Japan Cup Cycle Race, Night out, Leaves changing, etc.

Before coming to Japan I made a list of things I wanted to do while here. I had heard about the Japan Cup Cycle race from some co-workers, but at that time I had not ridden a bicycle seriously in about 15 years, so I did not even put it on my list. After arriving I started to ride my bicycle to work (shortest route is about 5 miles). Just riding that far was difficult for me. Once I could prove to myself that I could commit to riding to work I spent some money to purchase the Gios Panto (little wheel bike). It was just for commuting and I had no intentions of racing so I started to plan to sell my old Cannondale (1993). About that time I was invited to go on a ride with a few Japanese co-workers. First I confirmed that they were riding for fun and not serious then I agreed to go. Our first outing was at Shinring Koen, the Japan Cup course. I got my behind handed to me on the big climb on the course. I think it took about 5 min 35 sec and I may have breathed up most of the oxygen in the park. Then about 3 weeks later my friends from work talked about doing the Japan Cup (amateur race). That day we all agreed we would participate in the race. The decision started in motion a string of events that lead to the purchase of my new Cannondale and riding 14 miles to work and 14 miles home in the dark to train. I was doing intervals 2 times a week and time trials 2 times per week then 1 day on the weekend I would go on a long challenging ride or ride the Japan Cup course. This past weekend was the race.

Here is the course:

The start is at 1 and from 3 to 5 is the major hill climb. (1 kilometer at 9% grade)

The next critical point was 10 which is a short steep climb I was expecting riders to attack on this hill leading in to the second lap and another go at the major hill climb.

The first critical point of the race was the start. There were 420 people registered and if I started at the back I knew I had no chance at the race. Maeshima san, Ito san, Kanegae san, and myself warmed up before the free run (people that wanted to ride the course to understand its difficulty) immediately after they left we staged. Maeshima san and I could attain positions at the front of the field so that was check one off of the list.. When the race finally started many of the riders jumped off to a fast start. I was able to sit back and monitor the riders and kept myself in about 20th position. I knew the big climb was coming and there was no reason for me to move farther forward in the pack. As we started the climb some of the riders at the front started to fade. I was climbing at about 80% power. I could see the leader and there was no reason to push faster. In training my fastest time up the hill was 3 min 34 sec, I still have to check the data, but I think we were climbing just under 4 min pace. Kate, Claire, Greg, and the children were about 2/3 up the hill. By the time I reached them a number of the riders had already faded and I was in 5th position. In the picture the motorcycles are at the front of the race. For a where is Waldo activity if you look hard enough you can see me in the picture below.

Here you can see as I pass. I have the red jersey and black shorts with white stitching on the black bike sitting in 5th place. Already we had opened up a gap on the main field and I was watching the other riders. They looked strong so I knew I should stick with them.

When we crested the hill I was in 3rd place. As we started the decent I immediately noticed that the roads were damp and that my bike felt really loose. I was loosing pace and the 2 riders I had passed to take 3 position on the climb were able to overtake me. I continued to push because I knew it was important to keep with them. The corner before my last the bike really slid. I stayed in the corner but my line for the next was not good and I knew I had too much speed to make the corner. I put the brakes on and the tire slid a little. I still had time so I let off and tried again. Immediately the tire broke loose again and at this point it was too late to make the corner so I held the brake. I heard the loud pop of my tire exploding and then just tried to land as soft as possible. I went off the pavement and was able to ride it out too the ditch with mud. When the front tire sunk I went over the bars and landed softly in the weeds. Immediately I got back up, checked the bike, and tried to convince myself that the noise I heard wasn't actually my tire exploding, but some other strange noise. I put my bike on the road and the rear tire made a clunk noise from the rim hitting the pavement. At that point I resigned to the fact that my 15 year comeback was officially over.

I ended up in the sag wagon with 3 other riders that went down. I was lucky, I came away with no scratches, but the other guys went down on the street and were mangled and bleeding. On the way down I saw 5 other guys on the street and two being picked up by ambulances, all on various corners throughout the course. I also got to see how the riders that timed out were kicked off of the course. The chase cars had GPS with the course and time displayed. The car would ride along side the cyclist and when it became apparent that there was no way they could complete the race within the hour the marshal would tell the riders that they were finished and they should exit the course.

As I was riding in the support car I had no way to tell my family or friends what had happened and the race of course continued on. They waited on the top of the hill and after about half the riders had passed they realized that something was wrong. Chris told me that when he saw the guy with a belly ride by and tongue hanging out that he knew something had gone wrong. I saw some of them as I got out of the car at the start line and ended up meeting the rest a short way from the finish line. They were happy to see I was unharmed. While waiting they took a few pictures and some video of the other riders before they realized I was not there. I watched the video of the first group and the same riders I was descending with were in it....daaang...

