there is no "I" in cyclyng

Since some weeks I am pregnant … with the idea to customize a sticker which we could use to mark cycling routes and approved supply dumps along the way.

This will also come handy if we are ever going to publish our routes in the form of a book or a website. I checked out some websites in Japan, but the production is extremely expensive; I checked further in Germany and in the US and finally I have found a source in the States which could supply weather proofed customized stickers.

In a size of 2 inch width they would cost about 200 US$ for 1,000 pieces which is the cheapest I could found. If you know any other suppliers, in particular in Japan, please let me know.

The red frame on the bottom is interned to include arrows for indication of turns, if the road would go straight they can be turned by 90 degrees to indicate with an arrow to go ahead. Of course we can also include warning messages or other comments with permanent markers.

We would paste them on lampposts and guide rails in the most sensible way. Some of our favourite shops like the manju sellers on road #35 or the soba place at the Okutamako may also agree to have them patched to their doors.

What would you think? Would you be interested to have a set of 50 – 100 stickers and share the respective cost?

Don’t worry this post is not about the movie of Jean Renoir as you might have suspected in the first place. And if a movie by him, I assume that you would most certainly prefer „La grande illusion“ which is equally not related with cycling.

Juliane and me rode up from Miyagase lake to Yabitsu pass for the first time perhaps in 2004 or 2005; it started to rain before we reached the top but nevertheless I noted that this is one of the best cycling roads in the Kanto area.

After this I went there many, many times. There is one point on the road perhaps 3 or 4 km from the start, where the forest opens to the left side and one has a wonderful view of the river (Kiyokawa, I assume) and the gorge meandering towards the higher hills. Every time I ride by this place I think „I should come here with my family some day“, or if I ride with somebody else, I make an acclamation to the same effect. But usually there is no time to stop as the clock is ticking and one wants to achieve a sub 50 minutes time in the togebaka records to the right.
But finally yesterday I could convince my family to go there. I set off early in the morning by train to Hachioji and over Otarumi while my family was travelling by car and we planned to meet on the top of Yabitsu.

Perfect blue skies. Incredibly hot and humid plus a strong headwind, not the best conditions to attack Otarumi, but I did nevertheless. And I needed to stop because of a construction site. No new records, no togebaka entries.

It is really difficult for me to ride during these weather conditions, all energy gets gradually sucked out from the body and I was moving really slow. Subsequently I arrived late at Yabitsu where my family was waiting already. It took them less than 90 minutes to travel by car from Yokohama to there.

I assembled the bike of my son (He needs a new one as this one is now to small and I am thinking about this or this or this) and then the both of us started riding down the slopes in direction Miyagase lake while wife and daughter went ahead by car. I taught my son the basics of rolling downhill and maneuvering curves although I think that David would have been a much better teacher.

Much emphasize was placed on a) looking into the mirrors b) shouting „car“ or „car back“ and c) crossing all red lights between Yabitsu and Kiyokawa.
We then arrived at one of the camp sites at the river and jumped into the water. Wonderful, the water was cold, clear and of turquoise color and partly it was so deep that we could jump from the rocks and swim. A most wonderful place as expected and not crowded at all as Japanese summer school holidays have not started yet.
My children then suddenly developed at interest to add further creatures to our assorted portfolio of pets at home (turtles, gold fish, spiders and cockroaches) and started to look for polliwogs.

I told my wife the story of the famous German Enka siren „Lorelei“ and she kindly tried to enact the story on a rock high above the river.And then we rode to Miyagase lake and had lunch/dinner at one of the two approved soba joints (登山) until our kids forced me to buy them french fries, crepes and soft cream at one of the not-approved supply dumps.

I then wanted to conquer Yabitsu one more time while the family was heading back to Yokohama for figure skating training. But I had a flat tire after riding for 10 minutes and honestly speaking I was not too unhappy about. My family picked me up and together we drove back.
A most enjoyable day, combining the pleasures of cycling and family life.

The supplier of our team outfit, F2P, has kindly agreed to supply as with some extra Positivo Espresso customized gloves. Because we are a good customer from Japan (… and only one of three besides Team Comrade [which sounds to me like a bicycle team led by Josef Stalin] and our friends from NFCC]. Because we had some hiccups for the order of our 2009 jerseys and bib shorts. If you like I can forward you my mailbox of app. 347 mails regarding this subject.

Anyway, I have no idea how the gloves will look like and how the quality will be, but I assume that they a) can be worn in the summer and b) are designed for cycling purposes as opposed to gardening, fishing or rectal cancer prevention.

After distributing them to the team members who have ordered jerseys we might have a limited number of gloves available for free distribution.

If you would like to have a pair, please let me know your preferred size (European sizing, XS to XXL) and your mailing address.

Lately I was thinking about riding a cycling guide for the greater Kanto area. I thought about it, when I was in a train riding home and it seems to took forever. This is a commonly observed phenomena, in particular when one is travelling in the opposite direction of where one wants to go.

