Category Archives: Uncategorized

One Hundred Months of Centuries

Posted on by
Reply

One hundred consecutive months of at least one Century (i.e. a bike ride of 160.9+ km) a month complete! I started doing long distance bike rides in March 2012 and from September of that year started doing at least one Century per calendar month.

This latest ride in Izu covered 172.5 km (on Strava) and also added 24 VeloViewer tiles.

A ride in west Izu in December is almost like a personal tradition for me. As the weather turns drier in the winter there are so many nice Fuji views to be had and you can ride around the entire peninsula without climbing a single hill higher than 300 m.

Well, that’s the theory. But it actually rained for the first two hours and the return route through the center of the peninsula that I took to get back to Mishima had a climb to 650 m elevation and only 7 C in the dark. I had about 1,000 m of elevation gain on the way down to near Iwachi Onsen (south of Matsuzaki), but another 1,200 by replacing the hilly coastal road that I had come on with Rt15 and Amagi toge/Rt414 on the way back.

We met up at 8:00 at Mishima station. It had been raining on my drive on Tomei from Tokyo, but seemed to almost have stopped by the time we set off, so I left my rain gear in the small backpack I was wearing. The rain picked up again, bringing back memories of my rainy Fleche ride from Aizu to Tokyo in mid-October. Our first stop was at a 7-11 on the Izu north coast, before we headed out to the NW corner.

The Honshu coast was completely obscured by rain clouds, no views of Mt Fuji. However, gradually the sky brightened and the rain stopped. We bought some mikan from an unattended roadside stall (9 mikan for 300 yen) which we shared at a viewpoint overlooking Ida village.

First we could make out the side of the mountain, with snow visible at the top of the visible portion, just below the clouds. In Heda we visited the sandspit with the shrine. In clear weather you can view Mt Fuji behind the entrance to the local bay with the tori of the shrine in the woods on the sandspit from a small pier the locals use for fishing. The water there is crystal clear.

Then we climbed the biggest hill on the way to Toi, where we had Chinese lunch (because it was quick and December daylight is short). After that Jochem headed over the mountains to the center of the peninsula to catch a train back while Colin and I continued to Matsuzaki as fast as I could.

The rain had washed off all the chain lube and it was squeaking. I had to re-lube from my little container, which fixed it.

From Matsuzaki, Colin headed inland on Rt15 to get to Shimoda while I continued towards Iwachi onsen / Kumomi onsen. On a hill overlooking the Matsuzaki coast I took pictures when three Japanese road cyclists came up. We started to chat. In the end it turned out one lived in my neighbourhood (within half a km) and I had met with one of the others at a Half-Fast meeting a couple of years ago! The world is such a small place 🙂

Since I was running out of daylight, I headed back north and took the same route Colin had taken. From north of Shimoda I headed towards Amagi toge. My feet were wet the whole day from the rain, even though I had bought a simple pair of socks at a convenience store to change, because the shoes were still wet. My fleece trousers were also moist from not wearing the rain pants in the morning. So I wasn’t very comfortable, despite wearing the rain jacket as an extra layer. Dry feet are crucial for comfort and I resolved I will finally do something about keeping my shoes dry in the rain.

In one place the road passes a corkscrew-like ramp. The whole climb is very steady, mostly 5-7%, so not difficult but just long. It’s about as much climbing as Yabitsu pass, but less steep. The road is kind of remote, with no houses around and I could hear many deer whistling in the forest, but cars were passing quite regularly. North of the tunnel at the top of Amagi pass it was a loooong descent (more than 20 km of coasting). Once that leveled off I could follow the river and main roads back to Mishima, with no significant climbs.

I got back home around 01:00 in the morning, showered and went to bed. It felt good to have done the big ride for the month and extended the streak into the triple digits, which was my aim for the whole year.

Izu is always well worth a visit.

I don’t know how many more Centuries I’ll manage in December but I plan to continue in January 🙂

Covid-19: Japan to declare state of emergency

Posted on by
Reply

Quoting a government official, the local media (both English and Japanese-language) are predicting the government wil declare a state of emergency from as early as Tue, April 7 in big cities such as Tokyo and Osaka, to initially last until May 6 (Golden Week).

“The move would give governors in hard-hit regions legal authority to ask people to stay home and businesses to close, but not to impose the kind of lockdowns seen in other countries. In most cases, there are no penalties for ignoring requests, although public compliance would likely increase with an emergency declaration.” (Japan Times)

The number of confirmed infections with the SARS-CoV-2 virus have doubled in a week or less in Tokyo, Osaka, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba.

Here are the numbers on April 1 and April 6 and the corresponding doubling time in days:

  • Tokyo: 527 => 1033 (5.1d)
  • Kanagawa: 120 => 265 (4.4d)
  • Saitama: 98 => 185 (5.5d)
  • Chiba: 164 => 260 (7.5d)
  • Osaka: 245 => 408 (6.8d)
  • Hyogo: 147 => 203 (10.7d)
  • Aichi: 176 => 228 (13.4d)
  • Hokkaido: 177 => 194 (38d)

The growth rate in Tokyo and its neighbour prefectures Kanagawa and Saitama is similar now to growth in the US over the past couple of days (12-14% daily increase of total confirmed cases). The US expects daily deaths to peak at a rate of about double the current date rate in about 10 days if everybody follows social distancing rules.

