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Beginner Ride- Tomin no mori

EricinIkebukuro

Speeding Up
Jan 30, 2011
414
16
Hello all,
I plan on riding to Tomin no Mori this Wednesday (if there is no rain) and wanted to see if anyone is interested in joining me. Starting time will be 8am in Shinjuku, departure time is no later than 8:15am. I will be there if the weather forecast the night before shows a 50% or less chance of rain. It its more then that we can check the radar map and make up our own mind and talk about it here. Exact location will be the south west corner of Yamate-dori and omoe-kaido (route 4)http://maps.google.com/maps?msid=209728274316233610287.0004ab7cbe6d808ad7282&msa=0&ll=35.697181,139.683394&spn=0.002418,0.005112&z=18&vpsrc=6

This will be a beginner ride so average pace will be about 25km/h. There are a few combinis I have in mind to take quick stops along the way be we can stop in other areas if needed. Once we reach the beginning of the climb, this will become a WATT ride (Wait At The Top). There is a nice little food shop that has a few tasty set meals that we can have for lunch. After that it will be the fun descent along the route we took until we return to Shinjuku. Total this ride is about 160k, but because of the slow pace it shouldn't be too hard for a beginner.

I hope some over you will brave the clouds and the mountain with me.

cheers
 
I may be up for this - if no one jibes in, let's leave 2-3hr earlier, skip the conbinis, and ride faster. Should be able to get back by 12.30 or 1.00 if we leave by 5.30 or 6.00 I can use it as my last 'peak assault' training ride before Nairiki.
 
Hi, I am free Wednesday and would love to join you. If you want to go along with Tim's suggestion to start earlier and ride faster that is fine too...I can't promise I will be able to keep up, though I'll do my best. Just drop me if I hold you up!;) Of course, slower pace and combinis is cool too.
 
Unfortunately vacation's over and back to the 'normal' 6 day workin week (yes that says 6).
 
As it stands so far no beginners have joined so I don't mind doing tim's suggestion of making this a bit more challenging. Quicksilver, if you stay in the draft behind us i'm sure you should be just fine. starting earlier would put us ahead of the traffic and heat for the most part.I'll keep a close eye on the weather forecast.
 
OK, thanks...and early sounds good to me. I hope I wont need to draft the whole way. I know my general fitness level will not match up, but I don't mind a bit of a challenge:warau:. I'll be watching the forecast too...
 
We'll be lucky if we are not drafting QS the whole way! He crushed me on the Azami line :)
 
Tim, was that on your fixie? If you made it up on a fixie, that's victory in itself and any comparison to riders on geared bikes would hard be valid...
 
At the moment we have 80% chance of rain tomorrow. Should we call if off or wait until tonight to check the weather and call it at say 9 pm tonight?
 
I wouldn't take Tim's 'crushed' too seriously. I managed to do a lot better than I could have dreamed on Azuma thanks to practice on the course and a very low gear. In contrast, Tim came at it after a week or whatever of heavy drinking in China, and was just recovering/warming up for an even longer hill climb the following weekend. However, I appreciate the sentiment and am really keen to join you all on a ride soon. :)
which brings me too...
...the weather forecast, it sadly looks awful, in spite of today's sunshine:( I leave the protocol to you but will check back here after 9pm to be sure.
 
Well It definitely looks like it will rain tomorrow, so tomorrow's ride will have to be canceled...I was dying to get out on a long ride this week too (>_<) just gotta wait for the rain to go away
 
Well, I may go do this anyhoo --- will be up early if you want to give me a call. Another option is to rinko it out to Itsukaiichi, then do Kazahari Rindo. Or, I might go do Nairiki again and hoping they have cleared the landslide.
 
The forecast is actually not that bad and you might be lucky. Thursday and Friday look much worse.

I'm just back from 10 days in Kusatsu. Must be the wettest place in entire Japan. First five days were continuous rain. Thereafter slight improvement, but still quite some rain most days. The Royal couple brought us some sunshine over the weekend. But also lots of disturbance (got pulled off the road to let the Emperor pass, nosy security people just about everywhere, cancelled viola lesson so that my teacher could play with Michiko-sama, etc.).
 
I'm still a little afraid to ride in the rain right now. If I happen to go down because of the rain, I risk re-breaking my collar bone as it has just only healed up. Descending a mountain in the rain might be a little too much risk for me.

Ps I've ordered a Felt TK2 track bike! It should be coming any day now. Soon as I get some experience and kilometers on it, I wanna take it to a velodrome.
 
How can the weather report be so wrong?! It said 90% chance of rain. I wake up and it's clear blue skies..... I can't believe it
 
I think you looked at the forecast for the full day. Doesn't mean it's 90% in the morning and afternoon...
 
Done! As Ludwig noted - the morning was fine. In fact, it was sunny with broken clouds all the way to the top. The barometric pressure was not due to drop until about noon - and almost exactly from that time, the weather started to muck up a bit. But - since I planned to bail at Itsukaiichi - there was plenty of dry time (and it's still not raining) to make it back. My Garmin is really acting up - I followed a previous course and set laps along the way. Now, when I uploaded this trip, I just get a single line. grr... Anyway, the lap times are there...
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/110739505

Managed to make the last 10km in about 34.5 min . I was hoping to hit 30min on this, but oh well, next time. I kinda sluffed off on the first bit as I was practicing some climbing transitions in prep for Nairiki, but picked up pace from the Onsen to the top and kept my HR zone right about level 4 -> level 5 border. Now I know I can push that extra bit harder if I need to.
 
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