Archiv der Kategorie: Meine Räder

von | 4. April 2010 · 15:09

The Wild Sheep Hunt

Yesterday, Tom rode the giant Yanagizawa Loop, consisting of the climbs to Yanagizawa, Kamihikawa, Sasago, Suzugane, Hinazuru und some other minor ones. Today, David, Jerome and me did the same loop. Almost.

Well, at least that was the plan, when the three remaining Positivo Espresso founding members gathered at Tamagawahara-Bashi at 7:30 AM. The (former) Tamagawa bicycle path, now a major walking path for the hanami-crazy, was full of people so we decided after a while to ride the normal road up to Ome.

Which brings me to the discussion about the Tamagawa path and the recently added obstacles (see for example here). Honestly, I don’t care. I don’t even want to put the argument forward that riding along the Tamagawa is boring and not very challenging and that I have been there a hundred times. Yes, all true but not of general interest. The point is, in my opinion, that the sum of total obstacles doesn’t increase too much, if some fixed obstacles are added to the enormous number of moving ones.

There were simply not that many people when I started to ride along the Tamagawa about ten years ago: people, people with dogs and bicycle riders on the path. It was a fast and simple way to get out of metropolitan Tokyo. But by now, this has changed dramatically: too many moving obstacles. Even if the speed bumbs will be removed, that wouldn’t change too much.

So, riding the (normal) road to Ome was comparatively much more pleasant and we were speeding towards our target like a fusillade of human bullets shot from an AK-47. Or perhaps more like a set of RPGs, given the shape of our bodies.

And so we arrived in Ome in 2 hours and 5 minutes – from my home in Yokohama that is. It cannot be done faster (today). And after a short break at Aurore bakery, we continued our fast ride towards Okutama and further up to the Okutama lake, without any longer breaks. This was the first time that I did the stretch between Ome and Yanagizawa in one go and as you can see on the right side this has now become the CHO TOGEBAKA (cho, in the double meaning of 長い and 超える), given the distance and elevation conquered. This is the mother of all Toge Baka (so far).

Now, when we made the turn at Okutama lake, Jerome was shouting from the top in front of me. Actually he told me, that we should wait for David who was further behind. But I didn’t understand that properly, plus I didn’t saw Jerome waiting, so I was assuming that he would be still riding in front of me. Now, as I don’t wanted to be beaten up Yanagizawa, I accelerated and went quickly around the lake, supported by a nice tailwind. No sign of Jerome. „Jesus“, I thought „He must be in really good shape.“ So I tried harder and exhausted myself completely on the climb. No Jerome came into sight. I had this vision that I was so slow, that David would overtake me with double my speed from behind.

So I run up Yanagizawa at full speed; until 200 elevation meters before the pass when I finally was convinced that Jerome must have been behind me. And I had run out of power. The climbing started to become really, really hard after being in the saddle for almost three hours. All the houses up there are deserted and all the curves looked alike and finally, well, there was the final one and I arrived at the restaurant on the pass which was also luckily opened. Jerome wasn’t there.

I had a bowl of Soba, when Jerome arrived about 10 minutes later. We waited for David, who joined us after further 30 minutes, looking pretty wet and exhausted. In the moment he entered the restaurant, Jerome and me got up from our chairs in good, old Positivo Espresso tradition and said „OK then, let’s go!“.

But the truth was, that I was also pretty much done and I wasn’t fully hydrated and recovered after some days of sickness last week.

So I made the following proposal: „We can do now Kamihikawa, Sasago, Susugane and Hinazuru, so about 34.786 meters (BBiT) of climbing plus an estimated 6.732 km (BBiM *) of distance, or we ride down to Ensan (now Koshu, by the way) and jump into an Onsen.“ Surprisingly enough, all of us opted for the Onsen visit, so we mounted our bikes and made the fast run down to Ensan. There it was pretty hot. The sky was blue, the thermometer showed 17 degrees and after all the cold weather before, we suddenly didn’t felt in the mood any longer to linger in hot water.

