I didn't have much chance of riding in February, with a single Century ride and one 40 km ride with a friend. I also suffered some pretty bad back pain while away on a business trip.
Last week I had the broken Shimano ST-RS685-L shifter on my Elephant Bikes NFE replaced with a new ST-R8020-L and I'm happy to report it's the perfect replacement.
After a friend cancelled a previously announced Sunday ride that I had been interested in, I decided to head out on my own to Tomin no Mori, a hiking trail head in the mountains west of Tokyo. During the winter snow and ice make it off-limits for cycling, but friends had gone there last weekend and found minimal remains of snow. I announced the ride in a Facebook group late at night and nobody had replied by the morning, so I thought I'd be on my own when I cycled 45 km to a convenience store near Musashiitsukaichi station where I had offered to meet others.
Almost two hours into the ride another cyclist heading into the opposite direction on the Tamagawa river bike path called out my name. It turned out to be my friend Ian who lives upstream. He decided to join me. At the convenience store we had coffee and breakfast while we chatted. As expected, nobody else showed up and we got on our way 15 minutes after the announced meeting time.
It was a gorgeous day, initially chilly but it warmed up. I took off three of my four layers on the climb. Once we got to the trail head, the shop and restaurant turned out to be closed. Ian bought a drink from a vending machine while I had some of the bananas I had bought at the convenience store. There were plenty of cyclists around.
After another 4 km we reached the summit, which was at over 1100 m elevation and there was some snow still by the roadside but only in the shade. We layered up again for the 12 km descent, which is great fun as the road is smooth and the curves sweeping. The speed limit is 40 km/h, which means I can go as fast on a bike as cars are allowed to go. We came across police handling an accident. A Subaru sports car had spun around and smashed into the guard rails. Unfortunately this road is very popular with boy racers on motorbikes and sports cars.
As we cycled along Lake Okutama, Ian got hungry, as he had banked on being able to buy a meal at the trail head and had declined my offered bananas. So once we reached the town of Okutama we stopped at a convenience store and got some food. We talked pretty much for the whole ride, except for the fast descent where we kept a distance.
On the last section from Okutama to Ome, Ian moved to the front and pulled while I enjoyed drafting. After a quick stop at his house we went and had an early dinner together at my favourite Nepalese. From there it was another 44 km after sunset back to my house.
With this 170 km ride with 1400 m of elevation gain (
on Strava) I am now in month
#91 of CaM. I'm 6 weeks away from my 24h Fleche ride. The somewhat higher pace with Ian was good practise for that, despite it being much shorter.