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Today December 2020

Finished up my 4x4 December challenge on Strava today and saw that I've only missed 2 days of cycling this month. Still got 2 more until the fam and I go see the in-laws in Sendai on Sunday.

Also some big news: sold our place in Tokyo and moving out to Ichinomiya beach in Chiba in a few months. The cycling there looks pretty good, and it might be nice to complement it with a bit of surfing.

Will be asking the experts here for some road route advice.
Congrats!
Cycled out to there a few times but I only used Route 14 and turned left once I saw the signs for Mobara and then winged it once I got to there.
Lovely part of the world.
Think from where I live in Kastsushika it is a 50-mile ride and once you get past Funabashi the road widens out.
 
Congrats!
Cycled out to there a few times but I only used Route 14 and turned left once I saw the signs for Mobara and then winged it once I got to there.
Lovely part of the world.
Think from where I live in Kastsushika it is a 50-mile ride and once you get past Funabashi the road widens out.

Thanks we are pretty excited! Drove their a few times since August. Seems to be nice and flat near the ocean and mountains in the middle of the peninsula.
 
I pretty much have written off riding for the near term. The Emonda will still get its goal, but an easy spin in low gear.
I am just bummed. The trails are just coming into perfect condition. :(
I managed to cycle home 23km after I tore my ACL in my right knee.. that night, the doctor told me it might be just a sprain. I went and got an MRI to confirm it was torn. Also my MCL was a little tweaked that day, but it worked itself out.
Two years ago tore my LEFT ACL.. and mashed up my meniscus pretty bad too. Had that ACL repaired, and still have the bolt in. Meniscus probably won't get much better... but still riding!
Worst part was watching my leg circumference shrink more than 3cm in a month before I had surgery. After all that, my quadricep was non-existent. Took a year to get back to 90% and even now I'm not as strong as I was.. but surgery, age, too much beer, ..etc, etc.. makes me slower. lol.
Takes a bit of an effort to get back to where you were.. but, riding is such a lifestyle, it's easy to get back in.
Good luck man...
 
With 5 days left in the year I am within 5 percent of last year's distance total. I don't think I'll completely catch up by midnight on the 31st but that's OK.

I didn't ride that much in March and April due to the pandemic. These are usually some of my most active months, with several brevets of 200 and 300 km or a 360+ km Fleche, but this year I didn't ride any brevets until the autumn and the Fleche was postponed from April to October. So I am actually quite pleased I managed to come that close to last year's total after all.

I will head to Boso peninsula tomorrow, my first ride there in many months.
 
Sitting still is difficult. I did some family stuff all day yesterday, but never for any kind of workout. Its been a week now and I am going stir crazy.

So today I hit a trail, but not with a bike.
This trailhead is a five minute walk from the house.

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Praying everyone is alright, but cognizant that this is further support for my choice to ride almost exclusively in doors. I see near accidents that could result in this type of situation pretty much daily in the morning .....

That's not riding. It's exercising.
Of course there are risks when riding. But the benefits far outweigh the occasional risks. And you can do many things to mitigate them.
Anyway each to their own. But for me The beauty of riding is being outside, in life, exploring and interacting with the world around you. Sitting on a bike in my lounge room staring at some computer is exactly the opposite of this.
 
The beauty of riding is being outside, in life, exploring and interacting with the world around you.
The beauty of riding is "enjoying" being outside, in life, exploring and interacting with the world around you.

If traffic in the city prevents you from enjoying it.... why do it?
I am absolutey an outside person - but there are times my trainer is the place to be. Rain, low visibility, etc... things that make me nervous on the road.
I also understand from a workout standpoint, I can get a 1 hour workout on my trainer in 1 hour. WIth streetlights and traffic, the same ride for me is much more difficult outsdie.

To each their own - again, I am outside more than inside, but when I lived in Chinatown, I can understand why some people don't find riding appealing.
 
The beauty of riding is being outside, in life, exploring and interacting with the world around you.
So true. In Yamaguchi we have mountains, but we have a lot of flat land with all the best cycling routes. Not sure how it is in your neck of the woods, but if I to hit the mountains, I'd invest in a power bicycle.
 
I just managed a short ride to the 7-11 and back to pay a bill. I took a low geared MTB to make the 70m climb as easy as possible. Overall things felt fine until I did a wheelie. Dumb on my part, but a easy cadence and chill pace seems doable for the time being. I have not ridden the Trek yet to get the 7km I need. I didn't want to attempt the climb with road gears - but this ride was reassuring.
 
