Category Archives: Japan

Covid-19 mortality in Germany

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There have been many comments on the relatively low mortality in Germany relative to the number of confirmed cases. The median age of infected persons in Germany is 47 compared to 64 years in Italy. Many Germans were infected while skiing in Austria or northern Italy (the same is true for Norway and Iceland, which also imported the problem this way) and these younger, healthier patients have a lower risk of severe outcomes.

Germany has relied heavily on PCR testing from an early stage. Because of this the total number of confirmed cases includes many light cases that might otherwise have remained undetected. Last week about 350,000 PCR tests were performed in Germany, an average of 50,000 a day. This compares to 28,000 people in total who have been tested in Japan so far. Japan’s population is about 50% larger than Germany’s.

By tracing these mostly mild cases with large scale PCR testing, the authorities have prevented the spread to other more at risk groups of the population.

The youngest person in Germany to die from Covid-19 so far was 28 years old and had a pre-existing condition.

There is a distinct gender bias in fatality. 84% of the 31 persons under 60 to die were male (26m, 5f). 73% of the 44 persons between 60-69 were male (32m, 12f). In the 70-79 bracket, 78% of the 130 who died were male (102m, 28f). For 80-89, the largest age group with 305 deaths, the ratio is 61% male (185m, 120f) even though far fewer men reach this age than women. Even in the 90 and above bracket (71 deaths), male deaths still outnumber female deaths (38m, 33f).

On March 30, the number of new infections in Germany dropped close to the number of fresh recoveries (4,450 vs. 4,289), which recently increased. Combined with 104 deaths this meant that the number of active cases (total confirmed infections – deaths – recoveries) only climbed by 57 or 0.1%. This is the lowest rate of increase since the start of the epidemic, which if it continues gives reason to be hopeful.

COVID-19 Growth Rate Trends

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The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has increased by this much daily (most recent three days average) in the following countries:

1) Korea: 1%
2) Japan: 5%
3) Italy: 14.2%
4) Spain: 22.8%
5) Germany: 26.8%
6) USA: 29.6%

Korea
Korea seems to be getting close to getting the epidemic under control. Patients who have officially recovered now outnumber new infections day by day. That is very encouraging.

Japan
Due to geographic proximity and economic relations with China, Japan was also one of the countries with early cases, many of them visitors to China. It crossed the 100 confirmed case threshold on February 22, one day before Italy, yet the outcome could not have been more different. Since then the case number doubled three times in Japan (about every 8 days on average) versus 8 times in Italy (about every 3 days). Confirmed case numbers can not always be taken at face value as they can be quite dependent on the amount of testing and most mild cases will most likely never be counted. There could easily be an order of magnitude more cases than listed in the official statistics. However, 28 deaths in Japan vs 2,503 in Italy (i.e. about 90 times more) suggests that there were actually hugely different outcomes in these two countries. Japanese infection case numbers have increased about 9 times since they were below 100 whereas in Italy they increased about 400-fold since that threshold. One would expect higher mortality in Italy once the medical system was stressed to limit and beyond. Quite plausibly Japan and Italy have been counting a similar percentage of actual cases, but case numbers have been growing much slower in Japan (9% daily average over 24 days) than in Italy (28% daily average over 23 days) and with less stress to the medical system, outcomes have been less lethal on top of numbers being smaller. With intensifying efforts at social distancing, Japan may be next at halting the spread for now. It will still be a difficult road.

Italy and Spain
In Italy the absolute number of daily new infections has been more or less flat for the last 4 days. As a percentage of existing cases it is now half of what it was about week ago, but as total numbers still tripled, the new cases are still at a peak, even if steady. In Spain too the daily increase as a percentage has slowed but like in Italy it has some way to go before it comes close to zero.

Germany and US
Neither in Germany nor in the US is there a clear drop in the daily case growth percentage yet. They are still in exponential growth. Hopefully self-isolation measures will bite soon.

Other numbers
Germany has 5 times as many respirators as France (25,000 vs 5,000).

Italy now has about half as many infections per million inhabitants (~500) than Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, had at the peak of the local outbreak (1,100 per million).

Sources:

Test-driving a Tesla Model 3 in Tokyo

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Recently my son Shintaro and I went to the Tesla showroom in Aoyama, Tokyo to take a Tesla Model 3 for a test drive. I wanted to see for myself how this electric vehicle compared to my almost 12 year old Prius hybrid and to be able to compare it to future EVs from other brands that we may eventually consider.

I’d noticed an increasing number of Teslas around Tokyo, though they’re still far rarer than around the San Francisco bay area. Given that much of Japan is densely populated, range anxiety (an often cited reason for slow electrification) should be less of an issue here compared to the US, particularly with cars that already have over 400 km of range.

I love the practicality of the rear hatch of my Prius that allows me to carry two road bikes without disassembly by simply folding the rear seats. The Tesla Model 3 has a much less accessible trunk, which pretty much rules it out for me. The Model Y will be more practical, but is also even bigger. Apparently it won’t be available in Japan until a year or two after it starts shipping in the US this month (March 2020).

Tesla’s models are quite large by Japanese standards, with implications for parking and for driving on narrow back streets. For example, these are the dimensions of the Tesla Model 3 vs. the current generation Toyota Prius (XW50):

Length: 4690 / 4570 (+120 mm)
Width: 1850 / 1760 (+90 mm)
Height: 1440 / 1470 (-30 mm)

Exact numbers for the Model Y aren’t available yet, but it’s expected to be about the same width but about 1600 mm tall (160 mm taller than the Prius).

The test drive was an unusual experience by Japanese standards. Somebody had mentioned that the dealer experience with Tesla is more like visiting an Apple store than a traditional dealer showroom. I’d say the difference was even greater.

Customer service expectations in Japan are incredibly high and that is probably one factor for Tesla’s relatively sluggish sales here, see a recent Japan Times article.

Shintaro had tried to make the reservation online and was promised a callback within 48 hours, but that never happened so he had to call again to fix up an appointment.

Even when I take my Prius to an oil change at a local gas station, I’ll be served a cup of coffee while I wait. By contrast, when we visited the Tesla showroom to evaluate a JPY 5,100,000 (USD 48,000) car, all we received was a business card of the sales person. They don’t even give you paper brochures. You can look it all up on the website, right?

Before the test drive they took photo copies of our drivers licenses. We were instructed not to take any pictures and to follow the rules of the road. We would be liable for any incidental damage to the car during the test drive. Then we got into the car parked by the roadside outside the showroom, first as passengers, then later taking turns driving it around Akasaka.

I liked the seats, which were nice and firm. The acceleration when you put your foot down is amazing. It feels like a big car but with enough power for its weight. Getting back into the Prius later, it felt quite light by comparison, by which I don’t mean acceleration but it simply feels like a lot less metal being moved around. It tips the scales at about 280 kg less than the base Model 3 (1335 kg vs. 1612 kg).

Some of the controls took some getting used to, such as the lever action of the indicator stalk (which is on the left unlike in Japanese cars) or putting the car into park or into drive with the right stalk. Much of the demonstration involved showing the use of the center screen and its user interface. Many of the functions of the car, such as the electrically assisted steering or the regenerative breaking can be tweaked there, to change the feel of the car.