So we rode the Fruit Line to Route 20, climbed up again and then took a right turn up to the haunted Sasago tunnel. We took it really easy, at least David and me, while Jerome was frolicking around in faster speed-hemispheres.

Shortly before the gate we met a woman who asked us, if there would be an old hotel further up the road. No, only a haunted tunnel with transparent octopuses living in the vaults. Later David said, that we should have taken a photo of the women in order to check if her body and face would show-up on the print, then perhaps she was only an epiphany of a Fox deity.

The old Sasago Tunnel was filled to the ceiling with maximum horror as usual.

Here we can see David and Jerome, still not suspecting anything, while entering the tunnel from the Ensan side. And here we see David and Jerome and me coming out on the other side, after we have experienced pure terror in it’s most terrifying form in the darkness inside.On top of that there was also a strong wind and it was extremely cold inside the tunnel. And the weather on the Otsuki side of the tunnel was about 10 degrees colder than on the Ensan side.

So we made a fast run down to route 20 and almost froze to death. Then we made another superfast run down to Otsuki station on route 20 which was even more fun. And then we had a superfast express train from Otsuki home; all in all it took me less than 2 hours from arriving at Otsuki station to the door of my house.

A very nice trip with 167 km distance and more than 2.500 meter climbing (mapmyride checked). Could have been warmer, though. The last two rides (Chibchibu and this one) were some of the coldest rides ever. I enjoyed reading about the other rides on the weekend by Ludwig, Tom and the large PE group as well. It is good to know that so many activities are going on and there are so many groups to join.

Notes: I wrote this post yerstday after the ride, but didn’t had the time to edit it and include the photos. So, please take this as an addition to David’s post on the same subject.

(*) BBiM : Blind Believers in Me

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Eingeordnet unter 2010, Cervelo Soloist, David, Jerome, Mob

von | 27. März 2010 · 06:04

The Great Yanagisawa etc. Attack

James, Jerome an me planned to do a 250 km „weekend tour preparation ride“ on Friday which led us to some surprising places.

As it can be read on the ride announcement post, we were planning to attack Yanagisawa Toge (about 100 km away, over 1.400 m high) followed by Kamihikawa Toge and some other minor peaks. So we met very early in the morning at the Tamagawa and made good progress in direction Ome along the main road. We passed the brand-new Fussa town hall, followed by the Ome town hall under construction. What a waste of money (at least they could spend the money for road repairs).　Fussa has a populationof about 60.000.

Until James rear wheel got a flat from a glass shard that penetrated his tyre. Believe it or not, it took the three of us more than 45 minutes to get his bike running again; wasting another tube along the way, ripping apart one of his tyre levers and fiddling around with three bike pumps before we got the thing inflated finally.

So we were late already. And by now it had started to fizzle as well. The general environmental feeling was rather unpleasant, so we had a long breakfast & coffee break at Ome Station shopping at the 7-Eleven, Aurore bakery and McDonalds where we had six cups of coffee for the price of three. James complained to the girl behind the counter that was speaking in a frequency band barely audible by bats, about the quality of the coffee, so we all got one for free.

Later, when we mounted our bikes, the weather has become even worse despite all nice looking weather forecasts. It was miserable. In the best tradition of Positivo Espresso we decided to give up our ambitious plans and ride to Umenoki, hoping that the weather would be better closer to the coast.

It was the first time for James and Jerome to climb up Umenoki and we were all having fun [of different degrees and magnitudes]. James was zooming ahead but suddenly I saw him waiting some meters in front: Because of the recent storms, some trees were lying on the road ahead. But not only that, the trees have fallen in a way that they have ripped off the cables of the nearby power line so we needed to be double careful when crossing all the obstacles to avoid sudden and instant electro-execution.

I made it up to the top in 23:48 min and included that time in a new Togebaka TT (No.21 see right below, James and Jerome might want to add). On the top it was cold (3 deg. Celsius), raining and we met a friendly MTB rider who told us that the weather would be more or less the same down the other side in Itsukaichi.

