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Shining Japan Charity Ride

EricinIkebukuro

Speeding Up
Jan 30, 2011
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Some of you may know that I have been planning a charity ride to raise money for the victims in the Touhoku region. I finally have the date set for the ride, and I am looking for riders!

The planned date is May 21st-22nd (may change with weather conditions)

The course is just over 400km. The planned route is to start from the Imerial Palace in Tokyo. We will do one lap around the grounds before heading toward the Arakawa cycling road. From there we will travel north until reaching route 6, where we will cross the river and head over to Edogawa cycling road. Once on that road we will follow it north until it connects with the Tone River and heads east. We will follow the Tone river all the way to the Pacific ocean where we will stay in the city of Choshi. A big thanks to Hamaya Hotel who will accommodate us at a discounted rate of 2,500 yen for the night. On the second day we will follow the coast south towards the Boso Peninsula where we will then cut in and head up the middle. From there we will ride down to Tokyo Bay and make our way back to the Imperial Palace.

I am looking for some corporate sponsors for the ride, this week I will be talking with Valette (cycling gear) to make special cycling wear for the event as well as make a pledge per kilometer. If you are joining this event, I also encourage you to find people to sponsor you as well. They can check out http://www.shiningjapan.com to look at the event and submit a pledge.

There will be a registration fee to cover the hotel, maps and a support car. I haven't been able to get the total for it yet but that will come shortly.

Also if there is anyone here who would like to volunteer as a support driver I would appreciate it! Part the registration fee will go to cover your fuel cost!

If anyone is interested or has questions just send me a PM, reply to this post or register at http://www.shiningjapan.com
 
Hi Eric, i'm keen to join but not sure of my ability to ride that far!! Haven't do that in years.
What's the intended average speed / level of the participants??
David
 
Hi Eric, i'm keen to join but not sure of my ability to ride that far!! Haven't do that in years.
What's the intended average speed / level of the participants??
David

Ditto for me!

David maybe you and I can do a slow group! :D
 
Hey guys thanks for the replies! Let me try to answer your question and add some info!

The intended speed is definitely not break neck speeds, this will be about our endurance. I personally haven't done over 160km in a day so I don't know how I will do either but I'm guessing that the speed will be around the mid 20's to low 30's on average for the whole trip. The first day is just about completely flat but since its the river cycling roads I don't know how the wind will affect us. The second day will bring us through boso and its rolling hills (>_<) and that will probably slow us down a bit! At the moment there are only 2 riders confirmed going (myself included) but I will be handing out fliers at Arakawa cycling road on saturday and sunday to try and get more participants. I don't know how many people will join but if its a small group I don't think we will need to worry about a fast and slow group.

I have managed to get us accommodation in Choshi for 2500 yen for the night but if we get more than 5 people that price drops to 2000 yen. And I am preparing a support vehicle to carry our stuff and spare parts (>_0)v so the "ride fee" will be accommodations plus splitting gas expense for the support car. I hope you guys decide to join me!

And please spread the word!!
 
OK i'm in.
I'll sign up on the web site.
I'll start eating pasta and drinking isostar as from today.
 
That's great oggy! I'm glad you decided to join us! I'll add you to the list of people who are going.
 
Eric, this is great and kudos to you for the organizing.

Unfortunately, it does look like I'll be out of the country at that time so I won't be able to either ride or help...I really would have liked to have been involved otherwise.

Are you still looking into the jersey idea, by the way? Keren has posted info about a triathlete jersey that looks pretty cool and that I'm considering buying, but a TCC and/or cyclist specific jersey would definitely be a seller, I bet. Throw a bunch of kanji on there and a lot of people overseas would buy it too.
 
Eric, if you're down by the river this weekend maybe we could meet up for a chat, i've lots of questions!
Please let me know around what time you'll be there and what area
thanks
 
I've been thinking about this and discussing it with my lovely wife, it may only be possible to make the Sunday ride, for work reasons as well as not being able to physically do two 200Km days :eek:

The thing is, 200 km at an average of 20km/hr without any breaks, of any sort is 10 hours of saddle time, with all those hills, I very much doubt I'd be able to maintain a 15Km/hr, so that would be 13+ hours and add into that rest breaks, fed breaks, pee breaks etc, and I think I'd have to be on the road for 16 hours or more.

I think, heck I know I could do 100Km in a reasonable time, I rode down to Zushi at the end of last summer in under 4 hours (just) including breaks and without knowing the way (I got lost a couple of times) that was 65Km, I know I'm in a lot better shape now, and my bike is too, but 200Km, wow, that is really long.

Just saying, if it was a metric century, you might get a lot more people turning out for one day, with a double metric century on two days, well you have really limited your pool of potential riders, IMHO.

I thought the point of this ride was to raise money, wouldn't it be better at doing that if more people were able to participate?

I'm just saying, I'm not criticizing, in any way, but this is looking like an elite athlete only kind of thing, of which I'm certainly not one :eek:

Kudos out that wazoo for all that can do this ride!
 
