Ogawa is by far the toughest race on the Japanese racing calendar. It will be sorely missed.
Tsugaike National TT was always run in parallel with the "Tsugaike Cycle" event for the general public. I'm interested to see if this event will go ahead as usual.
On the other side of the valley from Tsugaike, there used to be the Otari HC (MTB Sat, HC Sun).
http://www.jyonnobitime.com/time/2009/07/otari-hc-race-report.html
That's a beautiful climb that is actually a pass linking up with Myoko. There used to be a climb up this side of the pass too. Both races were organised by hillclimb pioneer Kodama san.
The Myoko race was cancelled when Myoko became swallowed up to form part of Joetsu city. The big city wasn't interested in a small cycling event. I wonder if this is what has happened with Ogawa?
Otari was cancelled after Kodama san was hospitalised a couple of years back. As far as I know, Otari village is still its own entity and is not part of Omachi or Itoigawa. So I reckon this race has the potential to be restarted.
Let me know if you are interested and I'll ask around. The shop here in Kashiwazaki successfully took on Kodama san's Yunotani HC climb last year, so I'm sure it can be done....
Andy
www.jyonnobitime.com/time
