What's new

Sunday April 8th "Bon Voyage" Ride

StuInTokyo

Maximum Pace
Dec 3, 2010
1,662
62
Tim G is leaving on the 7th from Tokyo. He is going cycle the length of Japan, then over to China, down to South East Asia, then home to Australia where he will do a long ride from Cains to Melbourne. You can see some of where we built his custom Cannondale Bad Boy Tour >> HERE <<

I plan to rinko out to where he is on Sunday morning and spend the day riding with him. Details to follow, but in general terms this will be a fun day of riding, I hope to put in a fair number of miles, but nothing over the top.

Tim is going to stay near Hachiouji the first night, we'll meet up with him somewhere there, then carry on and find a camp site near Mt Fuji. I imagine there will be some climbing involved, Tim G will be on only his second day of Tour, on a fully loaded touring bike, and I'm a fat bastard, so there is no way we are going to be contending for KOM :eek: :D

Sorry for the scarce details, but that is what I have to go on right now, I will flesh this out soon.

I plan on leaving fairly early on Sunday morning, Rinko bagging it out to near Hachiouji riding for most of the day, then Rinko bagging it back to Tokyo.

I'm going regardless, does anyone else wish to come along?:D

You can laugh at me while I slowly climb hills on my Lrrb!:bike:

Cheers!
 
Wish I could join you, but we'll probably be taking our exchange student around Kamakura on Sunday.

Do you have any idea which way you'll be taking from Hachioji towards Mt Fuji?

I've recently taken both the coastal route via Odawara-Gotemba-Numazu and the inland route between Sagamiko and Fujiyoshida (coming the other way). There's also R413 to Yamanaka-ko, which I have no experience with.

If it was me, I'd be following the coastal route, climbing from Odawara to Gotemba and then rolling downhill again to Numazu and along the coast. That's about 450 m of climbing between Odawara and Gotemba (but a lot less than the Hakone mountains), but then all downhill or flat to Numazu and on to Fuji city and beyond. You can do almost all of it on backroads, with only a short bit on R246. It's pretty inaka, nice and quiet, as long as you avoid R246 (and its trucks).

Fujiyoshida near Kawaguchi-ko is about 400 m higher than Gotemba. You'd probably be travelling on R20 for quite some distance. The coastal route is more scenic, in my opinion.

I like anywhere around Fuji, it's beautiful, but don't underestimate the climbing coming from anywhere closer to sea level, especially with gear and if you haven't done much climbing before.

It's about 130 km from Hachioji down to the coast and over the hills to Numazu. Or you could settle for Odawara as a more modest first day goal. Odawara castle has beautiful cherry trees.

If Tim wanted to continue into Yamanashi and Nagano, the route up from Fuji city / Fujigawa in Shizuoka is not that steep if you stay near the river and don't get too close to Fuji. You have to head 20 km north-west of Kofu in Yamanashi before the altitude is comparable to Gotemba again (half the height of Yamanaka-ko). Heading towards Fujiyoshida or Yamanaka-ko is much steeper.

Going from Odawara around the west to Yamanashi you see Fuji for 150 km. Or Tim could continue along the coast, further into Shizuoka. Their climate is mild, their cherry blossoms will start sooner than inland and higher up. It's a good time to be there. Mind you, the valley in Yamanashi also has lots of fruit trees in bloom in the spring.
 
Wish you could come along too Joe!

That is a great deal of information, thanks!

I'm going to do some mapping so we can try to figure out a route, for Tim to ride on Saturday by himself, then a meet up point for Sunday morning. Next a route for us ride on Sunday ending at a campground for Tim that night and a station for me to Rinko it back to Tokyo.
 
There is a faint chance I may be able to ride on Sunday after all, but I won't know until Saturday evening.

Here are pics from my most recent ride around Mt Fuji:
https://picasaweb.google.com/112443...authkey=Gv1sRgCM-vz9HF4K6MsgE&feat=directlink

I almost circled it, except for the 25 km from Gotemba to Fujiyoshida on the east side (which I did on my March 11 ride).

Here is the route I trained for last weekend (I didn't do all of that route this time, but the relevant portion from Odawara to Shizuoka):
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1054897

The route from Odawara to Fujikawa was quite decent, as it mostly stayed off the busy roads, except for maybe 3-4 km on R246 in one place, but that couldn't be helped.

There are two other routes from Odawara to Shizuoka, but they appear to be harder to cycle. You can follow R1 across the Hakone Mountains but that climbs about 900 m I think. Or you can go to Atami and head over there, which is about as high as via Gotemba but much steeper - you gain the same altitude over a much shorter distance.

From Odawara to Gotemba my route followed R720, R74, R76, a bit of R246, then R394. Go to km 71 on the cue sheet and click the segments one at a time. It shows you the place on the map.

Once down in Numazu, I followed coastal roads, which were not too busy - there are several roads in parallel.

At Fujikawa you can follow R10 up north (up the river) towards Yamanashi or you follow the coast towards Shizuoka city and Hamamatsu.

It's also possible to climb from Gotemba over the pass to Yamanaka-ko, that's over 1000 m and quite a climb. Probably a bit ambitious with luggage at the beginning of the trip. You'll see Fuji as well from the Shizuoka coast as from Yamanako-ko, so I'd only recommend turning away from the coast if you wanted the exercise :)
 
Thanks a lot Joe that is great info!

This looks like the route we'll be taking......

