I came across this brush for cleaning the rear cog of a bicycle at Bic Camera in Yurakucho after having lunch at Muji Meal yesterday. Please note the fine print bottom left.
Well I guess you need teeth like a horse to use this brush.
How to use the tooth brush and avoid dreck all over your frame…neat & tidy and no splashing!
Eingeordnet unter 2009
My assistant has got excited by our adventures described on this site and would like to buy a road race bike. Any recommendations for an entry-level bike that she can buy easily in a shop in Tokyo?
Eingeordnet unter 2009
One of the recent posts on this blog about the pros and cons of standard and compact cranks really hit me. I started to think day and night about cranks and I could barely sleep, drink, eat or ride my bike, activities which are said to be the mission of the Positivo Espresso team. In case you forgot, please look at the backside of your team jersey.
Lately I have been attested to have only „decent knowledge of bicycles“ by an the Japanese outpost of a large US bicycle company, which name is similar to the German word DRECK. So before making any further statements about compact cranks and which one to buy, I did a long research on the web which lasted until today. Probably there are many things you know already, but perhaps there is the one or other guy out there with the same poor level of bicycle technology level as I have.
THE SUMMARY – WHICH ONE TO BUY ?
The reasonable choice : Shimano Ultegra SL FC-6650-G
Yes Shimano, which is not really considered cool because everybody has them, but otherwise everybody would agree that most of the products they are doing are of very good quality and durability and reasonably priced. In particular if you don’t buy them in Japan. Also the Ultegra design is in my viewpoint good, much better than the bulky Dura Ace design which I really, really dislike. And do you hear often of quality issues or product recall with Shimano components? And you can get spareparts everywhere in Japan on short notice- try this with Champagnolo or Side (my experiences).
This one is all aluminium but has a hollow crank which helps to reduce weight to 808gr, including bottom bracket. This compares to around 650 gr for more expensive products without bottom bracket weight. No need to resort to carbon here.
One can have different crank arm length between 165 and 175 mm, but chainrings are available only in 50/34. But this should be OK. The BOD [bolt cicrle diameter] is 110 mm (standard crank 130 mm) so you should be able to use chainrings of other makers as well.
Is designed for a bottom bracket of 68/70 mm with English threads – the standard we all have. And can be bought for example here for 161 Euro / 20.000 JPY which is very reasonable indeed.
So enough talked, I went to Nagai-San’s shop this week and ordered one to replace my Lehman-Force, sorry SRAM Force standard crank.
The Carbon One : FSA SL-K Light Compact Road
Apart from the usual suspects Shimano, Campagnolo and SRAM, FSA has a very wide range of cranks in their product portfolio, road compact cranks alone account for 8 types.
This one is already on the bikes of Ludwig and Bryon mounted and so far experiences have been good. Although the outside of the crank is carbon and it is described as „hollow“ is it not: There is an internal I beam (made of aluminium?) inside, providing the required strength and stiffness.
Thus the weight with bottom bracket is 780 gr, not too much lighter than the much more cost competitive Ultegra. But the design looks good with the carbon crank which is available with length between 170 and 180 mm.
For a carbon fork the price tag of 455 Euro / 57.000 JPY is in the middle of the competition, being more expensive than a Shimano Dura Ace (not Carbon) and in the same class as a Campagnolo Record.
There are not so many infos on the FSA site about other techical specifications. It seems that you can also use this crank with a bottom bracket of ceramic bearings of which Bryon was much impressed.
Let’s spend heaps of money : THM Clavicula
THM is a German manufacturer of high performance carbon components. This crank called Clavicula (I guess it means collor bone) weights only 410 gr, of course without the chain rings which needs to be purchased separately (BCD 110 mm). Can be mounted an English threads bottom brackets 68 mm, cranks are available with 170 to 175 mm length.
It looks perfect, very sleek, question is if this is really needed.
Please dive deep into your pockets: 920 Euro / 115.000 JPY needs to be paid. Perhaps it would be better to buy another cheap bike with compact crank for this amount of money.
Apart from this, there are many other makes on the market for compact cranks, I list below the most interesting ones:
And it is also interesting to note that some makers do not sell their cranks any more, for example DEDA and Ritchey.