Headroom in the Tesla was good but personally I don’t much care for the glass roof. In a roll-over accident I would feel safer with a steel roof, but maybe those are not so likely with the low center of gravity afforded by the floor-based battery. The car interior felt overheated when we got into it and no fan was blowing, but I only asked about fan control towards the end of my driving portion. In any other car I would have easily figured it out on my own.

Checking out the trunk and the “frunk” (front trunk) after we got out of the car, the limited access for bulky luggage from the rear was quite a contrast to our Prius, in which we regularly move large items from a DIY center or bicycles for cycling tours far from Tokyo. The Model Y will address that, but it’s also 160 mm taller than the Prius on top of being 90 mm wider like the Model 3. That’s more air resistance and more kWh used to overcome it. That’s one thing I love about the Prius, it offers all this interior space despite being compact and efficient on the outside. 🙂

The width would already make a Model 3 or Model Y a very tight fit in our driveway. We would also have to figure out if there’s enough clearance around the car to plug in the charging cable for overnight charging.

In summary, Tesla’s range of cars is not an easy sell for me as a Japanese customer. While they have great technology, some of the design choices are not a good fit for Japan and the customer experience when dealing with the company (especially given the price range) will not match a lot of cultural expectations.

UPDATE (2020-03-19):

Size information has finally been released for the Model Y. These are the exterior dimensions compared to my current Prius:

Length: 4751 / 4570 (+181 mm)
Width: 1921 / 1760 (+161 mm)
Height: 1624 / 1470 (+154 mm)

Given the width and height it looks like it has roughly 20% more frontal area than the Prius which will impact its air resistance and hence energy usage at freeway speeds.

The train to Galápagos

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If you have read my previous article about the route of the Japanese Chuo Shinkansen, you will know that I am both interested in and sceptical of the high speed Maglev train route now under construction between Tokyo and Nagoya, later to be extended until Osaka.

I recently came across an insightful article by German train expert Sven Andersen in which he highlighted some serious drawbacks of the superconducting magnetic levitation technology to be used for the project. As he pointed out, despite its exorbitant cost the new line will only add about 25% of the capacity of the existing Nozomi trains and 19% of the capacity of the Kodama and Hikari trains (the former only stop at major stations while the latter also stop at intermediate stations).

The mix of different train classes on either rail and wheel based or maglev routes means that (without two separate tracks in either direction) faster trains will have to pass slower trains while those are stopped at stations, with a need for switches to direct them to alternative track sections around each station. A new type of switch had to be developed for maglev trains which did not even exist yet when JR Central already decided on maglev as the technology for the new line: A lengthy piece of concrete track with embedded magnets is push sideways using hydraulic pistons, which takes considerable time. This slow operation of switches limits how closely different classes of trains can follow each other or how closely spaced they can arrive at different platforms at a head station (Tokyo Shinagawa and Nagoya or Osaka).

The two main reasons given for building the new Chuo Shinkansen line were 1) to provide more passenger capacity as the Tokaido Shinkansen line is running at capacity and 2) to provide an alternative route in case the Tokaido Shinkansen is hit by a natural disaster.

If the new maglev line can only provide a quarter or a fifth of the capacity of the existing line then it will not really be able to live up to either objective.

Andersen therefore strongly favours rethinking the plans by going for a rail and wheel-based approach on the new line. Though it would limit top speeds to 350 km/h instead of 500 km/h, it would allow many more trains to be run per hour, which dramatically increase capacity. It would also make it possible for trains operating on the new line to interconnect with the existing rail network, e.g. on to Hiroshima, Kyoto and other parts of Japan, instead of passengers having to get off one train with their luggage, ride 10 floors of escalators and then board a different train to get to their ultimate destination.

Like the German Transrapid Maglev system that was a commercial flop, the Chuo Shinkansen without wheels and rails will be an island within the rail network of an island – an amazing technical feat, but not really a solution for the needs of passengers in Japan and elsewhere.

The Runway to Hell

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Even four years after the Paris climate agreement, politicians, businesses and consumers are still in denial what this means for our future and what we must do today. At best, we’re all paying lip service while trying to postpone making real changes.

Two examples: Narita airport is planning for a major expansion in flight capacity in the 2020s and Tepco and Chubu Electric Power are trying to open a new coal fired power station in 2023.

One of the greatest concerns behind climate change goals are climate feedback loops, where any amount of additional global warming triggers new causes of global warming. A few examples:

  • If arctic temperatures rise enough for the ground in permafrost regions to thaw in the summer this will lead to CO2 and methane releases from frozen ancient organic matter that starts to rot and decay.
  • Warming oceans may release methane trapped in icy slush as methane clathrate on the sea bed.
  • If summer air temperatures on the Greenland ice sheet rise enough to melt snow during daytime before freezing again, it changes the albedo of the frozen surface to absorb more sunlight and melt again more easily.

So if we want to avoid runaway global warming, we have a very tight CO2 budget that we can still release before the world has to run on 100% non-fossil energy sources.

What we would need is a moonshot-like project, with our brightest minds and financial resources focused on switching all power generation to non-fossil energy, expanding it to take over from other uses of oil and gas such as transport while minimizing release of CO2 outside of power generation. That means not just electric cars and trucks but also fewer cars, less air travel, no more deforestation, minimal consumption of cement and steel and more recycling.

While the Japanese government has formally committed itself to fighting climate change, the reality looks different. Last year the Narita International Airport Corp., government ministries and local government agreed to a plan to increase annual takeoff and landing slots from 300,000 to 500,000. To this purpose, a 2,500 m runway will be extended to 3,500 m to handle bigger planes and a third runway of 3,500 m will be built in the 2020s. Currently, there is no practical alternative to kerosene-based jet fuel. More flights and bigger aircraft mean more CO2 emissions from fossil fuel. Instead of making it possible for more people to fly more often, we should be looking for ways to discourage and avoid flying wherever possible.

JERA, a joint venture between Tepco and Chubu Electric Power is trying to build a coal-fired power station at Kurihama near Yokosuka, with plans to start operating in 2023. Coal is the most carbon-intensive of all fossil fuels. One kWh generated by burning coal even in the most advanced coal-fired thermal power stations releases about twice as much CO2 as the same amount of electricity generated from a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power station running on natural gas. With a limited carbon budget it makes no sense to burn any coal if we still have gas. If we really still must expand fossil fuel power generation (and we probably don’t in Japan), coal is by far the worst choice of all fossil fuels available!

Instead of expanding airports and building coal power stations, we should expand offshore wind power and geothermal energy while raising taxes on air travel, for example by taxes on jet fuel. A recent International Energy Agency report estimated the worldwide potential for wind energy production at 11 times the annual electricity consumption of the world. Japan has almost completely blocked offshore wind power. It has a huge Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), yet in 2018 Britain’s installed offshore wind power base was over 120 times that of Japan, Germany’s about 100 times and China 70 times. Even Belgium which controls only 0.5% of the North Sea had 20 times more installed offshore wind power capacity than Japan in 2018.

Some air travel can be shifted to trains or to less energy intensive ships. Eventually we will develop technology to fly airplanes with non-fossil fuel, such as methane produced from CO2 with renewable electricity in reverse fuel cells though that won’t be cheap or particularly energy-efficient. But until then we need to make hard choices that take us closer to our goals, not further away from them.

Future generations will struggle as coastal land where hundreds of millions of people worldwide currently live or where they grow food will disappear in the sea as warming oceans expand and glaciers melt. They will have to deal with it.