So we made the only possible and logical decision and headed 4 km to Tsuru Tsuru Onsen, where we bought a towel (110 Yen), stepped into the outside hot water basin and relaxed and talked for almost two hours. We were still hoping that the weather might get better, but it didn’t. Finally we mounted our bikes and rode on. It was hard, because after the Onsen my body was in a mental state of „OK, well done for the day, let’s relax.“

James wife wants to loose some weight to be even more competitive in the next JCRC race so she planned to visit the hairdresser in the afternoon. Which in turn implied that James had to come home early. We parted in front of Itsukaichi Station and Jerome and me continued to climb up to Kobu tunnel. Where the weather was still miserable.

And then we rode down on the other side to road 20 and Uenohara where we stopped to have lunch for another very relaxed hour.

Finally we rode along road 76, taking a turn to include Magino pass (read correctly: Makime pass) in our ride. Makime-toge has a very steep last part with a donut-patterned concrete road but suddenly I felt super-strong again and sprinted up the final approach to the top.

And then we made our way along Doshi-Michi back to Hashimoto where I could convince Jerome that it would make sense to jump on the train home. Most of the riding and climbing was done after the Onsen visit but even by riding until 5 PM, we only managed to go 140 km in almost 12 hours.

In Shin-Yokohama I assembled my (dirty) bike and rode home, passing the skating rink where my wife and daughter have spend the last 5 years almost every day and night. And for the first time I actually met them there outside. So we agreed on a race, who would be home sooner: them with the car, or me on the bike. I won hands down. I even had time to undress and jump into the shower before they came.

Now I guess I should also clean my bike to be in good shape for whatever my bike and me have to endure on Sunday.

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Eingeordnet unter 2010, Cervelo Soloist, Jerome, Mob

von | 2. März 2010 · 01:18

The Honeythieves

After the rained-out weekend I met with Ludwig yesterday at Hashimoto to do a short but climbing-intensive trip over some new roads in the Route 20 / Doshi area under heavy police surveillance.We started on time at 7:30hr in front of Hashimoto station and tried a new shortcut that eventually brought us to the North Tsukui lake road. I wanted to show Ludwig my new discovery, the NORTH TSUKUI LAKE TRUNK EXTENSION which is very silent but in rather bad shape as you can see in the photos. But it has all the ingredients of a wonderful road: Three huge barriers which are shouting at you „Climb over me, please!„, complete lack of any human activities, landslides, and great views. And all of this very close to Tokyo.
From there on we road to road 20 (the origin plan included to ride up Bijotani but I thought that wouldn’t be a good idea in winter, given the conditions of the road).

Ludwig thought about a nice shortcut from road 20 to Akiyama, but we were stopped by some construction works. We tried to convince the guys there that it would be OK to let us pass, but we couldn’t. In the end they were helpful to show us an alternative road which brought as to Akiyama as well.

We then started to climb Kando-Toge (not Ganda-Toge, it seems) which Ludwig has done already once from the Doshi-Michi side and Tom has reported out first in his heartwarming-story about the honey farmers of Doshi who in the 18th century cut this path into the rock with their bare hands in an effort to get access to the free market economy in the villages at road 20. Only to get raided by corporate M&A lawyers on the pass who forced them to integrate their operations into huge Doshi Honey conglomerates, lease the assets to dubious investment backs and sell the not performing bees as sub-prime collateralized debt obligations to the local pension funds. Oh sorry, I come back to cycling now.

The climb up covers about 500 meter elevation difference and the pass is about elevation 800 meters plus. On the top we were greeted by snow, a very much different scenery to the first signs of springs at Tsukui lake.

I wanted to pee, but because of the honey thieves the whole area is still very much under remote police surveillance. I found the only possible place to pee only after some serious thinking (please enlarge for maximum effect).Mount Fuji was now clearly visible between the mountains and after riding down on the other side, we continued to Doshi Michi, and then to road 76 and Makino Toge which I also had climbed only once last year.

After that we continued to Miyagase lake and started to climb up Yabitsu as the cul de sac of the day. When I started the clock, Ludwig said „We don’t do a time trial, do we?“ And I answered: „No, but I don’t want to slog up as well“ So we started pretty fast, kept steady and after we saw another cyclist in front of us we went even faster. After 20 minutes I lost Ludwig who was speeding ahead and I went up my own pace. I wasn’t that good but also not too shabby when I reached the top where Ludwig has waited already for 4 minutes, probably setting a new Togebaka record (which needs to be entered on this blog).