I summarized a lot of the information in an xls file, if you are interested to get it, please send me a quick note.
Eingeordnet unter 2009
I just saw an info from EDGKM at the TCC website about an endurance race hold on 7/3/09 from 8 to 12 which looked interesting. The deadline for application is Feb 6th, but as usually it would be safer to apply much before that.
This is NOT a mamachari race!
The race is hold in Saitama, Toda City less than an hour by train from Shinagawa. Four hours endurance race on a flat track, teams of 3 to 6 riders are accepted. 8.000JPY/rider. I guess we could go there early in the morning and be back for tea.
This looks like a nice race to start the season and it would be nice if we could get a team of 3 to 4 riders ready. Please let me know if you are interested. More information in Japanese is here.
Eingeordnet unter 2009
Early on Sunday morning Positivo Espresso assembled a large group of eight riders on the shores of the Tamagawa. At good speed we first cruised along the river, overtaking countless less competitive Japanese amateurs, the riding along Asakawa until we arrived at the 7-Eleven in front of Takao station, the Positivo Espresso approved refreshment stop.
Ludwig and me felt good, so we went for a fast ride up Otarumi Toge. We wanted to draft each other up, however our plan failed already at the start point where Ludwig overtook a BMW on the right at the lights, while I stayed behind the car. I was not able to recover the gap which was then created and could see Ludwig speed ahead in front of me at the steeper parts of the climb.
I felt really good, but made only a disappointing 15:27 min up to the top, way below my best times. Ludwig did well. I was although not completely exhausted and I felt that I could have raced a little bit faster if I had really tried. For a winter TT the result wasn’t too bad.
Here he is positioning the camera.
And here he is asking for some additional information which were unfortunately not at all correct.
There was already some ice rain on top of Otarumi and we were wondering if we could continue. But as usual the weather on the other side of Otarumi is different than on the Tokyo side and once we were back in the lower reaches the situation was OK.
We continued towards Tsukui lake where we take a very nice road over a small hanging bridge and then along the North side on a very small scenic road. Just wonderful and incredible that we haven’t found this road earlier.
We then continued to ride towards the Hiroshi-Mitsubishi tank training range road, which we somehow missed and then along the Minami Tama One Kanbu towards the Tamagawa. This is a very nice and fast road indeed with many ups and downs. One could race there at a good pace and we were testing ourselves against two younger Japanese riders.
Unfortunately there was a group of apparently non-Japanese cyclists who drove through the occasional red traffic light. Mistakingly believing that Ludwig was the leader of that unidentified group, he was approached and reprimanded by the Nalsima cycling police. We others watched interested as he got approached, but didn’t felt much called upon and rather less inclined to join the discussion. In true local fashion, Ludwig took all the responsibility on himself even though he didn’t really feel any.
After going home I thought about what the guy said and I would like to give him some credit because his arguments were not along the lines „This-is- the-rule-in-Japan-you-know, an argument which one hears so unnecessarily often. These days „rule“ is also frequently replaced by „compliance“ which already has made inroad into general usage. Bad enough, there should be a law confining usage to business matters.
We parted at the Tamagawa river and I rode home through Yokohama where I arrived after 118 km in the saddle. It was a very pleasant and fast ride with a good group. Although we were at different performance levels we could stay together and have fun. I had plenty or opportunities to climb, draft, go fast downhill and make the occasional sprint, I guess this is also true for the other riders.
Could do this more often, it doesn’t need to be the weekend 180 km tour every weekend.
But there is also a nice park and one appreciates the fact that the sea is close.This is the right time to break a sec
ret:
So when I spoke to the hill-climbing bike population of Tokyo, I often heard the opinion expressed that Tokyo is a city in a valley, surrounded on all four sides by mountains, of which one the highest are to the South and impossible to climb.
So Ludwig and me „took a mental note“ (one of the most notorious quotes of my previous boss. It basically means: „Don’t bother me with that. I will forget once I have left the room.“) to tell our king about this magic island once we return to court. Then we fiddled our way around Shin-Kiba and arrived at the bicycle superhighway along the Arakawa.