Whole countries will disappear in the next couple of centuries, including the Netherlands and Bangladesh. The same will happen to most of the ten largest cities in the world. The sea level rises projected until 2100 are by no means the end of the story: Sea level rises for several centuries to come are already locked in with the emissions of the last 200 years. The last time this planet had more than 400 ppm of CO2 in its atmosphere (as opposed to 280 ppm before the industrial revolution) was 3 million years ago, when sea levels where 20 m higher than today. So that’s going to happen again, even if we stopped burning all coal, oil and gas today. But because we are still going to keep doing that for a number of years or decades, the ultimate sea levels will be even higher than they were then.

Maybe in some ways it’s easier to speak truth if you’re a 16 year old school kid, not a politician who wants to get campaign finance from friendly businesses or to get reelected by voters who still want to fly on vacation to Thailand, or a business leader trying to please shareholders instead of saving the planet. But reality is reality, even if we look away. We, or our children and their children, will have to face it eventually and it will be what we make it today.

My First Flèche Ride (366 km in 24 hours as a team)

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On Saturday/Sunday April 20/21, 2019 I rode the Flèche ride I had signed up for in December. This will probably remain my biggest ride for the year.

The objective in a Flèche is to cover as much distance as possible in 24 hours as a team, with a minimum of 360 km. You can not stop at any place for more than 2 hours and you have to cover at least 25 km in the final two hours of the ride. Teams consist of 3-5 members, with tandems counting as one member. At least three members who have ridden the entire route together have to reach the goal. Traditionally Flèche rides are held on the Easter weekend in France. In other countries dates may differ because of the climate, but the Audax-Randonneur Nihonbashi Flèche did coincide with Easter. I was part of Team NishiTokyo and the ride started from Machida.

There were supposed to be 5 of us, but one person did not make it to start, so only the 4 of us took off at 07:00 on Saturday. The three others were seasoned randonneurs. Ride leader Mr O. participated in Paris-Brest-Paris in 2015. In fact he was wearing the hi-viz vest from that event. I had first met him at a 600 km brevet. Last year Mrs N. won the Audax Japan “Randonneur of the Year” award: She completed a 2400 km brevet around the coast of Hokkaido, i.e. twice the distance of PBP. Mr D. organises brevets for AJ NishiTokyo.

I had little doubt that I was going to be the weakest rider in the team but it was going to be a team effort in which we would always ride within sight of each other, not even WATT on climbs but climbing together.

I rode to Machida the evening before to spend the night at a cheap hotel (Toyoko Inn Fuchinobe, under 5,000 yen per night). Trying to minimize luggage this time and with no rain forecast, I opted for shorts, a short sleeve jersey, a light wind breaker and a t-shirt to wear as a base layer for when it was colder. I wasn’t sure if that was going to be enough. I was the only one in bare knees and my ride mates wore long sleeve jerseys, but it worked out temperature-wise and I never felt too cold while we were in motion. At the Nishi Izu brevet on March 30 I was also the lightest dressed participant.

Mr D. had prepared a cue sheet with average speeds between all the turns and major landmarks. Besides the PCs (points de controle) for which we needed to collect receipts to document that we passed there, he had also picked three Japanese restaurants for 30 minute meal stops. Normally on long distance rides and brevets I only eat food I buy at convenience stores or dried fruit I buy before, as it saves time. So I knew we would have to be riding considerably faster in between the stops. We also cut out all photo stops. All pictures I took we either stopped for a different reason (PCs, traffic lights, etc) or I took shots while in motion. We didn’t even stop at Yamanaka-ko for a group picture with Mt Fuji.

Mr O. had only slept for a few hours before the ride, but he led the group for almost the entire ride. His speed was very consistent. Mr D. was in second place, then me, with the rear covered by Mrs N. who made sure we stayed together. Sometimes she would suggest for me to speed up “if possible” to close a gap with Mr D.

After we crossed from Kanagawa into Yamanashi on Doshi-michi (Rt413), Mr D. started having problems with his knee. He had already abandoned a 300 km brevet the weekend before because of knee problems, which he didn’t want to exacerbate. We traded places, me moving up to Mr O. and him being followed by Mrs N. Even if he had to drop out of the Flèche we could have completed as a team because we still had three people, but I was also worried about Mr. O.’ s lack of pre-ride sleep.

At Michi-no-eki Doshi we had a short break. Like on my training ride to Yamanaka-ko two weeks earlier there were lots of motorcycles about. There were fewer bicycles than I expected. A new cycling base shop had opened not far from the road station, no doubt trying to capitalise on the increasing interest in Doshi road from the 2020 Olympic road race course.

We made it to the Doshi-michi Yamabushi-toge tunnel 10 minutes ahead of schedule, about 60 km from the start and at 1130 m elevation. I expected we’d be OK time-wise if we made it there on time since that first 1/6 of the course had almost half of the elevation gain. The legs got a short respite on the descent to Yamanaka-ko. the cherries were in bloom along the lake but we kept our pace towards PC1, where we only stopped briefly to collect receipts. A few km after that we pulled into the parking lot of a noodle shop. The food was served quickly. We used the toilet after ordering to minimize time.

Along Kawaguchi-ko Fuji was not as clearly visible as before and we picked up a head wind. Via Saiko we climbed to the main road and then Rt71 through the Aokigahara forest. We didn’t stop for the view of Motosu-ko at the pass but headed for the descent towards Shibakawa on the Fuji river. On the west side is was colder and Fuji was totally obscured by haze or clouds. I did put on my wind breaker for the 30+ km descent. We made it to the Familiymart at PC3 almost an hour ahead of schedule. It was now the middle of the afternoon.

We turned east at the Fuji river bridge towards Numazu. First there were a lot of traffic lights but then there were longer stretches in this urban area where we could just keep on going. Everybody had a story to tell where someone had slept by the roadside around here on some brevet or other. For the first time Mr O. slowed down a bit as he was getting sleepy. We turned south into Izu and 35 km after PC3, stopped for another restaurant. While we waited for the food, everyone was sending out pictures from Yamanaka-ko, to let others know we were OK.

Evening approached as we headed into the center of Izu, past Shuzenji and up into the mountains. Mr D.’s knee problems became worse and he had to call for a break. Mr O. probed his leg muscles with his fingers and it seemed to help. We climbed to the pass in the dark, now considerably slower to help out Mr D. but it also made it a lot easier for me. At the top I put on my wind breaker again for the descent towards Ito. We had used up some of our time savings but still reached PC4 ahead of schedule.

We saw fireworks light up above the Izu east coast. Between Toi and Odawara there were 4 climbs of various sizes, the biggest one at Manazuru, where we used prefectural road 740 high above the main road. The pace was relatively slow there as most of us were getting sleepy. Before Odawara we rejoined the main road and the course became mostly flat. 264 km from the start we stopped at a Denny’s restaurant for a meal and a turbo-nap. It was hard to believe we still had another 100 km to go.

Meanwhile the BRM421 300 km Fuji brevet by AJ NishiTokyo had started in Machida at 22:00. I was wondering if or where we would meet participants heading towards Odawara from Enoshima, for their clockwise loop around Mt Fuji. Indeed we came across the staff car parked by the side of the road, waiting for the fastest rider of that event to pass through and to take pictures. The staff members welcomed us with big cheers, took our pictures and we actually witnessed the first rider coming through soon after. As we rode east towards Enoshima we passed all the participants of BRM421 and shouted out encouragement towards them across the highway.