Italy experienced similar growth levels around March 17, i.e. 20 days ago after it had been in shutdown for the first week. Over the next two weeks of total shutdown, Italy’s growth rate gradually dropped from 12-14% to 4% where it’s been stable for about a week now. It was only this weekend that the number of ICU beds in use slightly dropped, the first time since the beginning of the crisis in Italy.

I can see how the government would want to avoid hurting the economy in prefectures whose official case numbers are still low and therefore restricts the shutdown to only the worst-hit urban centers, but with no closed political borders it remains to be seen how effective a partial shutdown will be. Rural Japan has a much bigger elderly population than the cities. Will families in cities refrain from visiting their rural relatives? And will the population in the rest of Japan understand the severity of the situation when their prefecture is excluded from the shutdown?

Stories I have heard from friends of friends make me wonder.

One is invited to a wedding and the couple isn’t sure whether to go ahead, as there would be a huge cancellation fee to the hotel they booked. If the the government took action, this would no longer be a question.

Another was sick with a fever and breathing problems (i.e. symptoms matching Covid-19), yet the employer insisted he still come to work. I think that’s insane and outrageous.

A Japanese acquaintance I recently happened to meet still wanted to shake my hand when he saw me.

People who have been quarantined in Europe and North America have changed their thinking. In Japan this change of attitude was delayed by attempts to keep the Tokyo 2020 on course and now it will take time to turn the ship around.

See:

2018BRM120 Miura Peninsula

Posted on by
Reply

I rode my third century of January and my first randonnée of the year on Sunday. After completing the 204 km ride (finished in 12:04) I rode home, for a total distance of 233 km. I had done the same event in 2015 – with only minor route changes – and almost the same time (12:06).

The main difference was that on Sunday it was not quite as chilly. Perhaps that was because it was overcast, which preserved more heat from the day before than if the night sky had been clear. It also meant that the sun wasn’t in our faces (and the faces of drivers coming up behind us) when we cycled towards Kawasaki around sunrise. I felt a lot safer because of that.

This brevet is the flattest by far of any events that AJ NishiTokyo (my local club) organizes. On the other hand, the first third and the last quarter had a fair number of traffic lights. Still, there was less pressure to make closing times than on any other brevet I rode.

I had to be at the start by about 5:20 to pick up the brevet card and attend the safety briefing, so the night before I rode 30 km from my home to a cheap hotel near the start where I spent the night. This I could still get almost 7 hours of sleep. Perhaps I’m getting soft in my old age 🙂

After passing by the Yokohama harbour near Chinatown, I took the optional route over the hills. This is where a lot of foreigners set up their homes when Japan opened to the world after the arrival of Commodore Perry’s Black Ships. On the Yamate district up on a hill you see many western style villas, a great view of the harbour and the historic Foreign Cemetery.

From Kawasaki to Yokohama down to Yokosuka the roads were urban, with traffic lights slowing you down. Yokosuka is home to the US Seventh Fleet. Not far from it is where William Adams (the Miura Anjin of James Clavell’s “Shogun”) had his fief back in the 1600s. The peninsula turns rural thereafter.

It was too overcast to see the mountains of Boso peninsula in Chiba, on the opposite side of the mouth of Tokyo bay. At Kurihama I passed Perry Park, a memorial to Commodore Perry who landed here in July 1853.

Following the coastline the route passed through seaside towns and fishing villages. Miura peninsula is one of the vegetable gardens of Tokyo, with mainly cabbage and daikon (radish) being grown.

After PC2 in the southwest corner of the peninsula, the route headed up the west coast. This is my favourite part, particularly in the late afternoon, with the sunlight reflected in the ocean, or when it’s cloudy and the sky can be very atmospheric. We passed the Imperial villa at Hayama. Emperor Yoshihito, father of WW2-era emperor Hirohito, died here in 1926.

A couple of km to the north we passed by Kamakura, one of the 4 historic capitals of Japan (Kyoto, Nara, Kamakura and Edo/Tokyo). In summer it’s popular for its beach, but even in winter there are many windsurfers (see picture at the top).

The next major town was Enoshima, which offers great views of Mt Fuji when it’s sunny, but not that day. Before the mouth of the Sagami river we turned inland, heading up north to loop back to the start. About 5 km later we reached PC3, that final control before the goal.

By this time I was about 1:15 ahead of closing time, so I could have made it to the goal even with an average of 10 km/h. I still kept up the speed to cover as much distance as possible before the sun went down. I only rode about the last hour in darkness, plus the ride home after the event.

Due to business travel my February distance will be lower than my January distance, but I’ll try to get one century in on the first February weekend, weather permitting. Today it’s snowing here in Tokyo. Usually we only have a couple of days of snow a year and this makes CaM a lot easier here than in many other parts of the planet.