bird must have been drunk, perhaps it was a salary-bird on the way back from a karaoke outing with the other birds from the office. Or it was just a stupid bird. Anyway I started to seriously thinking about upgrading the illumination of my bike.

I reached the Tamagawa when it was almost dark and continued in the dark on the cycle road. I didn’t get hit by anything else but with all the dogs and old ladies on the cycling road in the dark, one has to ride very concentrated and cannot go too fast.

Also it should be noted that the part of the road which is normally closed by chain links, is open in the evening for car traffic and it is not nice at all to ride there.

Anyway, I came home shortly before 7 PM after a long day on the bike and 215 km in my legs. It was an excellent training day and I am ready to do what man must do in Yokkaichi.

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Eingeordnet unter 2008, Cervelo Soloist, Mob, tcc

von | 9. Oktober 2008 · 11:04

Cosmos Everywhere

Weather was superb today so I decided to skip another day of the few days left at office and head out for a ride in preparation of the Yokohama Stadium King of Endurance race on Saturday. I was not sure where to go, so I went to Itsukaichi first and then, getting weak in the knees and thinking about plans for the evening, decided to head for Jerome’s hill rather than for a Tomin no mori trial.

I was giving everything up the hill and thought it wouldn’t be enough. The last meters I wasn’t even able to sprint, I was that much de-powered. I collapsed on the top of the hill, lay flat on the ground and watched the clouds moving in the gap between the trees. Everything was so peaceful.

When I uploaded the Ciclo data at home, somewhat to my surprise I set a new personal best with 08:30 minutes. Now I am only 14 seconds away from the all time best time of Tom. Which is, in all fairness, pre-season Tom’s best time. Now he would be able to cut another minute I guess.There were Cosmos flowers everywhere along the Tamagawa. This is one of my favourite one. Simple, but a lot of colors and signaling the arrival of autumn. You cannot cut them and keep them at home, only see them out in the nature.

I had a good tailwind when I went home and was speeding at 35 km/hr all the time along the Tamagawa. I then completed the whole Jerome hill loop in 4:30 hours.
Yokohama may come.

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Eingeordnet unter 2008, Cervelo Soloist, Jerome, Mob, Tom

von | 7. Oktober 2008 · 14:54

Professionell Hill Climbers Part II Day I

If you want to improve your hill climbing performance you will need to resort to drastic training method.

It is not enough to ride your bike up and down the slopes every day, you also need to be prepared mentally. Virtually you have to spend you life on the slopes. Your whole life becomes inclined – you start to live on the edge of the slopes.

Tom and me know this and we trained hard before we went to attend the Shiobara Hill Climb . When we arrived at the race base camp, we were still suffering from the serious side effects of the training.Here we can see something that happens quite often to professionell hill climbers. Indurain, Pantani, Cippolini, Wim Vansevenant, …. nearly every great rider of his generation felt victim to this degeneration. And all of them got used to it as well. Something that is also true for Tom and me.
[TCC Readers start here]

In no time we were at our hotel and checked in before going on a training ride. Where accidentally I got stung by a bee. This must have been the first time since I was eight year old and I considered this bad karma.
The Shiobara race is a two day hill climb event organized by the JCRC and a Japanese sports newspaper. The race on the first day is a pure hill climb time trial, about 7 km long and 450 meter elevation difference. The track is quite nice actually. First of all, the landscape is beautiful in this part of Tochigi. However during hill climbs I tend not to see any landscape when my heart beats at 170 RPM + and my brain thinks in very little circles. But most important, there are some flatter parts on the road up where one can relax a little bit and save some energy to power up the steeper parts. My guess would be that some of the hair needle curves are up to 14%. I really don’t know why I do this, my only consolation being that I sure would win in my weight class. If there would be one.

The second day consists of a road race which starts about 12 km away from the hill climb on a up/down road before it goes up a hill which leads to the start of the first day race. While we didn’t know on the first day what was awaiting us, we did know very well on the second.

It was still early morning, the weather was fine and we had about five hours time before the time trial would start. I have to admit that I was rather pessimistic about traveling time from Tokyo to Shiobara and I forced Tom to wait for me at 6 AM at Futago Tamagawa. This left us with plenty of time before the start and a so far not experienced feeling of relaxation.