The nap at the restaurant seemed to have helped Mr O. and the flat route was better for Mr. D.’s knee. It became harder again for me to maintain the pace, but that was a good thing because it meant we could finish it as a team. We blazed down the west coast of Miura past Enoshima, Kamakura, Zushi and Hayama. Then we turned away from the coast towards Miura-Kaigan station for PC5, a 7-11.

The first birds could already be heard in the night as the morning approached. A mere 8 km from PC5 we collected another receipt at PC6, a Familymart in Yokosuka, to document we didn’t take any shortcuts. The more important next destination was a Jonathan restaurant in Yokosuka at km 337 where we arrived before 04:00. This was our designated 22 hour spot. We would eat and rest here until 05:00, 2 hours before the ride closing time, before our last ride segment of at least 25 km. The designated minimum goal was the Familymart at Yamashita-koen in Yokohama, just south of Minato Mirai, which was 26 km, for a total distance of 362.4 km.

We had just over an hour at the Jonathan restaurant. After having some food we all took a nap, until awoken by the alarm clock set for 04:50. We paid individually at 05:00, took our receipts and set off for the goal. We had almost 2 hours left to cover 26 km. There were traffic lights but not that much traffic. In between traffic lights Mr O. pulled us again at 28-30 km/h. As we got closer and closer we had an ever increasing margin against bad luck, such as a last minute puncture that could have screwed everything up. When we got close to Yamashita-koen, Mrs N. suggested not stopping there to collect receipts to prove we covered the minimum distance but continuing on towards Tokyo since the spirit of the Flèche is to ride as far as possible in those 24 hours. So we continued on past Minato Mirai and on to Rt15 as the clock moved towards 07:00. We would only get credit for the shortest distance from the last PC (Jonathan) to the 24 hour point, so not all the distance we rode counted towards the result. We all had coffee at a conbini on Rt15, where the 24 hours expired.

After that we collected and sorted our receipts and filled in the PC times on the brevet cards. Then we got back on our bikes again and rode another 27 km to Hibiya-koen in Tokyo, now without any clock ticking but still not much slower. We handed in our brevet cards with receipts for checking at the reception desk. There were teams that had cycled here from Sendai, Niigata or Nagoya. I met several randonneurs I knew from other events. The chairman of Audax Japan was also there. All the teams were called up on stage one by one, to briefly introduce themselves, with the team’s route projected on a screen behind them.

And there we were, all four of us, with a certified distance of 366 km in 24 hours (and over 3,000 m of elevation gain):

The ride home alone from the event seemed like the hardest part. All the adrenaline must have dissipated and the smallest climbs seemed painful. At home I went to bed and slept for 4 hours until dinner.

On Monday the legs were still complaining on the shallowest of grades. The next day they felt almost normal. The third day I felt fine again.

Dekopon, Cherry Blossoms and Some Rain: BRM330 200 Km in West Izu

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The dekopon season will be coming to an end soon, but to compensate the shorts-and-short-sleeves season has started! I enjoyed both on Saturday, buying local dekopon (4 big juicy ones for 300 yen) in West Izu. The roadside stand worked on the honour principle: I dropped my coins into the collection box and took one bag of fruits.

I was the only rider in shorts at the start of the 2019BRM330 200 km brevet in Mishima, out of 13 who had shown up, out of 30 who had signed up, the others having been put off by a weather forecast that predicted a high chance of rain in the evening.

I drove to Mishima on Friday night with the Elephant Bikes NFE in the back of my Prius and parked the car in a coin parking lot (700 yen for 24h). I stayed at the Toyoko Inn, which was also going to be the goal of the 203 km ride which started at Mishima station. There were 2 courses, the hilly Matsuzaki course and the insanely hilly Darumayama course. I had tried and DNFed the latter in 2017, so it was Matsuzaki again for me.

Before the 08:00 start I loaded up the course on my GPS unit, but hit an unexpected snag when it reported a file system error that required a factory reset of the unit, meaning I’d lose my stored breadcrumb trail for navigation that I normally use. So I had little alternative but using my phone and the paper cue sheets for navigation. However, I had not brought my usual plastic cover for the phone to protect it on the handle bars in case of rain, nor had I weather proofed the cue sheets. The map bag of my front bag is not totally waterproof.

I used RWGPS to load the course and map and it gave me verbal directions in English throughout the ride. I kept the phone connected to a 10,000 mAh USB battery in my front bag until the goal. I have two USB batteries and two phones. There’s always a plan B and sometimes a plan C! 🙂

When the rain started to come down on the way back near Toi, I covered the phone with a plastic shower cap from a hotel stay which I secured it with rubber bands. I always keep one shower cap in the front bag as an emergency cover for the leather saddle or whatever. When my wet fingers made the touch screen difficult to operate, I used spare dry socks that I also kept in the same bag to wipe the screen dry again.

During a brevet on February 10, 2019 organized by Audax Kinki, a participant was sadly hit from behind and killed by a car in a tunnel. Brevet participants are required to wear reflective vests throughout the ride, but sometimes they wear a backpack which could partly obscure the reflective vest. Thus we were asked to wear the vest on top of any backpack. I actually brought two reflective vests, one to wear and one for my light string backpack (for spare clothes) to “wear”, which made getting changed quicker. I had bought the second at a brevet reception when I had forgotten the original one at home.

Most of the starter group did not spread out much until we turned the NW corner of Izu and the bigger climbs started. I took some pictures of the others and the scenery, but it was too hazy to see anything of Mt Fuji or even much of the mainland coast of Shizuoka on the other side of the bay. Mt Fuji remained totally hidden for the entire day.

As it got warmer towards noon I started fading a bit. I would have been really uncomfortable in long pants and thermal jacket. I was now riding on my own but comfortable in the knowledge that I was 50 minutes ahead of minimum pace at that point, which should normally ensure that I would complete the ride under the time limit.

There were a fair number of cherry trees, but most of them weren’t in full bloom yet, many quite sparse at the top still, so I didn’t take too many pictures of them.

There were only two timed controls on this course between the start and the goal, with 161 km in between. Near the southernmost point of the ride there was a photo check: We had to take a picture of a viewing platform on a mountain road together with our brevet card to prove we passed there. I climbed the mountain road together with a young couple. They had already suffered a puncture in NW Izu that had cost them time, while I frequently stopped for pictures.

From there I enjoyed a long descent to Kumomi Onsen. I had visited there in December and then climbed Mt Eboshi, which offers a breathtaking scenery of the coast. We passed Iwachi Onsen, where I had often visited by car when our children were still little.

I was trying to make it to near Heda village by sunset, where a staff member was taking pictures of all of us as we passed, but my own pictures took priority. At the last conbini in Toi before the wilderness it started raining and I put on my rain gear. On the descents I had to be a lot more careful. The wet asphalt soaked up all the light.

The rain became quite intense and I couldn’t help thinking of the 17 non-starters who had listened to the weather forecast… but with my time buffer I expected I’d still make it in time, unless I had bad navigation problems in the last 20 km. The phone became difficult to use when its touch screen got wet. Once, the RWGPS app somehow ended up back on the route selection and I had to restart the Navigation, which seemed to have cost me my downloaded maps 🙁 Now I could only use the turn by turn instructions to follow the course, but no map view. Fortunately, those turn by turn instructions worked flawlessly, even if the sound volume wasn’t always high enough to be clearly audible. Worst case I had to check the screen. Twice I went off-course but it soon let me know and it recovered when I backtracked to the wrong turn.