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1058025

Tim will stay at a campground near Odawara, and we'll meet up at the station at 8:00AM. I'll be leaving on the 6:31AM Odakyu Odawara Line Exp. 89 mins to Odawara at a cost of 850 yen. If we end up at the Campground at the end of the route, then I'll head down to ShinFuji and take the Shinkansen home.
 
That looks like a good route. Quite a bit of climbing, but over some some distance. At the end you should be able to mostly coast downhill towards Shinfuji station.

I'll contact you tomorrow night in case I am able to join you.
 
Joe if you can come call me tonight that would be great, but understand we will not be eating up mountains, so speed may be sort of slow, I can't guarantee where we will be at what time.

loaded1.jpg

I met up with Tim at a local coffee shop, his bike is LOADED :eek:

Boy that bike is loaded down, I know that some of the extra stuff will be jettisoned fairly soon!

ready_to_to_go.jpg

After a quick minor repair (I made the kick stand legs a bit longer, the bike fully loaded needed it) Tim is on his way down to Odawara.....

he_is_off.jpg

and he is gone!

I suggested he just follow 246, I know it is a busy road, but it is mostly a straight shot to Odawara, once he gets a bit out of Tokyo he can head due South and follow the coast if he likes.

See you tomorrow Tim, safe travels!
 
Tim needs to wrap a towel over his neck of hang down from under his helmet to cover his neck. Sun can be brutal on exposed skin. Goodluck Matey!
 
Tim needs to wrap a towel over his neck of hang down from under his helmet to cover his neck. Sun can be brutal on exposed skin. Goodluck Matey!

yep, that has been mentioned!

I got an iMessage from him at 13:40 saying he'd done 30 Km, he left at 11:00 so that is not bad for a fully loaded touring bike riding through Tokyo. :D

Another pic from his departure!

tim_stu_departure.jpg


Cheers!
 
At 17:30 I got another text says he has done 70 Km and was stopped for some carb loading :D

About 20Km to go, so he should be getting close to his first night's campsite.

Tim also noted that his left knee hurt, I wonder about his seat height, I'll have to check it tomorrow.

Really looking forward to the ride tomorrow, not looking forward to the 5:30 wake up :rolleyes:

Cheers!
 
18:30 update, says 81Km, feeling a bit tired....

No kidding, all that weight on the bike :eek: Want to bet there is a nice pile of stuff that stays at the first night's campsite :D
 
Nah, he'll be right, the secret is to get on the road early and have reasonable expectations. I would think that (a) he left Tokyo pretty late in the day.
(b) he hadn't done much riding with a loaded bike. (c) tried to go out too fast too soon. I hope he has a few short days in mind before he tries the mountains. Take care you two. If you have time can you inventory what he is carrying in all those panniers, we might be able to suggest some ballast to be overboarded.
 
Nah, he'll be right, the secret is to get on the road early and have reasonable expectations. I would think that (a) he left Tokyo pretty late in the day.
(b) he hadn't done much riding with a loaded bike. (c) tried to go out too fast too soon. I hope he has a few short days in mind before he tries the mountains. Take care you two. If you have time can you inventory what he is carrying in all those panniers, we might be able to suggest some ballast to be overboarded.

I agree Tim left late, but we did do a quick repair to the bike, I had cut down the stand on the bike a tad short, it was OK (just) when the bike was unloaded, but loaded up, it became clear we needed to fix that, so I drilled and tapped some holes into the ends of the kickstand and put some bolts in there with nuts on them so you can adjust the length of each bolt out a bit, that solved it.

I can imagine he'll sleep well tonight!
 
This looks like the route we'll be taking......

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1058025

loaded1.jpg

I met up with Tim at a local coffee shop, his bike is LOADED :eek:

Boy that bike is loaded down, I know that some of the extra stuff will be jettisoned fairly soon!

ready_to_to_go.jpg

The altitude gain on that route combined with the weight of all the stuff he's carrying will be a challenge. I hope he has a very low first gear, he'll need it. That looks like 300 m of altitude gain over 5 km between km 45 and 50 (i.e. 6% average).
 
He does have some low gears, Chainrings 48/36/26 and the rear cassette is 8 speeds 11-32T that gives him some low gears, no?

Lowest ratio is 1.4%

My Mixer lowest is 1.7% and I've NEVER used that even hauling a LOT of beer, like over 100Kg plus:D

If we have to walk a bit, we walk a bit :D
 
Final report from Tim, he did a total of 92 Km, and while the bike is HEAVY he said it rode well. He also said the charging system worked great, charged the cache battery up fairly quickly.

I'll see him tomorrow and report back, have a great Sunday everyone, ride safe! :bike:
 
On the train to Odawara.
I'll be there soon!
 
Making slow steady progress. Tim's bike is STUPID HEAVY!!
His knee is hurting on the outside. I moved his seat up about 4mm seems to be better. I think it is just over use.
Cheers
 
Tell him to keep it under 75km or so a day to start. Ride in 1hr increments with at least a 15-30min break between. Then after a week or so, his condition will improve and weight reduced. It's not a race, it's a tour! If he tries to push it hard - especially in the first couple weeks, he'll just get overtired, injured and depressed. You need to adjust to the much different pace of day-in-day out touring.

Best thing is to try to locate destinations that are in your 75km-100km range and then when you get there - you have a goal! Enjoy the destination, chill out and explore a little.
 
Anyway - if he felt anything like I DID after leaving The Champion at 2:00am, I'm surprised he made it out of Shinjuku!
 
Back
Top Bottom