From our hotel, which was somewhat close to the day one start point, we rode back the road to the day two start point in order to familiarize ourselves with the course. The road is beautiful, winding along a river with some nice sightseeing spots.This photo shows Tom and me at a famous spot where a young Japanese maiden called Roleleiko was sitting on the cliffs, combing her Schwarzkopf-colored blond hair and was singing in Flemish
„Ik wess net wat soll et beduteen, dat ik soooo tlaureege been..“ Wheras container ships navigating the river below where smashing head forward down the rapids and into the cliffs trying to escape the terrible combination of J-Pop and Flemish lyrics.

We met Goro-San from the NFCC team on the road who just came in by car. We tried to convince him that we came on the bikes from Tokyo, which he believes for not even a nano-second. Then we went to the start area to watch the other riders suffer. Our highest interest was concerning the women riders start. There was one about 12 year old girl on a Giant bike who was looking not exactly right in place but later smashed the competition and made first place. Overall, judging on the basis of looks, visual expression, legs and bike types, we made a pretty accurate forecast about the finishing results. I also found my personal benchmark (number 920).

Goro-san was supposed to start in B class, not in the lowly ranked D class (which, according to a Friend of Tom is for „beginners“) in which we squirms were gathering. By chance I talked with a friend of Goro who then turned out to be an A class rider and I apologized immediately for accosting him.

And then it was already our turn to race. Already from the start there was a monsterslope.
The D class starting sequence this time was by age, followed by late comers. Tom and me were pretty much the last starters and as the D class was anyway the last group to start, I was afraid that I would be the last rider up the hill.

I started and Tom was then taking off 15 seconds behind me. When I looked after 17 seconds behind me to see if Tom has made the start already, he was just overtaking me. But much to my surprise I was also overtaking the rider who started 15 seconds before me. Then I was overtaken by 3 more riders from the D class and I settled into survival mode, tackling one slope after the other. There were some flat parts where I was clearly faster than the other guys, but mostly I was on my own and no other riders where in sight. The view from the road was beautiful and I never had the feeling that I had to give up. Just pumping, giving everything and looking at the ciclo to check distance and elevation.

At hill climbs I can do about 15 meters up per minute, regardless of slope and distance. So I figured out that I would need about 30 minutes. I checked this with last years finishing times and the winners in the higher classes are at about 20 minutes, 50% faster than me. Unfortunately that seems about right, based on my experience.

Within no time I was at the last kilometer mark. I continued to stay steady and then I rode over some chestnuts by chance. I heard the sound of air coming out of the rear wheel tube. It was about 400 meters away from the finish so I accelerated to ride as long as possible on the bike. Then I noticed that the air was completely out of the tube and when I navigated a curve the bike started to slide outwards. I rode some more meters with the flat rear wheel and then I demounted the bike and walked up the hill.

A lot of people were waiting at the finish, they asked me what happened when I walked up and I said „puncture“. But then the guy who started 15 seconds behind me turned around the last corner and everybody was shouting that I should start to run. And I did run with my bike to the goal and incredibly enough I didn’t made the last place! In fact I was only slghtly slower than the 30 minutes target. Tom finished 15th, in the middle of the field.

Later on, on day two, Tom and me where awarded the special Gambaru-Sho (Persisting in the face of obstacles) price, but this is a different story which will be told on day two.

We went down to the local supermarket where I bought myself a well deserved ice cream and Tom a good bottle of local red wine. We retired at the hotel and went to bed early.
[to be continued]

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Eingeordnet unter 2008, Cervelo Soloist, Mob, Tom

von | 31. August 2008 · 14:47

Last Summer Ride

Met David at his house at 8.30hr, full raingear in my back pocket. Juliane and david as well as James decided to take it easy on Sunday. The sky didn’t look very promising, but nevertheless we were eager to give it a try and add some junk miles. As usually we speeded down the Tamagawa, taking changes in the front. Today was „No matter in which direction you go, strong headwind will always be there“-day. Then we met another American, Michael on his Cervelo Carbon Soloist. How impressive, three Cervelos riding side by side along the Tamagawa. As two of them were still equipped with Wolf SL forks, we were also a potential road hazard.