After more than 3 hours of riding in the dark I finally got close to Mishima station. When I stopped at the traffic light across from the Toyoko Inn, a staff member waved at me and handed me a note with the finishing time after I crossed. It was 21:19, only 11 minutes under the cut-off time. At the goal reception I presented my brevet card, the receipts from PC1 and PC2 (both 7-11 stores) and showed a photograph of the viewing platform. I had successfully completed! The young couple also made it. They arrived a mere 2 minutes before closing time. Another cyclist who had punctured on the last part of the ride in the rain was over the time limit.

On the drive back to Tokyo I stopped twice at Tomei expressway service areas for some rest, as I was too sleepy. When I got home I unloaded the car, took a shower and went to bed at 02:00. Two more weekends before the 360+ km Fleche ride for which I’m preparing.

2019 AJ NishiTokyo 200 km Miura Peninsula

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This is one of the last views of Mt Fuji I had last Saturday (2019-01-19), when I rode my first brevet of the year, BRM119 NishiTokyo 200 km Miura Peninsula. I also saw Mt Fuji from the Yamate area of Yokohama (near the Foreign General Cemetery), from the waterfront south of Yokosuka and from various spots on the west coast of Miura, including just before Enoshima.

This 200 km ride around Miura peninsula from Machida to Machida is one I have done before, though much of the course outside Miura was different from last year’s. There’s a 13h 30m time limit (6:00 start, 19:30 close), with two timed checkpoints and a third location for a picture check. I finished in 12h 42m. Together with my ride back to Tokyo it came to 237 km (on Strava).

First Brevet of the Year

January brevets here are always very popular and fill up quickly when the signup period opens. BRM119 by AJ NishiTokyo was no exception. It filled up the first evening.

For a 200 km ride this course has minimal elevation gain (less than 1200 m) so it’s not quite as physically challenging as other 200 km brevets (hence maybe easier for people you didn’t ride much since the end of the 2018 brevet season in October), but there are no easy brevets. In this one you trade mountains for traffic lights and some busy roads. The January chill definitely will suck your energy, especially before sunrise and after sunset. You will be using a lot of energy just to stay warm, even when simply breathing in cold air!

The temperature on the ride ranged from -1° C at the start to 19° C near Jogashima, before dropping back to 5° C at Machida. This is a huge swing that’s difficult to dress for. I have a large front bag with sufficient space for clothes (and food), but I don’t know how others handled it — probably by feeling very chilly for the first few hours and very warm during the day!

The temperature swing aside, the weather was near perfect. The sky was nearly cloudless for almost the entire day. We were spoilt by ocean views and Fuji views.

I rode from my home in Tokyo to Machida the night before, as I had booked a room at a ToyokoInn to better cope with the early start time (06:00). This is a chain of inexpensive hotels. The rooms are clean and offer all the essentials. The ride reception to pick up one’s brevet card opened at 05:00, with a pre-ride briefing scheduled for 05:30. I went to bed at 22:00 to get more than 6 hours of sleep. My alarm went off at 04:10 and I left the hotel 40 minutes later.

I was well prepared for this ride. It was my third Century (160.9+ km) ride of the month, all three of them started no later than 06:00 so I knew the temperatures before sunrise and how they would feel in what I was wearing.

These are my improvised shoe covers, a pair of old merino socks with strategically cut holes for the SPD cleats, during testing the week before:

I had more than enough clothes with me, for example a choice of a winter jacket or a windbreaker to wear on top of my LS merino jersey and I used both, at different times.

I wore most of my clothes at the start at 06:00 from Machida:

The only time I really did feel cold was when riding back to Tokyo after the event, as I hadn’t bothered to change back into my thermal underwear and base layer and consequently felt the wind chill on my hands. I improvised some poor man’s Bar Mitts ™ out of plastic bags and rubber bands that kept my hands toasty warm for the rest of the ride.

Pacing myself

During the descent towards the Tamagawa river from the west I could see the whole of Tokyo below me in the dawn, including the skyscrapers of Shinjuku and Tokyo Skytree, the 634 m broadcast tower on the opposite side of the city.

About an hour into the ride, the sun rose. It was dazzling us at times. Near Kawasaki station we hit rush hour traffic, but after that we switched to a cycling path by the riverside. After 48 km we reached PC1, the first control. Here I took off some of my layers as it was warming up.

Between there and Tsurumi we were cycling near the port area, with many trucks carrying heavy shipping containers on the road.

In Yokohama we passed Minato Mirai with its old brick warehouses and other historic buildings. After a Yamashita park we climbed up to the Yamate area, also known as the Bluff, a hillside that was home to the first foreigners who arrived in Japan for trading when Japan opened to the world in the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate. I got a surprising view of Mt Fuji from just outside the Foreign General Cemetery on the hill.

With a large group it’s always tempting to try to hang on to faster riders and I probably ended up doing that, riding a bit too fast for the first 60 km or so of the ride. Then my legs gradually started to complain and I dropped the pace and stopped for food near Yokosuka. I kept a more sustainable pace for the rest of the ride and felt pretty good. I also stopped often for pictures.

After Yokosuka you get good views of Boso peninsula on the opposite side of Tokyo bay. The scenery becomes more rural. By now the temperatures were much milder. I was riding without my winter jacket and later even removed my base layer under the long sleeve jersey.

I passed Hayama, Zushi and Kamakura on the west coast, enjoying views of the ocean and Mt Fuji. After Enoshima the road turned off the coast and headed north. I had a comfortable time buffer and didn’t have to worry about control closing times.

It was still daylight at PC2, the last control. From here it was 31 km to the goal. Once the sun set, the silhouette of Mt Fuji in the dusk was still visible to the west and I stopped a couple of times for more pictures.

I arrived at the goal with about the last fifth of the participants still behind me. AJ NishiTokyo staff served hot drinks and snacks. We talked and took some pictures of each other and the arriving finishers.

Outlook into the season

My next brevet will be a 200 km ride in west Izu at the end of March which will be a lot more hilly, but before that I will do at least one Century ride in February. In April I will be participating in a Flèche as part of a mixed 5 person team riding 360 km in 24h to meet up with other Randonneurs in Tokyo. Most likely I’ll also be riding a 400 km brevet in May.

I am not aiming for a 600 km ride or for completing the Super Randonneur series (200, 300, 400 and 600 km) this year, let alone participating in Paris-Brest-Paris 2019 in August. Rides up to 400 km are enough of a challenge for me 🙂

Chichibu Adventures: Mitsumine Shrine and Gelateria Hana

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“The best way to be a frugal traveler is to learn to truly love the things that don’t cost a lot of money, like eating honest, simple food, gazing at unfamiliar scenery or making new friends.”

(Matt Gross, New York Times)

Almost every year I’ve been doing a bike ride in Chichibu, a rural basin surrounded by mountains in the west of Saitama prefecture, to see the autumn leaves there, but I also enjoy it in other seasons. A week ago I had planned to head back there, but changed my plans due to the rainy Saturday forecast, as the rainy season was still not over. Since then the summer heat has invaded us with high humidity and temperatures of over 30 C every day.