The descent was rather fast, although I was careful on the site of my crash some weeks ago. But I reached more than 69 km/hr on the stretch after the donuts slope which was good enough to reach Hadeno station on time and take a train home.

Incredibly, the whole ride was only 111 km long, but with almost 1.800m of climbing it was pretty intensive and a good start into the week.
Off to Germany now any minute.

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von | 26. Februar 2010 · 05:07

The Down-Jones Index

Yesterday I made a mid-range, run of the mill ride from my house to Onekan, Tank Road and further on to the North Tsukui lake road. So far nothing special.

But on the map I had discovered, that the road around Tsukui lake is actually continuing from the point where we normally make a left turn and fly downwards towards the suspension bridge over the Tuskui lake. So I continued to stay on the small road and after crossing two barriers I found myself completely alone on the abandoned road which is much the same as the beautiful North road itself. I fail to understand why this road was given up a long time ago, as this seems to be an extremely important trunk road connecting the suburbs of Tsukui with those of the villages in the shadows of Otarumi. Road conditions were very poor, some landslides, a lot of debris on the surface and most of the time I had to walk. But after a while I came to a second barrier and I continued on the normal road up to the point where we are normally, coming from Otarumi, take a right turn and cross the bridge first, followed by the tunnel on the way to Tsukui.

A very nice distraction but perhaps better suited for MTBs or cyclo cross bikes.

It was a beautiful,warm, almost-spring day and on the top of Otarumi I thought it would be nice if we would have had lists for downhills as well as for the uphill time trials we are doing. As Otarumi from the Takao side was the first uphill TT we posted on the blog, the opposite downhill would be the appropriate start for the downhill TT which I called for ease of reference the Down-Jones Index (DJI); an expression commonly known to riders from the PE team.

To achieve a good downhill time can also we a nice consolation if your uphill time isn’t that good.

So, I went down in 7:05 min which is probably not very good, but at least a time to start with. See the list on the right.

This corresponds to about 45 km/hr average speed. Please feel free to beat this. But be careful, Otarumi was not the first time I thought about the DJI. The first time was on Yabitsu two weeks ago and then I crashed pretty badly.

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von | 22. Februar 2010 · 05:17

Saturride Full Story

Mishima and Atami are two adjacent stops on the Tokaido Shinkansen line. By Shinkansen train, it takes precisely 8 minutes to travel. It took Ludwig and me almost 10 hours on Saturday.Shinkansen lines are almost straight, direct lines, connecting points with each others. Moreover, they rarely cover higher elevations, so a lot of tunneling and bridging works are required to built these railways. As we didn’t dare to run with our bikes on the Shinkansen tracks, the second best option to ride from Mishima to Atami is to take natinal road number 1 which leads through Hakone and includes a nasty and congested climb and a ridiculously steep downhill from Atami Toge. Yes, 32 km of joyless riding over some big hills. Conclusion: The best way to get from A to B is not necessarily the shortest straight line. Ludwig and me wanting to avoid the mountains, chose the road which circumferences the mountain ridge at Hakone. Unfortunately the ridge continues until the tip of Izu peninsular so our trip on Saturday looked like this:I admit that we cheated in the very South and took a shortcut over Jaishi Toge which turned out to be the highest pass of the day at 370 m elevation.

