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Tour de Okinawa, Nov.7th

m o b

Speeding Up
Jun 22, 2008
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Application for the Tour de Okinawa starts pretty soon on August 1st and probably it is advised to register fast. There are 370 slots available for the 200 km, 130 km and 85 km races and they will sell out fast.

As almost every year, the Okinawa races are hold on the same weekend in November as the JCRC Saiko race and the Giro de Hotaka.

And looking at the results from last year, the Okinawa race is, considering the distance and the elevation profile, quite fast. A lot of riders didn't finished and I guess this is because they didn't made the time cut at several checkpoints?

Who has done the tour before and can give me any advise?
 
Hi, Mob,
I've been participating in 50 km race last year, only because the slots for 85 and 130 were full in 5 days after the registration started.

50km was a very fast race, I stayed with the fast bunch the whole time and was dropped during the 1 km sprint to the finish. It was raining all the time and I heard there were couple of crashes in 50 and 200 km races (200 was especially bad as they crashed inside or on the exit from a tunnel).
With 250 guys at the start I guess it's almost impossible to catch up with the front if you're behind those 250, especially when they take off like rockets - so in 50 and 85 km races it's best to start in the front lines. In 2008 50km, 2 guys from the same team went in a break in the beginning and took it all the way to the finish! Good strategy!

Don't know about 130 and 200 - maybe, things are a bit calmer there.

Weather was changing all the time and it was a storm on the morning of the race day. Turned into a rain and then into a sunny day couple of hours later.

Wonderful event! Will try to participate again, but not this year.
 
Hi Sergey,

Thanks for the many infos. This year there are 370 slots per race, so it will be rather even more hectic. Do you know about cutoff times at checkpoints? It doesn't make much sense to attend the 200 km race, when one is asked to stop after 50 km.

Okinawa is such a rare occassion to do a longer race (the other ones I know are Giro de Hotaka and Itoigawa Fast Run), that I would like to attend if it makes sense. To fly to Okinawa to attend a 50 km race is hm on the high cost per race kilometer side.
 
Sorry, I don't remeber what the cutoff times were, but they definitely were there for 50km ...I remeber calculating that with avg. speed of something like 35km/h you could barely make it (UPD: or was it 25 km/h?...). You can check the last year results to see how many DNF'ed and what was the avg.speed of the "lanterne rouge".

370, huh.. I guess the organizers realized how much entry fees they missed last year :cool:

They were stopping traffic on the course, so it really feels like a road race - cut corners on turns and descends, free to ride all over the road - unforgetful! :D

Thanks for the many infos. This year there are 370 slots per race, so it will be rather even more hectic. Do you know about cutoff times at checkpoints? It doesn't make much sense to attend the 200 km race, when one is asked to stop after 50 km.

Okinawa is such a rare occassion to do a longer race (the other ones I know are Giro de Hotaka and Itoigawa Fast Run), that I would like to attend if it makes sense. To fly to Okinawa to attend a 50 km race is hm on the high cost per race kilometer side.
 
Oh God! This looks amazing!
 
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