Instead of that Saturday ride I joined two friends on Monday for my first true summer ride this season. The temperature hit the high 30s. I drank plenty of water, but was still exhausted when I got home. In the latter part of the ride I passed Senzoku-ike, a lake in Tokyo that I had never visited before. I took pictures at a Shinto shrine (Senzoku-ike Benzaiten) on a small island accessible via a bridge. There were ajisai (hydrangeas) growing at the park and the bright red shrine looked relatively recently renovated. I enjoyed discovering a new spot I had not seen before.

The following weekend my friend Jack, with whom I had ridden in Chichibu several times before, announced he would head back there for a some cycling with a friend, so I decided to join him. We initially wanted to do the old “Ghost Town Loop”, a ride past a deserted mining town, but then found out the road leading there was closed due to repair work on some tunnels. A phone call to the office in charge in Chichibu confirmed that the repairs would still take a couple more months. Our friend Mike suggested we might head to nearby Mistsumine shrine instead, which neither of us had been to before.

On Saturday morning I loaded my Elephant NFE into my Prius and drove out to Chichibu. Unlike with my Bike Friday, I still don’t have a good way of taking my NFE on trains, due to its front rack and fixed fenders that don’t make for easy disassembly to get a smaller package that’s easier to carry on.

After a 2 hour drive I parked the car in the parking lot of the Michi-no-Eki (Road Station), which has ample space and is not far from Seibu-Chichibu station, where Jack and his friend would arrive. After unloading the bike, changing into my SPD shoes and putting on my helmet, I filled up my water bottles at the tap of nearby public toilets. Next to the toilets there was a public fountain where people were filling up as many water containers as would fit into the back of their car. You see this kind of thing a lot. Even though tap water in most places in Japan is very good, some people swear by specific sources in the mountains and use the water from there for making tea or cooking soba noodles, for the very best taste. They will even drive there regularly, like every week.

Next I stopped at a nearby convenience store to get some food and have a cup of coffee, as I was still early: I had left enough time, just in case the roads were congested but they hadn’t been. It was only the second time I had taken to the car to Chichibu for cycling and the first time on this particular route (via National Route 299 from near Hanno).

Then I cycled the last km to the station and looked for Jack. He and his friend soon arrived. It turned out to be Kuba, who I had known online for years, but who now lives oversees. He had been a very strong cyclist in the past but recently he had not been riding much. Consequently we picked a very moderate pace, which suited all of us fine in this heat. It was a sunny day, with a forecast high of 34 C, but usually with the tarmac soaking up the sun the air temperatures above the road will be hotter than the forecast, unless the road happens to be shaded.

We followed the familiar route west out of town towards the ghost town, avoiding the main road as much as possible in favour of small back roads. That made it easier to ride side by side and to talk. After about 24 km we got to the t-junction where a right turn used to take us to the ghost town and for the first time we turned left, unto an unknown road signposted for Mitsumine Shrine.

At a shaded place up the road with one of the ubiquitous drinks vending machines we stopped and filled up our water bottles and talked for a while while we cooled off again.

Soon we got to Futase dam and Chichibu lake behind it. After taking a few pictures we followed the road across the top of the dam and started climbing on the other side. It was a steady uphill, some of it quite exposed to the sun. We all climbed at our own pace but reassembled every now and then, to cool off in the shade together and talk. It was around 35 C and not even noon yet. There were quite a few cars and the odd bus heading up towards the shrine, which we knew was a major tourist attraction.

The distance numbers on the road signs were getting smaller and finally the climb leveled off as we got close, now at about 1,000 m elevation, about 750 m above where we had started. The shrine was not visible from the road, only a big car park with cars, motorcycles and buses. We headed in there to use the toilets and to fill up our water bottles again.

We discussed visiting the shrine, but Jack was also interested in visiting Gelateria Hana after we’d get back to Seibu-Chichibu station. On several rides to the ghost town he always made it back too late to still be able to do that. So we decided we’d give the shrine a miss and instead head on, to increase our chances of ice cream, pizza and espresso at Hana.

There was almost no traffic on the road beyond the shrine (I had heard that side was closed to cars but saw no sign prohibiting entry to motor vehicles and we did actually encounter a handful of cars). After 2.5 km we reached a tunnel through the mountains at about 1150 m above sea level. The cool air inside felt so pleasant. We could almost have staid there, but then we wouldn’t have seen the views that awaited us… Such as the stunning panorama presenting itself after the tunnel exit!

We were high above the valleys below, near the peak of Kirimogamine (霧藻ケ峰), and could see the Chichibu basin spread out to the north. For me this one view alone was worth riding a 70 km loop and riding uphill 10 km on a hot day 🙂

As we continued, there was a lot of sand on the road, perhaps still left over from the winter service. I proceeded very carefully until the road was clear again, as I didn’t want to wipe out in a corner. My companions got ahead of me but I knew they would wait for me somewhere.

This side of the mountain was beautiful, very green and shaded. After a while the road joined a mountain stream which then merged into the wild Ochi river. We descended for over 10 km, giving up about 750 m of elevation.

Climbing up this way would be scenic but hard. I’ll try a reverse loop one day!

Eventually we crossed the Arakawa and rejoined the main road. Since it was almost all downhill from there to Chichibu, we could keep going pretty fast and didn’t take the same back roads. Still, Jack concluded that by the time we got back to the station, if he were to visit the ice cream shop before taking the train back, it wouldn’t leave enough time for their existing evening plans, so he dropped Gelateria Hana — again.

Meanwhile, I was intrigued enough about it that when we finally made it to the station after 16 km in the sun on the main road, I told my friends that I’d give the cafe a try.

Chichibu is famous for its many temples and shrines, which inspire both pilgrimages and shrine festivals (o-matsuri). I passed a shop displaying traditional masks used at shrine festivals.

Route 11 to the cafe was easy to follow and flat until the last few km, but once it started climbing, it also entered the shade of the forest and the air felt pleasantly cool. Nice!

Soon I arrived at the cafe, which is popular with cyclists. There was a bike rack in front. I got a table on the deck outside in the back with a view of the river.

I tried some blend coffee with plain waffles and their chocolate-mint ice cream. It was a nice treat after the ride.

The staff was very friendly. The waiter had asked me where I was from. When I went to pay, his colleague expressed regret about Germany’s misfortune at the football (soccer) world cup 🙂

His sympathy for my country’s team was a nice gesture, but to be honest I’m not actually interested in football. This is not as uncommon in Germany as the stereotypes would have you believe: According to consistent annual opinion poll results, of the German-speaking population aged 14 and over some 36% are “not particularly” or “not at all” interested in football, outnumbering both the less than 35% that are “especially” interested in it and the not quite 30% that are “also but not that much” interested.

There you have it, only a minority of Germans has a strong interest in football and that’s whether their country’s team wins or loses!

The ride back to the car was easy. There I changed back into my non-cycling shoes and got into the car. I decided that, before I drove home, I’d still visit Mt Buko, the tall mountain that dominates Chichibu city. One side of it is scarred by a huge limestone quarry. It really stands out in the mountainous skyline of Chichibu from far away and it looks like something out of The Lord of the Rings to me… It was an interesting drive, but I’ll save that report for another time 🙂



2018 AJ NishiTokyo 400 km Fuji Big Loop

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On Saturday/Sunday, May 12/13, 2018 I finished BRM512 (BRM512富士大回り400km), at 400 km my biggest brevet of the year. After having abandoned the 300 km BRM414 AJ NishiTokyo brevet around Mt Fuji due to atrocious weather conditions on April 14/15, 2018 (see report here), I had been a bit nervous about this one. It does an even bigger loop with more elevation gain (3500 m vs. 3000 m) and in my case, because I’m a slow cyclist, more time spent not sleeping.