This time we found the way out of Mishima rather fast and arrived at the West coast road in time when suddenly I felt my leg hurting and my bicycle moving somehow strange. A short inspection revealed, that I have broken another spoke on my Zonda rear wheel, the one next to the one which has been exchanged last month. Luckily Ludwig had a spoke wrench tool with him so we could somehow true the wheel and continue to Atami.The West coast was beautiful as always with blue skies but too dizzy to see mount Fuji in the back. Although the road runs along the coast, there are a lot of ups and downs and it is not easy to keep a good pace. So when we arrived at Matsuzaki, we opted to take the Jaishi road, which was also more pleasant to ride than the rather busy main road along the coast.In Shimoda we met David (another one, not one of the Davids mentioned recently on this blog) and took a look at his sailing boat which he is currently outfitting for the trip from Shimoda to Sydney. He told me before about his plans so I expected a huge boast, two masts at least, perhaps 20 meters long, cannons sticking out from every possible opening, the Jolly Rodger hoisted at the top… but no, this was a rather small boat, which looks to be suitable to cross the Tamagawa for example. But again, I am no expert in sailing.We approved the port but not the boast and then continued to have a quick lunch at the Lawson in front of Shimoda station. Is it OK under Japanese regulations to sit in front of convenience stores in urban locations and check mails on the Blackberry?Now we had a nice tailwind when we rode North along the East coast. But there was also a lot of traffic which was due to the fact that many visitors came to see the blooming plum trees in Izu. Or perhaps the blooming cherry trees. Ludwig and me saw a lot of blooms along the way, but he being an economist and me being an engineer, we couldn’t decide whether they were plums of cherries. Or both.For the first time this year I had the feeling that spring is now knocking on the door. Spring, the season where you suddenly fall in love with the girl selling Tofu at the local supermarket and you start to plan ridiculous long cycling tours for the summer.

Traffic became now really terrible. And drivers in Izu are bad. Or perhaps they are from Tokyo and want to return as fast as possible and they are ready with there nerves.And some of them don’t brake for cyclists. This might be, because they drive Toyotas and they don’t brake for anything because they cannot brake at all.

I started to think about what would have happened if the recent quality issues with Toyota would have happened with Shimano group sets and which countermeasures could be enacted:

„Dear Shimano Dura Ace 7800 group set customer. We are sorry to inform you that under certain circumstances the following situation might happen: You are riding on your bike and you want to brake, however instead of braking you feel the urge to pedal full speed ahead as fast as you can go. Even if you brake you cannot come to a stop any longer. If this has happened, please bring your bike to an authorized Shimano dealer who will upgrade your bike so that in case you pedal full speed and you pull both brake levers as hard as you can, the crank will disengage from the front cog and you will come to an immediate, sudden and perhaps painful stop.“

Now, we took another longer road to avoid the traffic shortly before Ito city (the pointless ride tradition )and I could convince Ludwig that we must complete our original goal and reach Atami in daylight. Which we actually did. Just milli-seconds before the last photon of the day was shot in direction Atami station from the sun, we managed to arrive and take a wonderful evidence photo.

All in all, it was for both of us a trip that involved more than 200 km distance and more than 2.300 meters elevation. I still wonder if we wouldn’t have been faster going over Hakone.



Additional impressions added by Ludwig:

Izu is clearly a lot warmer than the mountains to the west of Tokyo. No trace of snow anywhere, and while we never made it above 340m or so, I think even the highest passes of the peninsula (close to 1,000m) would have been completely free of snow and ice. Worth remembering for future excursions in winter.

As with Miura Hanto, national roads on Izu are pretty horrible. Those on the west side of the island are about as busy as on Miura. The road from Shimoda via Ito to Atami is still a lot worse. It was basically one long traffic jam of 80km, complete with aggressive and reckless driving tourist buses (coaches). The views, especially in the south, are really great, but the traffic is rather too dangerous to do this again.

The kendo stretch on the west side is much more pleasant to ride though not free of traffic either. A few rather long climbs which add to the grand total we did on the day.

This is also where I met a friendly Japanese rider who turned out to be a half pro: racing among the top riders in the top class of Jitsugyodan, the top amateur cycling league in Japan. Also one of the top riders in last year’s Fuji Hill Climb. We rode together for maybe 10km until I decided to let him go and wait for MOB. I was pleased I was able to match his pace up the hills, even getting him (and of course also me) breathless. It was probably the first time I chatted while riding at a heart rate of over 170…

My ride was somewhat marred by problems with my dérailleur – gears were slipping frequently. No matter how I adjusted the tension, the problem would not go away. And unlike before, the dérailleur did not seem to be bend.