After changing the trains I thought if I would really by the appropriate person to write such a book? More doubts came yesterday. The weather was as good as it can be during the rainy season and after arriving relatively late at Nakayama station I took the train out to Hachioji, this time in the right direction. After a few junk miles within Hachioji I found myself behind a Japanese rider with an ugly OAKLEY jersey who was going fast on the flat in direction Takaoguchi. He even rode free handed so I thought, if this is the competition it might be interesting to race up to Otarumi.

With fresh legs I stayed behind the guy and watched his leg muscles at work. They didn’t seem sooooo impressive. And right, just when the road started to have a little bit of a slope he started to struggle at 25 km/hr, going slower to 23 km/hr. Strategically it is better to wait longer behind him until he is complete exhausted by my presence, but I felt confident enough to go ahead. So I accelerated to 30 km/hr, flew by and within seconds I had laid quite some distance between us.

Now the bad thing about doing this kind of manly, competitive riding is that if you do not have the self confidence that you are really, really superior, you are getting really, really worried and start to look over your shoulder, which is very, very uncool.

I am still lacking stamina and when my speed dropped to 15 km/hr at the higher part I got worried. But in the end I made it up in 14:25 min which is not such a bad time for me and which deserved a toge baka entry. Done.

I immediately descended on route 20 which was awful as usual and then took a turn at Fujino station in direction Wada, Tawa, Tsuru and Kobu. My plan at this point in time was to do a re-run of a terrible ride I did with Tom, Laurent and Nishibe during a time of extreme summer heat last year.

Last year the idea was to leisurely ride out to Ensan on Saturday, play with snowwhite at her bar, take a good nap and tackle Odarumi Toge the following day.

It was the idea of Tom to avoid some of the busy streets and add some more spice to the ride out, so that’s why we went over Wada, Tawa, Tsuru und Imagawa Toge before arriving at the climb for Yanagizawa Toge. On which point I returned home, completely exhausted. I never went to Odarumi, something I still have to make up for.

Anyway, so I was planing to do Tawa and Tsuru first, also because David is constantly telling that this is such a nice ride. I have been there only in winter and my memories are somewhat different, so I wanted to check it out again.

So I was climbing up through the bloody golf course hills of Uenohara, a climb I doesn’t like at all and then the landscape got nicer and I thought, „Hm, David is right after all“. And then I arrived at Kobu Tunnel.

Which is very, very wrong, because this is the way to Kazahari Toge or the return to Itsukaichi. I have missed a crossing further down and I was pondering whether I should ride back or if I should just continue my trip but substitute Tawa and Tsuru with Kazahari. This would add some more climbing meters to the plan but would surely be the manly thing to do. So I went for this option and slowly I made my way up to Tomin no Mori.

Where I had a nice conversation with an elderly motorcycle rider who has ridden on his bike all the roads we want to go : Odarumi, Mikuni, 76 to Tanzawa-Ko, Kami Hikawa, Sasago … we could exchange some information.

The ride down from Kazahari was perfect, on weekdays there is not that much traffic on the road and the road itself is now in perfect shape. It was easy to go beyond the magic 60 km/hr mark.

Then I continued along road 411 to climb up to Yanagizawa. And I arrived at the entrance to Matsuhime Toge. Again I have missed a turn and took the wrong road. Surely it was now time to abandon the original plan and return home either via Matsuhime or Ome. But I could not get used to the thought so I decided to climb up to Imagawa Toge and take the „shortcut“ back to route 411.

Imagawa Toge is hard, especially if you have a speedy Otarumi, Kobu Tunnel and Kazahari already in your legs. Some stretches are really steep. Still in my memory from the ride last year I remember Laurent who didn’t wanted to demount his bike and was desperately clinching to a lamp post along the road with both hands.

But I made it somehow up to the final elevation of almost 1.000 m although I was awfully slow (I would require a lighter speed vest with one digit). And when I returned to road 411 it was already late and I had no food as I didn’t bought anything since Otarumi but I thought, OK, now up Yanagizawa because otherwise you can not write something on the blog.

So I rode up Yanagizawa which is long, long, long and long. Also on this road to nowhere there are some new tunnel constructions or abandoned constructions. And after a very long ride I finally arrived at the top after 5 PM. Somehow My stomach was empty and I also ran out of water but the last 300 meters I was climbing faster than up on Kazahari. Strange.

The restaurant or shop at the top of Yanagizawa was closed. That was very bad news, because I needed food and water. And also the weather was completely different on the other side of the pass: Thick mist, maximum visibility perhaps 50 meters, bridges leading to nowhere in the clouds. A surrealistic run down.

i also checked out the entrance to the Kamihikawa Toge road but I was not stupid enough to add this one to my list of achievements.

And so I arrived at Enzan.Almost 2.900 meters of climbing but only 120 km of distance as I cut out all the junk miles at the start and at the end. Six hours on the bike, almost no longer breaks.

Still a mystery to my why I was so confused with the directions. Was the train trip the day before some kind of divine hint that I should be more careful. That was, what I was thinking going back on the train to Yokohama. Next to me was a blond gaijin woman sitting. I am pretty sure I saw her at the Russian embassy when I was visiting Thierry there.