I love the splendid Fuji views and the great variety of scenery that AJ NishiTokyo’s 400 km brevet offers. It covers 4 prefectures (Tokyo, Kanagawa, Yamanashi and Shizuoka). In both years in which I had completed the 400 previously (2015 and 2016), I pre-rode it as a personal ride on my own two weeks before the event, which really helped to prepare myself (2015 and 2016 reports).

On the day of this ride my father, who passed away from cancer about 5 years ago, would have turned 80. As a keen hiker, he would have appreciated the views and the camaraderie of this event. I was thinking of him a lot this day.

Preparing for the ride

The abandoned 300 km in April shook my self-confidence, since it was the first time I had abandoned a brevet on a course that I had successfully completed before, even if it was due to an external influence such as extreme weather. I then decided on a crash course to get into shape for the May ride, still doing only one long ride a week, but picking difficult ones.

Cycling legend Eddie Merckx is often quoted as having advised: “Don’t buy upgrades, ride up grades!” Personally I somewhat doubt he would have said that, given this English play on words would not work well in other languages, that Eddie was from the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium and back in those days he was far more likely to be interviewed by French, Italian, Dutch or German-speaking journalists than English-speaking ones. Nevertheless, as advice it is spot on 🙂

There are a couple of courses that I tend to ride only infrequently (such as once a year or less) because they’re so hard. One of those is the Oume Temple Loop, a mountainous course near Hanno conceived by my friend Deej. Most years I only rode it once, if at all, but then in 2017 I ended up doing it twice just one week apart, each time with a different friend. I really thought that exercise helped me on my subsequent Fuji 300 brevet, which I finished with a personal best time despite insanely hot temperatures.

So for this year I put the Oume Temple Loop back on the menu. One week after the rained-out Fuji 300 I cycled to Oume to pick up six other people and we rode the course. One highlight is the Takayama climb, a big climb of 8 km that gets steeper and steeper and tops out at over 20%.

You will pay for this effort on all subsequent climbs on the ride. The scenery is beautiful though. Many of the rindo (forest roads) are exceptionally quiet. It’s a world apart from Tokyo.

Two days later I announced a repeat of the ride for the next weekend and was rejoined by one of the participants from the first time and three others. Again it was very hard. I don’t know if the memory of the previous ride helped or discouraged, but we did it.

The next weekend I organised a ride up the Kazahari rindo, a forest road in Hinohara with up to 19% that has a reputation for being painfully steep, followed by a visit to the Nippara Limestone Cave.

Altogether I did 5 rides of 178 km or more on the 5 weekends before BRM512. I think especially the Temple Loop rides were excellent training, both physically and mentally.

In the week before the ride I tried to avoid staying up too late and took a nap on some days if I had got too little sleep for some reason. I also watched the weather forecasts for Saturday and Sunday for several locations around Mt Fuji, to make sure there was no chance of rain.

The Monday before the brevet I took my Elephant Bikes NFE to Tim of GS Astuto to install new brake pads and check the rotors as I knew the pads were pretty worn out. It turned out the rear pads were actually worn down to the metal. With fresh resin pads the brakes are fantastic again.

On Friday evening I loaded up the bike to cycle 29 km to Sagamihara, where I had booked a room for the night at Toyoko Inn, so I could get plenty of sleep and would only have to cycle 3 km to the start of the event. Despite having rested the whole week I didn’t feel particularly energetic on the way to the hotel, but it always depends on how you feel the day of the ride. A good night’s sleep can make a lot of difference.

25 hours of adventure

My alarm went off at 05:40 in the morning. I had gone to bed around 22:00 the night before, but woke up twice during the night. I took a quick shower, got dressed and picked up my things to check out. Soon I was on the road. 10 minutes later I arrived at the park for the brevet start. I greeted old friends and picked up my brevet card at the AJ NishiTokyo reception. A lot of the conversations as we were waiting for the briefing were about the last brevet, the washed-out Fuji 300 km. 57 people who had signed up were sensible enough to not even start. I met two of only 8 finishers out of 23 starters. Fortunately the forecast for BRM512 was much more favourable – no rain, a high of about 27 C and a low of about 13 C.

After the briefing and safety check we were off. I think there were about 70 of us. Before we got out into the countryside, we had to stop for a number of traffic lights. At one of them, the lead cyclist wanted to turn left following the course of the brevet in previous years, while the new course went straight. As I pulled up next to her, I pointed out the three areas where the route had changed from the years before. Perhaps she had not studied the new route in detail. I had sat down in front of two computers with two monitors, comparing the old and the final new route side by side about a week before the ride.

I also always make sure to download the route as a GPX file to my GPS so I can follow a breadcrumb trail on its screen, a virtually foolproof way of navigating a course.

Despite the length of the course, even out in the countryside I was often within sight of other cyclists, and sometimes drafting or leading someone. That’s always reassuring, as it tells you that your performance is reasonable enough.

The organisers had replaced one untimed check on the way to Yamanakako with a timed check point near Kawaguchiko, at about 900 m above sea level. Previously PC1 (point de contrôle 1) had been only after the descent from Motusoku, at much lower elevation again, which allows one to make up time lost climbing from sea level to the elevation of the Fuji Five Lakes.

I stopped at one convenience store before entering Doshi road (national route 413) to buy food and some bottled milk tea, then again at the Doshi road station (Michi no Eki Doshi) around km 51. The climb from there to the tunnel felt hard. I was feeling my legs, but I knew the biggest climb would be out of the way and if I could only maintain any time buffer ahead of the required minimum speed that I was left with by then, I could finish the ride by maintaining slightly less than a 15 km/h average, as long as I didn’t get too sleepy.

I saw the first Fuji view around Doshi village and was surprised how clear it looked, because there were some clouds in the sky. Nevertheless, on the other side of the pass, the views got even better.

On the shore of Yamanakako (Lake Yamanaka) I could see the snow-capped peaks of the Japanese Southern Alps, which is actually fairly rare. Half the time you can’t even see Mt Fuji from the lake that lies right in front of it! It was a gorgeous day for views.

From the north side of the lake we followed a minor route, away from national routes 138/139 that we had taken in 2015/2016. The roads were much more quiet. We passed forests and a flower park. Most of it was downhill too. Finally PC1 came up, around km 82. I was 41 minutes ahead of schedule, which was not bad. I bought some food and kept the receipt as proof of the passage.

This 7-11 store was right in front of the entrance to a 2.4 km long tunnel. As I was eating and talking to staff and other cyclists, I saw two cyclists in reflective randonneur vests enter the tunnel without stopping for the PC. Later, as I had almost crossed the tunnel, I saw them come back towards the PC inside the tunnel as they must have realized their mistake.

After the tunnel the route followed the north shores of Kawaguchiko and Saiko, again offering beautiful Fuji views and opportunities for photographs. Then the road climbed to meet up with Rt139, but only followed it for 6.5 km, with the Aokigahara forest on our side.