The next day I cleaned the bike and found that the dérailleur hanger was somewhat lose. But then I found that fixing it didn’t really solve the problem… I took the bike to Nagai-san’s and had it checked out. It took us a while to figure out that the cable had almost completely disintegrated inside the gear shifter and this was causing the problem. It was good I insisted on this before proceeding to having the cassette and dérailleur exchanged against a new set which I had order the other day.

I’m now riding with a SRAM Red OG-1090 11-28 cassette, which necessitated replacing the 7800 dérailleur against a 7900 one, because of the difference in capacity. 7800 gear shifter, 7900 derailleur, 7800 chain and SRAM Red cassette are working well together. The SRAM cassette is noisier than Shimano’s, because it is made out of one block and hollow inside. In some way that’s slightly irritating, in another it helps to hear immediately when a gear is not shifting properly. I’ll be curious to see what difference the 28 vs 27 will make in the mountains, and the 11 vs 12 on fast runs downhill or with the wind.

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Eingeordnet unter 2010, Cervelo Soloist, Mob

von | 14. Februar 2010 · 16:16

The Cycling Tokyo Gaikan [外環]

We skipped the Izu tour scheduled for Saturday due to the poor weather and instead opted for a ride in the flat floodlands of Tokyo today.

I left the house at 6:11 AM when it was still bitter cold and dark. I guess my Ciclo HAC4 cycling computer cannot display temperatures less than 0 degrees although manufacturer specs are indicating up to minus 19 degrees. But it certainly felt less than 0 and it reminded me to check up one of the blogs I haven’t checked for along while: Up in Alaska.

I choose my toasty Assos Fugu jacket plus the new Gore winter gloves with double inner linings. Moreover, due to the heavy rain and snowfall on Saturday, the road was still wet and there were icy spots …. everywhere.I rode carefully to the Rendezvous Spot at Tamagawahara Bashi when I saw some riders coming from the opposite direction. Later, when home, I learned from Toms blog that it was him and his Vlaams buddies on the way to Miura Hanto. Our ride would have been a nice one for Tom as well, I felt afterwards a little bit sorry that we didn’t invited him to join us.
I met Fumiki, the Japanese rider who helped me out with my flat tire on the way down from Kobu Tunnel some weeks ago and Ludwig on time and we made good speed along the Tamagawa despite the ice. We were double careful in the corners and one time we had to move on the grass as the full width of the road was ice on top of some water poodles. But we managed well. The mountains of Okutama looked spectacular today, all in white and even mount Fuji was partly visible in the back. After a first stop in Ome we continued along some roads through Irima until we made it to the cycling path along Irimakawa. And after another break we were then on the Arakawa cycling path. Meanwhile it had become rather warm and I was sweating in my Fugu jacket and gloves.

The water accumulated on the ground was suddenly subjected to some sun radiation and we could observe some interesting phenomena. It is also interesting what happens long the rivers close to the metropolises of Japan. In Europe we would see a path along a river as an opportunity to cycle, hike, or walk or get out with the dog. Nothing more. In Japan the floodland along the rivers and the pathes on its dykes serve much more purposes. It is the only accumulated mass of land that is wide enough to do different kinds of sports, free of the obstructions of space and noise that are limiting human activities in the cities. Too theoretical? Well, let me give you some examples of what I have seen today:

  • A whole parking place full of people in front of their cars practicing on rock drum kits
  • A Japanese traditional Taiko drumming group setting up their equipment for rehearsal.
  • A paraglider in the sky above Irimakawa (or perhaps Arakawa)
  • Many, many baseballs games
  • Many, many gateball games
  • A unicycle relay race along the Arakawa

And probably I would have seen even more, but hey, sometimes I have to keep my eyes on the road. Ludwig basically went in front for the first large stretch, but I felt pretty good later and we always managed to go with 30 – 36 km/hr along the river.Now there were many people out enjoying the cold but clear day. At one point a small child just crossed the bike bath running between our three bikes and I have no idea how she made it through. It was a very close call and I am really glad that nothing happened.