Michael left us somewhere along the Asagawa and we headed on to the 7-Eleven at Takao station. The Asagawa was full of water and at one point we saw a flooded underpass. I said „Let’s pass through“, and so we went on, but soon discovered that the water was up to the axle of the crank set. Both got wet feet. We then decided to take the road through Hachioji rather than to continue along he river. When we arrived at the 7/11 to our surprise the sky was blue, it was also more humid then the last days and many many fire engines, fire motorcycles and ambulance cars were passing us in direction Otarumi. A lot of the guys from the Ouvest team came down from Otarumi heading back to town. We were a little bit worried that the road would be closed because of an accident. We decided that we would take on Yabitsu today. I put some sun screen on, didn’t bother to do so when I left home. I did not enough and now at home I am looking naked like the Austrian flag (red legs, white body, red arms and face).

Nevertheless I gave a time trial up Otarumi Toge a try. Speeded ahead right from the start and felt OK. But there must have been some headwind. From the start to elv. 270m I was going at more than 20 km/hr, but for whatever reason I finished in 19:54min. A sub 20 min time is good, but not good enough to update the Toge Baka. David came in at 23:40min, obviously because of his fork. Never saw any fire engine again. We then took it easy down to Sagamiko and further on road 412/413/513 to Miyagase Lake. There are no particular points in this route and it is only the approach to Yabitsu, but nevertheless, one should not discount it.

We then took a very long break at Miyagase lake before we continue towards Yabitsu. Took it also easy up Yabitsu. Took as almost 1:07 hr. When we reached the top we were afraid of rain showers, but the other side looked good again and we immediately started the descent. Met another fast guy on his bike going down. Some cars stopped to let us pass. David was first a little bit reluctant to speed and I could easily keep up with him, but once he saw the other guy he became more competitive and neither the guy nor me were able to follow him. We made it quickly to Hadano Station where we parted, David took the train home whileas

I was feeling still pretty strong and wanted to do some mileage before going on a slow business trip to KL. Also the 200 km plus ride to Shimoda paid off. So I went along route 62 to Hiratsuka and then took a shortcut to the road along the coast, route 134. The weather was just beautiful and I felt like 1965 in California with all the bikini girls and surfers around me. Plus finally a nice, strong tailwind so I was going at 40 km/hr plus all the time. Now I started to feel even better. I felt like 1981 and the Barracudas were singing „Last Summer“ in the background. OK, they don’t have that on YouTube so take „Summer Fun“ instead.

Oh, the Barracudas, they have passed the test of time. I love almost every single song of them and if I ever will be dropped on an island and I can take only one ipod with me I will load it to the brim with every available Barracuda song. Even if the island is Japan. And the Best of Album of David Hasselhoff (who, despite his name is not on a rider recall). Sorry, I deviated, I was lost in nostalgia.

Where was I? Oh, yes, I was approaching the shores of Shonan. This was actually the last day of summer 2008, because there is officially no summer in Japan in September. So the last chance to see the beach bars of Kamakura.
Here is a nice statement from Gaijin Tonic about them:

„I’m also looking forward to hitting the beach bars of the Shonan area of Kanagawa, around Enoshima, Zushi and Kamamkura. Many of my female friends hate these beaches because they are dirty, cluttered with gaudy wooden beach bars, and overcrowded with drunk university students in swimwear, setting off fireworks. I, on the other hand, like these beaches because they are dirty, cluttered with gaudy wooden beach bars, and overcrowded with drunk university students in swimwear, setting off fireworks.„

Well said, Gaijin Tonic.

I called my family, to show them the beach and the dirty, cluttered beaches, but they refused to come out. I told them I would take a coffee at my favourite shack, the German restaurant seacastle, proud defender of German tradition on the beaches of Kamakura since 1957. I rode there and when I stood in front of the restaurant, it looked so dark and uninviting an I was so afraid to go inside that I could not muster the courage to ask for a coffee there. Instead I run for the station of Ofuna, where the good trains of the Tokaido and Toyoko lines took me home. I am looking now like Mr. Krebs from Sponge Bob, but it was a very nice riding day and well, it was also the last day of summer 2008.

„It was his last summer, and he started to think / and we stopped surfing and started to drink.“

Of course from the Barracudas.

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Eingeordnet unter 2008, Cervelo Soloist, David