Pictured below you can see the riders winding up the mountain road and my family looking for me.

Here I am at the end with some my friends from work that participated in the race. Each had a different goal for the race. All did well and set personal best times for the course and finished safely. Of course the result for me was not what I had hoped, but it has been an amazing experience getting in to shape and enjoying the camaraderie. Finally that is what it is all about. I look forward to continuing riding with them and the Fuji hill climb in the spring. Currently I don't think I will still be in Japan next year for the Japan Cup race, but if it works out and I am, I will give it another try. Definitely with a different set of tires....

With Kate's family coming, the race day winding up, and our year anniversary (in Japan) approaching Kate set up an evening of dinner, drinks, and karaoke. Dinner was great and we were able to sample a wide variety of different foods and enjoy time with friends. It has been a long time since Kate and I have gone out for the evening, but Claire's oldest son is old enough so he was able to keep tabs on the little ones while we were out. The pictures below are from dinner leading up to the karaoke.

Annie watched the Dundon children and after dinner Chris headed home so Annie could meet us out later in the evening.

At the karaoke building there were Halloween decorations for photo opportunities. I snagged this one of Kate and Claire.

Normally my job is to poke fun at everyone else and not so much myself, but I was told that I should post the video of my wicked moroccos skills. Apparently this is funny (I am told) I think it is a hint of jealousy personally...

We were also successful in shaming both Claire and Greg into at least one karaoke song. Claire won't admit it but I think she really got into it and the picture below is my back up for that statement...

Unfortunately the next day was our only day to go to Nikko as Claire and Greg are only here for 2 weekends. Now is the peak season for the leaves changing in the mountains. As a result the same road that takes me 30 minutes to ride up by bike can take 3 hours by car if you don't leave early enough. We got home at 1:30 and set the alarms for 6 am. Everyone was able to get up and we were out the door by 6:39. It worked out well as we had little traffic on the way up the mountain. The way home got pretty backed up, but I could navigate back routes once we got back down Irohazaka. We stopped to take in the view, but our first stop in the morning was the foot onsen at the top of the mountain. It was a little crowed, but very relaxing to sit in the hot water in the morning.

I think Greg was able to work in a short nap.

The spot Kate was sitting was unbelievably hot today. It was almost impossible to keep your feet in it. Everyone (Japanese included) enjoyed watching peoples expressions as they stepped into the water and then quickly exited after saying the water was ridiculously hot (sugoii atsuii).

The leaf change really is beautiful, I could snag this tree just outside the foot onsen.

On the way back from the foot onsen we stopped and walked around a lake at the top. There was a nice walking path and a waterfall at the end we could enjoy viewing.

Kate took this picture of the lake from the path.

The children all really enjoyed exploring and running around. Greg stopped them to get this shot and I jumped in to take the same picture for our records.

We walked down approximately 3 million steps to get to the bottom of the falls to view it. Of course that also meant we had to walk up approximately 3 million steps to get back to the car.

Normally we don't have anyone to take pictures of all of us and so one of the family members are missing. This time we had support so I can post a picture of all of us together.

From now I will wrap up the post with various pictures of the scenery for you to enjoy. I am tired...it has been a long week..

Have a good week..

The Eschmeyers arrive, Tsukiji and other Tokyo..

Kate's sister Claire and her family arrived in Japan on Friday. Kate and I headed to Ueno (Tokyo) together and then Kate went to the hotel with the children while I headed to the airport to pick up the Eschmeyers. Our plan was to stay in Tokyo for the weekend and show them around.

Below is our typical new family arrival photo.

That night was pretty much shot, we just got Japanese fast food from the Sukiya. I had made plans for 5:00 in the morning to go to Tsukiji fish market so after a quick dinner we hit the beds.

In the morning we got moving a little slowly, but made it to Tsukiji plenty early. Tsukiji is the largest fish market in the world. From Wikipedia I found that there are over 400 different types of seafood available at the market and over 2000 metric tons of seafood pass through Tsukiji per day. When we arrived I was not completely sure were to go. I just followed the flow of people in. Once inside I was a little startled by how dangerous it could be to walk around with the children. There are tons of carts hauling a variety of products throughout the facility. They travel through every nook and cranny and it is your responsibility to stay out of the way. We paired each child with an adult to keep them from getting run down. Even with that system Kate looked the wrong way once and almost got hit. We walked around for a bit looking at the different sea life that was available.

Here Claire is posing with some eels that were for sale.

An entire pile of fish being prepped for sale.

For me the most impressive fish to see were the huge frozen tuna. There were giant band saws being used to slice the giant fish into smaller pieces.

And those bits were hauled off by cart.

I am not sure how they freeze the tuna, but they looked to be rock solid frozen.