Within no time we reached the estuary of the Arakawa where we took another break and made some memorial photos. I wrote it many times, but I just love to ride with my bike and experience different landscapes in one ride, notably mountains and the sea, and, in addition today, winter and spring scenery.
Despite going fast, Fumiki was able to hang on with us. Well he is still only 27 years old and perhaps we should groom him for the 2011 JCRC D class championship.Ludwig parted at Tokyo station to make his way home via Shibuya while Fumiki and me crossed the Ginza area (Sunday! Valentines Day!) and continued from Shinbashi to Shinagawa. There is this hill leading up between Sengakuji and Shinagawa to the Takanawa Fire station called Katsurazaka and as it has been on my commuting ride I have gone up there almost a hundred times. I challenged Fumiki to race against me and … he won. Easily.

We then parted after Marukobashi in the area where my favourite cycle shop (Sekine Jitensha) is located in Kawasaki. It is run by an old man, I guess about 116 years old who has once repaired the track bike of Saigo Takamori when he was rebelling against Tokyo.

Half an hour later I was finally home.

One of the rare trips which didn’t called for usage of the bike bag. More than 9 hours out today, total 180 km. Could have made less breaks but otherwise a very pleasant ride. Thanks Ludwig and Fumiki.

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Eingeordnet unter 2010, Cervelo Soloist, Mob, Tom

von | 4. Februar 2010 · 04:46

There is no shirt for the fastest sprinter

I must say I am very impressed by the series of videos about the 2009 season of the Cervelo Test Team as sponsored on bartape.net and/or as video podcast on itunes. Dominic and James have pointed this out.

I include below some screenshots from the videos I have made on my PC with Quick Screen Capture, a very handy tool which works exactly as „print screen“ should work: It takes a precise „photo“ of your PC screen in the moment you press the button, so you can for example also take pictures out of movies which you cannot with print screen. Or from Allsports.

Aesthetically, Cervelo has come a long way from their first bike shown above to the bikes they make today. I am in no position to judge, but looking at the way they design their bikes, their clothes and also now their videos, I believe that aesthetics play a big part in their brand image – and it’s a different kind of aesthetics as compared to other makers and teams. Not as loud and „sportive“, focusing more on melancholy, suffering, pain. The only other cycling-related maker than comes to my mind with a similar image is Rapha.

What I like about the videos in particular is, what is missing: They are almost bare of any direct promotion for Cervelo products (actually the first ones are, but this becomes less and less until the final Tour de France videos). And in addition they are also almost bare of any information about the results of the race the team entered. It is just about cycling and riders speaking about cycling. And combined with the Koyaanisqatsi like soundtrack, again bare of any traces of Euro-techno-beats, it appeals very much to the romantic rider in me. I would love to have seen „Road to Roubaix“ in a similar matter.

Another thing that I learned from the videos is that a cycling team consists of riders, mangers and support staff of many nationalities, Italians, Spanisch, Germans, Australians, Swiss, Norwegians …. and they communicate in English. Naturally perhaps most of them don’t enjoyed (?) higher education and at least my classmates who were brilliant in the gym were not equally gifted in learning foreign languages.

Now, in international business topics as „intercultural management“ and „crosscultural communication“ are big topics and often cited as major factors for success or failure of international business ventures. Now hearing some of them speaking English, I wonder how can they communicate effectively during the races: Some of the Germans speak with accents of German offices in US WW2 movies while the Australians/NZlanders are hard to understand even for me.

As someone who, sitting in a restaurant with his teammates, wasn’t even able to bring across the difference between „fencing“ and „fanzine“ to his English mother tongue teammates, I wonder how they manage to decide strategy on the (poor quality) team radio during a race when every second counts.

All in all it is a very motivating video, I find some traces of my own addiction to cycling included in the footage and after watching it I had the urge to ride out on my bike immediately.

Which I did.

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von | 1. Februar 2010 · 04:57

Boystalk

Rather easy to imagine that this conversation would have happened in the same manner with a new Cervelo bike equipped with a Shimano Di-2 groupset parked in the room instead of a Plasma TV mounted to the wall.

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von | 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.

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Eingeordnet unter 2010, Cervelo Soloist, Mob, tcc

von | 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