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Today May 2019

I will have a good time no doubt.
Also DFL before DNF. Never done horrible in this race, but oddly had to cancel twice due to illness. Still feel like an utter turd after work. Just hoping to wake up feeling better. Otherwise i will be a rolling cheer leader doing wheelies where i should be sprinting.
All the best tomorrow, mate!
 
Bike Park season - the bike parks here are Ski resorts in the winter. They open/close with the seasons. So typically in October they start converting to Ski.
Rent MTBs? At Fujimi Panorama and Iwatake you can rent decent MTBs.
At Fujiten - meh.. they have rentals, but nothing to be excited over.

Joshua (@hat and beard )frequents here on occasion, I am sure he will respond when he has time. (dude's got a lot going on).

I live near Zushi & Yokosuka in a small town. But the beach and mtb trails are close... I won the lottery by moving here.
Zushi Station is the closest to me if you want to look on the map.
 
All the best tomorrow, mate!
Race over, home and showered. A top 10 finish. Higher than I anticipated. There was a 3 bike tangle on the first lap, but I was the one that went down. I think that may have helped as I just decided to enjoy the ride because a good result was now done. The front group was now out of reach and after catching the group I was in when I went down, I realized I was riding alone. Every now and then I got a glimpse of another rider... it served as motivation to dig a little deeper. After a pass I was alone again... then another rider in the distance. When I crossed the finish, I was expecting a 17th place or so... but when they told me tenth I was surprised and confused. I guess I was further up in the pack when I crashed and didn't realize my position. I thought i was close to last as I restarted.

In the end, my body hurts but I was able to get a decent result even though I still felt like crap this morning.
 
Race over, home and showered. A top 10 finish. Higher than I anticipated. There was a 3 bike tangle on the first lap, but I was the one that went down. I think that may have helped as I just decided to enjoy the ride because a good result was now done. The front group was now out of reach and after catching the group I was in when I went down, I realized I was riding alone. Every now and then I got a glimpse of another rider... it served as motivation to dig a little deeper. After a pass I was alone again... then another rider in the distance. When I crossed the finish, I was expecting a 17th place or so... but when they told me tenth I was surprised and confused. I guess I was further up in the pack when I crashed and didn't realize my position. I thought i was close to last as I restarted.

In the end, my body hurts but I was able to get a decent result even though I still felt like crap this morning.


What event did you do??
 
Bike Park season - the bike parks here are Ski resorts in the winter. They open/close with the seasons. So typically in October they start converting to Ski.
Rent MTBs? At Fujimi Panorama and Iwatake you can rent decent MTBs.
At Fujiten - meh.. they have rentals, but nothing to be excited over.

Joshua (@hat and beard )frequents here on occasion, I am sure he will respond when he has time. (dude's got a lot going on).

I live near Zushi & Yokosuka in a small town. But the beach and mtb trails are close... I won the lottery by moving here.
Zushi Station is the closest to me if you want to look on the map.


Awesome and notes taken! Zushi doesn't seem horribly far from where I"ll be living in Tokyo. At least not by train.

Still on the fence about what bike/s to ship. Seems my garvel will get me around better. But I'd hate to miss MTB opportunities, or break the bank with a bunch of rentals. Hmmmm. Timeless questions to tossle with :)
 
What event did you do??
Tour De Tama
It is an event held on an Air Force base in western tokyo.
This is a video they put out for the race. It is beginner friendly and 100% XC.
I don't think I had both wheels off the ground at the same time at any point in the race.



Awesome and notes taken! Zushi doesn't seem horribly far from where I"ll be living in Tokyo. At least not by train.

Still on the fence about what bike/s to ship. Seems my garvel will get me around better. But I'd hate to miss MTB opportunities, or break the bank with a bunch of rentals. Hmmmm. Timeless questions to tossle with :)

Renting at Panorama (I had a mechanical once and needed to to rent, so I kinda am familiar with prices).
Full day rental for a DH bike - 10,000yen (add insurance, gear rental if needed)
Full day rental for an Enduro bike - 8,500yen with same add ons.
Full day lift ticket, just under 5000yen.

So with your gear but no bike, the bike park will be around 15000yen per day. If you only go 2 times, why not? If you want to go often, it is pricey.
 
