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Hello from Shinjuku

RabidChi

Warming-Up
Jul 18, 2019
8
25
Hello, I'm Julien, I had the pleasure of meeting some of you on the ride from the Spaceship to Shiraishi-toge last weekend. I discovered this forum from posts on the Tokyo Ride Planning FB group.
I'm originally French-Canadian from Montreal and I've been living in Tokyo for a little over 2 years.

A few words about my cycling "career":
I started cycling more seriously in 2008 after I became a pedicab "driver" as a student job in Paris. From there I started riding a lot and applying the N+1 rule, road for commuting, cyclocross for forest paths and recumbent for very long distances, culminating in 18,000km in the year of 2011. I rode the 1200km Paris-Brest-Paris in 2011 and 2015 and happened to co-found a bike manufacturer in 2013.

Fast forward to 2019, I'm trying to get back into cycling and into some form of shape after about 3 years of inactivity. For the first time I'm living close to serious climbing opportunities so I'm trying to tap into my genetic predisposition to be a half-decent climber (read: utter skinniness) on an proportionally skinny road bike (Ridley Helium SLX with a few weight-weenieish niche components). I also try to get at least one early weekday morning 80km training ride on the Arakawa every week.
I still let my recumbent freak flag fly by riding a Nazca Quetzal recumbent touring tandem with my wife.

Looking forward to more fun rides!
 
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Hey Julien
Welcome to the forum. Nice riding with you last weekend. Hope to get out again soon although this weekend looks like a washout.
 
I really wish I had a rain bike right now (N+1, I have some nice 650b wheels waiting to be put to good use) but I'm tired of waiting for the rainy season to end so I'll definitely put the Ass Saver on the Ridley, wear rain shoe covers, pack a jacket and head for some climbs this weekend. I'll just have give the bike a thorough cleaning when/if the rainy season ever ends.
Still figuring out when and where to ride this weekend.
 
The Half-Fast mailing list has a good climbing ride for tomorrow. If you'er not on the list, the details are here:

Saturday 20 July - Hills Out West (Peter/Akira)

Out west to Gongenyama-tozan-guchi, and then south and east via Tenjin pass and some other hillocks and Dōshi-michi:
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/30551884?beta=false

It adds up to about 96 km and about 2200 metres of climbing. Wait at the tops and the turnings.

We'll set off at 08:30 from outside the 7-11 that's just downhill from the north exit of Takao station (no, not Takao-san-guchi station).
We'll aim to have a sit-down lunch on the way.

The road surfaces shouldn't be bad; but in view of the descents, the combination of rim brakes and carbon fibre rims isn't recommended. Bring a spare inner tube and make sure that your brakes are in good nick.

Trains from Shinjuku to Takao:
► 07:21 JR train (for Takao), arriving at 08:05; or
► 07:18 Keiō train (for Keiō Hachiōji) to Kitano, hop across the
platform where the 07:55 (for Takao-san-guchi) will be waiting; this
arrives at Takao at 08:05.

The route ends at Hashimoto station (JR Yokohama, JR Sagami, and Keiō Sagamihara lines), but alternatives such as Machida aren't far away.

Cartographer, pilot, and avant-garde: Akira Kihara. Scrivener and lanterne rouge: Peter Evans
 
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The Half-Fast mailing list has a good climbing ride for tomorrow...
Fine wth cross-posting, but can you please not put people's names and especially email addresses on this forum without their permission. (It's trawlable to bots, and can lead to spam.)
 
The Half-Fast mailing list has a good climbing ride for tomorrow. If you'er not on the list, the details are here:
Thank you! I am on the list and it was also posted on the Tokyo ride planning fb group.

It sounds like fun, but I've decided to ride the tandem on flatter ground tomorrow and climb with the road bike on Sunday.
 
Fine wth cross-posting, but can you please not put people's names and especially email addresses on this forum without their permission. (It's trawlable to bots, and can lead to spam.)
Sorry. I should have known that. Apologies to those affected.
 
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