The wx gods have smiled. Was out again today, and tomorrow's also looking good.

Also, the bolded statement above--I was quoting @theBlob just above that, so credit to him there.
 
Today I cycled 82 km in Boso with Norman (Kanaya to Sunosaki Lighthouse and back) and then 25 km of tiling (+5T) in Miura.

The views from Boso were beautiful. We could see Miura, Mt Fuji and Izu, later also Izu Oshima from the coastal road.

The Tokyo Wan Ferry from Kurihama was fairly empty. The main car deck was perhaps 1/3 full, the upper car deck was empty. Also in Boso traffic was relatively light.
 
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Today I cycled 82 km in Boso with Norman (Kanaya to Sunosaki Lighthouse and back) and then 25 km of tiling (+5T) in Miura.

The views from Boso were beautiful. We could see Miura, Mt Fuji and Izu, later also Izu Oshima from the coastal road.

The Tokyo Wan Ferry from Kurihama was fairly empty. The main car deck was perhaps 1/3 full, the upper car deck was empty. Also in Boso traffic was relatively light.
I have not ridden over there in a couple of years - but the ferry is relaxing and then Boso is beautiful.
I have ridden down the spine a few times and I not sure why I would punish myself tho.
A coupld of 22% sections were brutal on me. Especially in the summer time when I was suffering before getting to those sections.
But yet I have done other routes that were far more enjoyable. I would like to get up with @hat and beard again once the covid stuff dies down and explore. He knows the peninsula incredibly well and all the dirt connectors between routes.
 
I have not ridden over there in a couple of years - but the ferry is relaxing and then Boso is beautiful.
I have ridden down the spine a few times and I not sure why I would punish myself tho.
A coupld of 22% sections were brutal on me. Especially in the summer time when I was suffering before getting to those sections.
But yet I have done other routes that were far more enjoyable. I would like to get up with @hat and beard again once the covid stuff dies down and explore. He knows the peninsula incredibly well and all the dirt connectors between routes.
Let's do that. A Boso romp is well overdue!
 
For yesterday's bike ride I met with Norman at the Kurihama ferry port. We took the 08:20 ferry to Kanaya, landing in Chiba at 09:00.

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Our destination was the Sunosaki lighthouse on a peninsula on the westernmost part of Chiba. Here's a view from the lighthouse to the north, with the Chiba coast on the right and the southern part of Miura on the left.

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Though it doesn't come out well in the picture below due to the limited contrast, we could clearly see Mt Fuji from 100 km away:

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Sunosaki is really a beautiful spot and there's some pretty impressive real estate near there:

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Apparently that's the villa of Softbank president Son Masayoshi.

You still find some houses around the area with blue sheets and sandbags protecting damaged roofs, more than 15 months after typhoon Hagibis wreaked havoc in Chiba, but there are far fewer of these sheets than a year ago. Mostly the houses seem to have been repaired now.

We headed around the cape to the south side to clear some tiles there, then back up again to rejoin the route we had come on. Riding with Norman, the pace was the fastest of any Boso ride I had done and we made it back in time for the 14:20 return ferry, the earliest ever return crossing I had made.

Norman headed back to Tokyo by train while I cycled west along the coast road. Near YRP Nobi station I turned inland into the hills and cycled past the Yokosuka Research Park after which the station is named. All the major Japanese telecoms companies have R&D facilities in this area.

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After clearing some tiles by riding on tiny roads in the hills I returned to my car near the ferry port and drove back to Tokyo. Unusually for a Sunday evening there were no traffic jams. Maybe more people are staying at home now.
 
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I've just taken delivery of the shade for my front light (CatEye 1600) which is strong like a batman signal and I was always feeling bad for those cycling in the opposite direction and trying to face it downward etc. this solves the problem, essentially pointing the beam down and away from eyes, but where you need it the most. I'll put some aluminium tape on the underside for better reflection and my dark winter commutes can become just a tad better now.

these guys make these thingies for other cateye models too, and you can find them on rakuten or amazon.jp for just under a thousand yen (amazon offers cheaper shipping, probably due to their monopolistic position on the market and thus the ability to dictate terms to small shops etc but we cannot boycott or bypass such an essential service basically anymore)

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