Still on the fence about what bike/s to ship. Seems my garvel will get me around better. But I'd hate to miss MTB opportunities, or break the bank with a bunch of rentals. Hmmmm. Timeless questions to tossle with :)

Just to chime in, I feel like a gravel bike will be better for you in terms of enjoying your short time in Japan. Lots of people living in Tokyo ride road bikes out the city into the mountains, so it may be easier to find local connections if you have a gravel bike suited to road riding. I know some people who are really into mountain biking, but none that live in central Tokyo.
Also, the CX scene is huge here in Japan. it starts in September and lots of races are within reach of Tokyo. Might be a cool way to feed that competitive streak.
 
Tour De Tama
It is an event held on an Air Force base in western tokyo.
This is a video they put out for the race. It is beginner friendly and 100% XC.
I don't think I had both wheels off the ground at the same time at any point in the race.





Renting at Panorama (I had a mechanical once and needed to to rent, so I kinda am familiar with prices).
Full day rental for a DH bike - 10,000yen (add insurance, gear rental if needed)
Full day rental for an Enduro bike - 8,500yen with same add ons.
Full day lift ticket, just under 5000yen.

So with your gear but no bike, the bike park will be around 15000yen per day. If you only go 2 times, why not? If you want to go often, it is pricey.




Great information on the bikes.

Love me some full XC! I can't seem to load the video. Send the direct FB link???
 
Thanks so much for all the tips. A few questions: What's "Bike Park Season" and why does it end/not year round? Can a person rent MTBs? It sounds like a gravel bike might be more versatile so the one I should ship -- I could take it on both road and gravel routes. Does your friend Hat and Beard who knows "a shit ton of gravel" routes have an email? Would love to connect. Where do you live? I'd like to map directions since my teaching schedule affords me Fridays through Sundays free -- i could potentially meet up with you for rides south of Tokyo.

Hi! Sorry, I haven't looked at this forum in a while. I'm the one who knows the shit ton of gravel in Chiba (*゚▽゚*)
Most of the best riding is in the Kamogawa, Minami-Boso area. I don't live in Chiba anymore, but perhaps I could organize another ride out there if enough people are interested??

A few of us did a ride out there a couple years ago. If you search the forum for Chiba and gravel you can probably find the route.
 
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Yesterday I had my first puncture in 16 months. That's three punctures in 40 months on my Elephant Bikes NFE with 650Bx42 tires so far. Somehow a thumb tack ended up embedding itself into my front tire, about 4 km from Kitasakado station where I was going to meet up with Julien for a Greenline ride to Hanno via the Kuroyamasantaki water falls and the Nenogongen Tenryu-ji temple. We both cycled to the meeting point from Tokyo, with no one else joining by train. It took me 25 minutes to swap the tube, much longer than I expected.

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Normally when I visit that temple it is as part of the Ome Temple Loop, but this time I wanted to combine it with Kuroyamasantaki and keep the overall climbing moderate. So instead of climbing Shomaru toge after the Kabasaka toge descent and then heading to Yamabushi Toge/Rt53, I descended a few km towards Hanno from the tunnel entrance and climbed Rt395 from the other side, towards Rt53 and the temple climb. The total elevation ended up only about 1600 m, or less than 2/3 of a Temple Loop.

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We visited the water falls at Kuroyamasantaki, one of my favourite spots in Saitama, then climbed to the Greenline and had lunch at Koburi toge, then coffee at the Kabasaka toge coffee van.

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My legs were a lot fresher on the temple climb than on any previous effort there. Nenogongen is a place where people pray for leg and foot health. It is popular with hikers, trail runners and cyclists. There's a road bike stand opposite the place for ritual hand washing inside the temple gate.

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I enjoyed introducing Julien to some of my favourites in this area. After seeing him off at Hanno station I rode over to Ome, had a curry for dinner and cycled back to Tokyo. 177 km with about 1600 m of elevation gain. Second Century ride of May and 14th of the year.

(On Strava)
 
Left by car early Saturday morning with five half-fast friends to participate in the 2019 Sado Longride that took place on Sunday. Three of us had registered for the full 210 km round-the-island ride, and three for the 130 km course.

10394337-D1F3-4CFF-B994-A21DA0F99E91.jpg

https://www.strava.com/activities/2378955723

I finished my lap with only two rest stops and an average moving speed of 30 km/h. Pleased with that.

Very sadly, one of our group was hit in the rear wheel by another rider on a corner, crashed, and fractured her collarbone. So that's ruined her spring/summer.
 
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