Wow, this is something riders from the Tamagawa can only dream about. If Arakawa is route 246 at approximately Atsugi, the Tamagawa is a side street to Takeshita Dori in
In one word, flat, wide, beautiful weather, good tailwind initially and Ludwig
and me went fast in a draftline for at least 20 km. We tried some race tactics, were frolicking around and trying to sprint away from each other after coming out of the draft.
In no time we arrived in Kawagoe where we continued along the Iruma river.Here the cycling pathes are much narrower and there are some unpaved stretches. 
The cycling path around Kawagoe was OK but not great. Finally we found our way on the road to Ome, where we crossed a very small part of Chichibu and then finally arrived at our beloved Aurore bakery in front of the station where we just by chance met Denis. Yes, we have done it, we found the East passage to Ome and were greeted by the aborigines.
Then, after having the obligatory Royal Milk Bread, we continued along the Tamagawa to Sekidobashi where we made a final break. It was already dark and I decided to take a train home, while Ludwig continued along the Tamagawa to his house.
Basically we had done one complete loop around Tokyo (185km from and to Ludwig’s house), something like a grand version of the Yamanote Challenge.
Unfortunately when I came back to the court at home rather late, the queen was not very amused by my brave endeavours which took slightly more time then envisaged, and sentenced me to two hours of math home works with my son.
The best food ever invented has now finally arrived on the counters of Japanese food retailers. Please note the „cyclist only“ design. I knew it right from the start that this will enhance my performance.
I found this article at the TCC website and thought that it may give a hint for some challenging goals in 2009 for Tom. Unfortunately we have already January 15th, so better to hurry up, 5.000km already lost.
Tommy Godwin
Imagine cycling three times around the world in a single year. Imagine getting up at 3am and spending every day in the saddle for eighteen hours covering over two hundred miles. Imagine riding from Lands End to John O’Groats and back every week, whatever the weather for nearly a year and a half without a break. Imagine riding this upon a heavy steel bike with only four gears, having to pick yourself up after injury, crashes or mechanical failures and then ride even further the next day.
In 1939, Tommy Godwin turned this into reality and entered the golden book of cycling as the greatest long distance rider in the world. He rode 75,065 miles in a single year to set an endurance riding record that will never be beaten.
Tommy Godwin, was born in 1912. To help support his family, he took the position of delivery boy for a greengrocer’s shop. With the job came a heavy iron bike, complete with metal basket. Tommy loved that bike and rode it like a demon on his daily round. The basket was hacked off and at the tender age of fourteen Tommy entered his first twenty-five mile time trial. He flew round in 65 minutes winning the race and setting a standard that would define the rest of his cycling career.
Tommy grew quickly as a cyclist and was soon spotted. He left his amateur status at Potteries CC to join Rickmansworth Cycling Club as a professional rider. After more than two hundred road and time trial wins Tommy sought a new challenge and the year mileage record beckoned.
In 1937 the Australian Ossie Nicholson had regained his year record from Briton Walter Greaves by covering a verified annual mileage of 62,657.6 miles. At 5am on January 1st 1939 Tommy set out to bring the record back home. He wasn’t alone in his attempt; two other British riders started that day, Edward Swann and Bernard Bennett. Swann crashed out after 939.6 miles, but Bennett fought it out with Tommy for the rest of the year.
The details that surround Tommy Godwin’s record belittle the modern cyclist. His bike weighed well over 30lb. As war came he rode through blackouts, his lights taped to the merest of glows. He had none of the modern cycling comforts. Silk knickers were substituted for chamois inserts and Tommy maintained his strict vegetarian diet throughout. For the first two months Tommy’s mileage lagged 922 miles behind Nicholson’s record-breaking schedule. Fighting back Tommy increased his daily average beyond 200 miles per day, and on Wednesday June 21st 1939 he completed a staggering 361 miles in eighteen hours, his longest ride of the record.
On October 26th 1939, Tommy rode into Trafalgar Square, having completed 62,658 miles, gaining the record with two months to spare. That wasn’t enough. He rode on through the winter to complete an astounding 75,065 miles in the year. Still that was not enough; in May 1940 after five hundred days of riding he secured the 100,000 mile record as well. Tommy dismounted his bike and spent weeks learning how to walk again before going off to war.