I was looking forward to the national route 300 turnoff for Motosuko (Lake Motosu). There’s a famous spot facing Mt Fuji where you get the exact same view of it as you see on a 1,000 Japanese yen bank note (well, except for the seasonal amount of snow and the reflection of the mountain on the lake surface depending on how smooth it is with wind, etc). Everybody stopped here to take a picture.

Right after that we entered the tunnel for the Motosu road descent, the biggest and fastest descent on the entire course. On a previous event one of the participants had a bad accident here and had to be airlifted to a hospital, so AJ NishiTokyo staff will always point out to be careful on this descent.

There are some nice views on this descent too and I stopped again for pictures. After the steepest part we turned off for Yamanashi prefectural route 9, which crosses over to an adjacent valley, then another long descent all the way to PC2 near km 133. After the time gained on the fast descent, I was now 1:25 (85 minutes) ahead of the minimum pace.

There were no big climbs on the way to the untimed checkpoint near Minami Alps at km 156, so progress was good. In fact, we even had a nice tailwind. Though this would turn into a headwind on return, the return route also starts with a fair bit of descending that initially more than compensated for the headwind.

I passed a TDK factory in Minami Alps that had beautiful rose bushes facing national route 52.

The checkpoint on top of a loop-shaped ramp provided a nice view of the wide mountain valley at the heart of Yamanashi prefecture, including Mt Fuji. Though it was still almost another 50 km to the half-way point of the ride, it felt like we were already half way there.

There I met my friend Mr O., usually an extremely strong rider, who was resting and looking exhausted. He had not had enough chance to cycle this year to prepare himself. He decided to do the safe thing and retire from the ride.

The return route passed through small towns with a nice descent.

I could still enjoy the Fuji views from the Minami Alps side, which were as clear as from Yamanakako and Kawaguchiko.

Gradually the road became more level and the wind more noticeable, especially after we rejoined Rt52 along the Fujikawa river to the coast. Then we crossed the river near Minobu and followed the Minobu railway line. The road became more hilly and evening approached. There’s a lot of construction going on for the Chūbu-Ōdan Expressway that will connect Chūō Expressway to Shin-Tōmei Expressway when completed.

I don’t really like those hills along the Minobu railway, especially after dark when there are no more views, so I was glad when about half an hour after sunset I reached PC3 in Shibakawa (219 km from the start), 2 hours and 14 minutes (134 minutes) ahead of closing time.

From here it wasn’t far to the coast and I crossed the river, now heading east towards Numazu.

At daytime there would have been more Fuji views, but at night it was just city streets. Every now and then I came across other cyclists who passed me.

I was just keeping a steady pace, every now and then yawning or standing up to relieve my bottom, which was starting to complain about the amount of time spent on the bicycle saddle.

In Numazu the route turned south into Izu. After Shuzenji it became more rural. I was looking forward to the tunnel at the top of the pass and the descent towards Ito. I made it to PC4, 290 km from the start, a little after midnight, now 2 hours and 15 minutes ahead of closing time. I took a 5 minute nap on a chair inside the convenience store. Others were sleeping too.

For the night ride I was wearing long johns under my shorts and also a base layer under my jersey, but no windbreaker which remained unused for the entire ride. It never got cold enough.

It felt great to descend to the east Izu coast line and to finally hear the ocean waves. It was still dark and I could admire the many stars above the ocean, since there was a lot less light pollution than in Tokyo.

Even after the descent there are four significant climbs between Ito and Odawara, the biggest one being for the road high above Manazuru which lasts for about 4 km. I was feeling safe in the knowledge of having made good time so far. I did yawn every now and then, but the nap had helped. My legs felt OK, not particularly strong but not suffering either and my bottom was OK as long as I made frequent efforts to stand instead of sitting throughout.

It was still dark in Odawara but dawn gradually arrived on the ride east to Chigasaki.

I saw newspaper motorbikes deliver morning papers and the odd surfer heading to the beach already. Soon after Rt 30 split off the coastal road I saw the 7-11 sign that announced PC5, the final control (367 km from the start). To get my receipt and to use the toilet, I bought a cup of coffee and a sandwich.

I had only 36 km left and was 2 hours and 4 minutes ahead of closing time. I basically had 4 1/2 hours to get to Machida. Two years ago, I had been one hour ahead of closing time at PC5 and still made it despite a puncture 16 km from the goal that chewed up most of the time buffer.

There were still more Fuji views on the way to Machida. Rain was forecast for the late afternoon and I could see clouds and occasionally feel raindrops, but rain was still a long way off.

Sunday morning traffic and traffic lights slowed me down but looking at the remaining distance and time, I figured I had a chance to make the goal by 08:00, a full two hours before goal closing time at 10:00, so I pushed harder. It was not easy after 24 hours on the road, but I tried anyway. I didn’t know if I would make that time until the very end. It was only when I rolled up in front of the Cherubim Bike Shop, greeted by AJ NishiTokyo staff who confirmed 08:00 as my arrival time, that I knew I had completed the course the full two hours under the limit!

I parked the bike and got out my brevet card and receipts to have them checked. After signing for the result, I opted for the medal (1,000 yen extra). Then I had some coffee and snacks and chatted with staff members and fellow participants about the course and about bikes.

About riding long distances

It’s hard for normal people to comprehend how someone can ride 200, 300 or 400 km in a single ride, but each of these rides builds on previous rides in physically and mentally conditioning you for the next challenge. We dare to do more challenging rides only because we successfully rode other, initially also intimidating rides.

Any road cyclist who has done 50 km rides can do 100 km rides, and anyone who has done 100 km rides will find 200 km rides within reach. As long as you keep the effort sustainable and keep eating and drinking and ride a bike that fits you, you can keep on going for a very long time. At some point, sleep will become the limiting factor, which then becomes a question of average speed vs. control closing times and your tolerance for sleep deprivation.

This 400 km course may actually be becoming my favourite AJ NishiTokyo course, rivaling even the 200 km West Izu (Shiokatsu) course that I also love for its views.

Though it’s longer than the smaller 300 km Fuji ride, I don’t think it’s necessarily any harder. Certainly, in recent years I’ve been able to finish the 400 km with more spare time than in the case of the 300. Perhaps that’s because the effort in the 400 is more concentrated in the first part, when the legs are still fresh, while the 300 saves its biggest climb for halfway into the course. Also, while the 400 has one third more distance than the 300, it only has about one sixth more climbing. This should allow for a higher average speed.

Beyond the 400 km brevet

I won’t be riding the AJ NishiTokyo 600 km brevet to Lake Suwa and back in early June because I’ll be away on a business trip. So there probably won’t be any brevets for me until September or so. Instead I’ll be just riding with friends again, maybe explore some new routes.

Again this year I won’t go for Super Randonneur (SR) status, which involves riding 200, 300, 400 and 600 km distances all in one season. 600 may be beyond reach for me under all but the most favourable conditions, because it’s hard for me to build up enough spare time to sleep enough to keep functioning. Gaining SR status in 2019 is also the qualifying condition for participating in the 1,200 km Paris-Brest-Paris event next August, which I am not currently aiming for.

I very much enjoyed my bicycle tour in Italy with my son Shintaro a year ago, where we only covered about 90 km each day, but had nice meals in little restaurants in the countryside.

If I were to try more cycling in Europe or elsewhere overseas, this is more like what I would like to try, while keeping up randonneuring as a challenge here in Japan.