It's a great idea Erik and if you get a bunch of corporate sponsors I'll do my best to join because it's a great cause!
However, I'm not crazy about your route choice, especially the second day. Have you ridden any of those roads? Is the Chiba coast road undamaged? I'm happy to drink the water and milk here but am personally still kinda freaked about tsunamis. Anyone else?

I'm hardly the fastest cyclist on this forum but when I've done 160km+ days in a row I've never done faster than 25km/hr avg on the second day. Getting a lot of sleep the middle night is also key to getting people moving at a descent pace the second day. Personally, I would highly recommend spending more time in the Boso and ending the ride at Chiba station. Parts of 'Tokyo Bay,' as you say, are fine but parts are tedious or involve fighting serious traffic. Do you have experience riding there? Will you be navigating with GPS? Can I help you plan that section or are you planning to stick to the main road?

There is quite a long and nice bike path from Narita to Kaihin Makuhari if your route isn't set in stone.

Regardless, it's great that you are organizing and I would be happy to help in whatever way I'm able.

Good luck!
 
Hey guys! Let me try to answer your questions!

Phil: I wish you could join for the ride! But no worries, I already have another event in the planning process too which I haven't announced yet but it will be the same format as the "climbing for Touhoku" thread in the fourms. As for the Jerseys I am still working on it. Valette, which a cycle clothes company near Ichikawa, has decided to sponsor us and we are working with Japanese artist Natsumi Kitano to have a design made. Hopefully we can start selling them by June.

Oggy: I Would be glad to meet with you this weekend. I'll be at the river both saturday and sunday. I'll be going up and down the path starting at about 10am both days. I enter the path from kanana-dori and I stay on the west bank. We can meet there or where meiji-dori crosses the path. My number is 080-4437-5510 just give me a call and we can setup where to meet.

StuInTokyo and Koribeyer: Thank you for the feedback, I personally have never done this much distance myself so I don't have the best idea about the pace. Many of you are much more experienced riders than I am and probably know a lot more about these kinds of things. I want to really emphasize that the pace of the ride is up to riders. I know that I personally won't be able to keep a +25km/h pace after being in the saddle for a few hours. I have been asked about the distance before as well and it is definitely ok to join this ride half-way through or whenever you wish. If someone wants to do the first day or the second day only it is more than fine. The only thing I have to be strict about is keeping a record of your kilometers. The way sponsors will donate is per kilometer that we do, just like the way jdd donated per meter that we climbed. So as long as your kilometers are recorded, joining the ride from where ever you wish is perfectly fine and I would be really glad if you came to join us.

As for the route there are many places that need to be checked and as soon as my school semester finishes next week, I will be doing this entire route to check out all the roads. I have no experience in riding these areas so I want to go personally to check them out. This route at the moment is not set 100% It can still be changed and I am more than willing to accept any feedback on what needs to be changed. The Chiba/Tokyo bay area was very very difficult to try to map out so I will be riding that area as well to find a safer route. I know that last part is very tricky and if need be it may get cut all together and, as you mentioned, the ride may end in Chiba.
 
Eric, I applaud your attitude, I'm sure we can make this a success!! :cool: :bike:
 
Eric

It's brilliant that you are organizing this.

Both bike and myself are not upto anything that challenging at the moment. If you organise another event in the future then I would love to participate.

However, if you need any other help with the event then let me know.

Penny
 
Eric

It's brilliant that you are organizing this.

Both bike and myself are not upto anything that challenging at the moment. If you organise another event in the future then I would love to participate.

However, if you need any other help with the event then let me know.

Penny

Thanks for the reply Penny! As soon as this event is completed, I will be trying to organize another event which will be much closer to home. It will be a hill climb event, and I would be real glad to have your help is getting it organized! For this current event I really do need help spreading the word to get participants and sponsors! If you know anyone that may be willing to make a pledge or join us on the ride please let me know(>_0)v!!
 
Hey everyone,

I'm sorry to say that this event will have to be canceled due to unforeseen circumstances. But do not worry, I haven't given up yet!! I will be announcing another event much closer to home once I finish drawing up the plans!
 
Really sorry to hear about this Eric, I know you put a lot of effort into this.

Best of luck with the next one, I'll be looking forward to hear about it.
 
Ditto from me.

I'll be happy to help when you are ready to organise the next one, and I should also be able to take part in it aswell.
 
Hi Eric, shame that it's cancelled.
Why don't everyone that's interested meet up sometime and together we could define an event that suits a maximum of people. What do you think??
David
 
I think that would be great, the next event I was thinking of would be in Tokyo. On Sunday's they close the roads around the imperial palace for a few hours and I was thinking of taking advantage of that by holding an event there. Maybe get sponsors to donate per lap or something... I need to figure out if that would require getting permits or not too...
 
I think that would be great, the next event I was thinking of would be in Tokyo. On Sunday's they close the roads around the imperial palace for a few hours and I was thinking of taking advantage of that by holding an event there. Maybe get sponsors to donate per lap or something... I need to figure out if that would require getting permits or not too...

Eric, while that is not a bad idea, the problem I foresee is traffic. I've been to that area on a Sunday when my daughters were young to practice their riding, and there were many others just like us.

Food for thought!
 
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