Tommy returned in 1945, keen to race again as an amateur. However, despite a huge petition signed by hundreds of fellow cyclists, the cycling governing bodies ruled that having ridden as a professional he was forever barred from amateur status, Undeterred, Tommy focused his efforts on others. He became team trainer and mentor to the Stone Wheelers, instilling his own steely brand of enthusiasm and determination to riders old and young alike.
After all these years ( one, to be precise) Jerome has finally been able to create his own Google account and he can now blog and comment under his own name – great to have you with us.
Jerome, in case you would like to change your profile photo, here are two suitable alternative.
LUDWIG
MOB and me joined the TCC for a ride. Pictures below – MOB’s report to follow.
MOB’s REPORT
Nowadays Ludwig and me are sharing the workload of blogging after riding out together: Ludwig shoots the photos and I write the report around it. I think it would be even better if Ludwig rides out alone, so I could have even more time available to blog and wouldn’t be so exhausted.
Anyway:
Being born, choosing French or Latin as second foreign language in school, marrying, skiing with carving skis, buying a compact crank, going out riding with TCC, getting a divorce, committing suicide, ….. all of these are important milestones in life. And once we have completed them, we often ask ourselves: „Hey, why didn’t we do that earlier – that was great!“ [Perhaps, except for the last one in the list].
Ludwig and me decided to ride out with TCC on one cold morning in January recently and both of us were pretty sure that this would be as close to committing suicide as it would get. We had heard from Tom and read on the TCC blog a lot of things about the TCC riders and the rides they do: It is the stuff that Marvel Comics are made off – supernatural beings in hostile environments, flying up the slopes leaves nothing behind but the smell of burned rubber and other cyclist staring in awe.
Also, if you read the TCC blog carefully, you will have noticed that comments such as „… where I took the wrong turn and couldn’t find the group any more“ or „where we finally lost LeeJ ….“ or „so we continued without them…“ are quite common. Wouldn’t we be lured into the snowy mountains just to be left behind and die?
Should we really dare to ride out with these guys? The team decided that their three ace riders, Tom, Ludwig and me should give it a try, as all the other aces were not available on that day and we were most easy expendable. I felt also increased personal pressure because as the JCRC D class champion 2008 I would become the target of a „Beat the Champion!“ competition on every hill. In addition, as some TCC riders are reading this blog, I would also be required to write something funny about it later.Hm, cannot do that possibly.
Strategically minded, I take the train in the morning to Hachioji and then ride the remaing 5 km to Takao station so that I am fresh and reasonably warmed up. I am too late, everybody is already waiting at the Family Mart! I stop, flash my smile and say „Hi, I am Michael, sorry to be late!“
About five Japanese rides stare at me in complete surprise and don’t know what to say. I look around and see Thomas shouting from the other side of the road: „Michael, we are here!“ Oops, that wasn’t a good start.
But everybody turns out to be very nice indeed, plus there are some more Cervelos so I feel almost at home.
In case you don’t know this: Takao station as more exits then Shinjuku station. Honestly. So the statement „Let’s meet at the exit of Takao station“ is about at the same level of precision as „Let’s meet at the nice Japanese restaurant in Shibuya“. Which then in turn led to significant delays before all eleven members of the ride were assembled and we could start the climb to Otarumi.
TCC riders are most impressively fast. Ludwig and me were already almost on the edge of our performance. We didn’t blame ourselves and our team completely but I was significantly slower and we were more sweating, while some of the TCC riders went up … chatting with each other. Hm. So we took a last photo of all of us together and Tom decided to head back to his Bruxelles sprout.
I heard wonders about the hill climbing skills of Alan, Deej, Philipp and Thomas, just to name a few, but these guys are also fast on the flat. Luckily the group was waiting at every junction for all riders to arrive before continue on this trip.
We took some new roads inside the route 20 / 139 / 413 magical triangle which we didn’t knew yet. To our complete surprise, despite the season and the hot tropical climate of Japan, some of the roads were completely covered with ice and we could only proceed walking. Who could have guessed that.
Subsequently, we had the first casualties, Naomi falling down on an icy part of the road and Alan having a flat tire. Everybody took it with grace. 
Another break. The Coke vending machines chokes 300 Yen but refuses to provide any drinks. Naomi complains with the owner of the shop behind it who immediately phones Coke headquarters in Atlanta. She get’s a written apology, her money back and a handful of nice hoshigaki which are distributed.
The self declared four „wimps“, who are actually enjoying riding a bike much more than walking beside it, decided to turn back when we reached finally safe grounds on route 35. I am sure that on this day they made more miles than anybody else of our group – a wise decision indeed.
The remaining six riders then continued on road 35 towards Hinazuru tunnel. Ludwig is making the pace and Lee and me are trying to follow him.
Unknown to the TCC riders Ludwig and me were steering the group towards the Manju shop because we have a lucrative contract with the owners and we are getting a fair share of the profit of every Manju sold through our introductions. They are really good I believe honestly nevertheless. Really, really good. Honestly. I think TBS or Fuji TV should dispatchgroup of talentos to this where they would be filmed eating manju and the women would look in surprise and say „Oiiishiiiii“ and the men would shout „Umai!!“, which is the proper Japanese way for talentos to state that something is good tasing.
honestly nevertheless, they are gpod. And you can even choose between Anko and Miso taste. 
This is one of the traditional places where Positivo Espresso are required by tradition to stop and take a break.Everybody had a good time there and Naomi even decides to take some Manjus home. 
In the best tradition of Positivo Espresso the group decides to give up the plan to make the grande loop to Doshimichi and settle for the tunnel, than to turn back to Tokyo. Ludwig and me are still not satisfied with what we have done and we decide to continue and try to climb Suzugane pass. We say Goodbye to everybody else and continue through the tunnel, almost with tears in our eyes. 
Everybody has been so nice and friendly, completely different from characters in marvel comics.
On the other side of the tunnel the road is still free of snow and ice. After some searching we find the entrance to the road to Suzugane. Up to the country club the road is free of ice, but then it is getting worse, I feel like on a skiing trip.
We ponder what to do …. after some serious discussion I can convince Ludwig to continue to go up. The road is now completely covered with snow. There is nobody there, no cars, no sounds, only the noise of cleats and shoecovers getting destroyed by walking on ice. 
Finally we reach Suzugane Toge where a signboard prohibits traffic to continue further. Of course we do not let ourselves be affected by such blant and unreasonable statements and we start the descent in direction Sarubashi.
After a while the road becomes almost ice free and we continue to ride. I cannot clip into the pedals and need to remove a huge lump of ice and snow under my shoes.
But then we are back on route 20, where there is not much traffic and a nice tailwind so we are flying home in direction Tokyo. Yes, that’s fun, that’s bicycling riding … we should do this more often … why didn’t we do that in the first place, perhaps we should include „taking route 20“ in the above list?
So after a long ride of 92 km (for me) we arrive at Uenohara station and call it a day. There is really no reason not to ride out with TCC more often. As long as we can take them to the manju shop.
11-23
Rot Weiß Silber Schwarz
what ?
[not for real]
Geldgrab mit 61 Zähnen.
Fuchsien Schönheit
Japan Braut
Blau Gold Weiss
Track Version
Zu schön zum fahren
7 kg Plastik und Blech
Motobecane, Raleigh oder Peugeot?
Beginn der der Fixie Liebe
... what you gonna do ...
Nun komplett in blau
Leider nicht in Gunmetal Grey
Da einzige RH 60+ Rad in Tokyo
Keep on cruising in the free world
Der Todesstern
Daccordi Universum
Design follows function
Blau Rot Silber
Arktis Blau
CIÖCC. Hannes.
Drei Farben. Schwarz.
Beim Shopping.
Schwarz Rot Weiß
Shopping Blockade Runner
Entlackt
Viner Black Viper
Gross und Gelb
Oops.
Zwischen Florenz und ....
Dancelli O-nabe
Prinzessinnentraum
Aus einer anderen Galaxie
Fixie Projekt
Concorde Twin
Lange Geschichte
Classic Cyclone
Für Manu
Für Midori
Deutschland !
Grelle 80er Farben
Reus
Gold wert ?
Für Shozo
Neunziger eben
British Racing
Wait and See
Kotter für Heike
Colnago Super XL 1988
bikesnob28hb
fixiefanboyhb
sudi1662
there is no "I" in cyclyng 