Once we had our fill of looking at all the sea life being processed at the market we decided it was time for some breakfast. I typically don't eat sushi for breakfast, but what better place to have it then the place it comes right out of the ocean. We wondered around the market a bit until we could stumble on to the restaurants. The seating is extremely limited so they require everyone to place an order. The menu items are limited so Claire took the children off to explore while Greg, Kate, Jake, and myself ate extremely fresh sushi.

I can say that the salmon and tuna sushi were the right with the best I have eaten, the other offerings were also very good, but if I ever make it back I won't waste my time on the other selections, I would go straight for the tuna and salmon...

The market is filled with carts, fork trucks, trolly carts. Just about everything is used to haul the see food. I snagged a picture of this cool bike as we were walking by. I liked the picture so I threw it on here.

From Tsukiji we headed for Asakasa. Asakasa is an older area with temples and a variety of souvenir shops. We took our time taking in the sights and looking in the shops for interesting things.

Kate, Liam, and Colleen showed Rachael and Jake the steps for going to the temples. Below they are wafting the smoke from the incense, I believe this in an act of purification.

I was able to get all the children to stand in front of one of the temple protectors.

This was a bronze Buddha statue at the temple.

When we walked away from the temple we stumbled on a monkey show. There were benches lined up in a circle around a makeshift arena and a women with her monkey put on a show for us.

The show was for donations, but actually it was pretty good. Kate took some video of him doing some tricks. This video was a platform jump to hand walk....impressive.

From Asakasa we walked right past this cool panda bus.

And straight toward this wicked cool boat (WCB). This boat was designed by a famous Japanese cartoonist named Leiji Matsumoto. One of his cartoons was Space Battleship Yamato. The boat ride is about 40 minutes and goes from Asakusa to Tokyo bay.

It is a very futuristic boat. I wanted to ride it the last time we rode the water taxi, but it has limited operation and we were not able to get on it. This time we had to wait about an hour, but we were able to secure tickets for the ride.

The inside is also futuristic and the panoramic windows give you a nice view of the city as you cruise down the river.

Our arrival location was Odaiba seaside park. This island contains a smaller version of the statue of liberty dating from the year 2000. For some reason the French placed a small statue of liberty there from 1998-1999 to commemorate the "French year in Japan". It was popular enough that in 2000 this statue was put up to replace it.

Odaiba is also home to the interesting looking Fuji building. We didn't spend much time on the island, we were tired from getting up at 5:00..

We hopped on a monorail to get back to Tokyo and the subway system and then to the hotel for a nap. The Monorail went over the bay on a bridge and provided some more interesting views of the city.

In the evening after I could drag everyone out of bed we made our way to the Sunshine 60 building. It is the second tallest building in Japan with 60 stories. The elevator is the second fastest in the world. It has an image inside to show how quickly you were moving and it was very fast. The view from the top was amazing. As far as you can see there are buildings, and that is in every direction. Tokyo is unbelievably big..

And a short video from the top observation deck that is outside.

At the top were some Halloween costumes you could put of for photo opts. The younger children were excited to participate.

To round out the evening we stopped at Shibuya. That is were the huge intersection is with a crazy number of people all crossing at one time. First we hit up one of the many ramen noodle shops in the area for dinner and then the Starbucks to watch the people crossing the street from an elevated view.

Sunday was a bit of a lazy morning. Once we all got moving we took the subway to Meiji Jingumai temple.

While at the temple we saw a number of younger girls dressed in beautiful kimonos. I don't exactly remember the ages, but something like girls of age 3 and 7 dress in formal kimonos and go to the temple. If those numbers are correct the girl below should be 7.

Pictured are some of the casks of Sake that have been blessed at the temple.

As we were walking around there were two different weddings taking place. It was nice to see everyone dressed so formally, everyone looked so proud.

Liam, the bug whisperer, found this preying mantis at the temple. He walked with it the entire time we were at the temple and then let it go at the edge of the woods just before leaving the temple grounds. This temple has so many trees that while you are there you actually forget that you are in the middle of a huge city.

Outside the temple grounds it is a short walk to Harujuku. This area is interesting to shop and for people watching. We found a shop selling necklaces that could be personalized with your name in Katakana. It turned out to be the souvenir of choice on the day.

After eating lunch at a Japanese/Italian restaurant we took a trip to Ueno and browsed the 7 story toy store there called Yamashiroya. I could spend tons of money in places like this, but have learned to resist the urge to buy everything cool and walked away empty handed. Before going back to the hotel to pick up our luggage we spent a few minutes in Ueno park. We didn't stay long because it was getting late, but it looks like a very nice park. If possible I want to go back for the cherry blossoms in the spring.

On the way back to Utsunomiya the Eschmeyers really wanted to take the Shinkansen. They are the fastest trains in Japan. Typically we don't ride them because it cost twice as much as the local trains, but since our visitors were interested we complied. It takes about 45 minutes to the local trains 1hour and 40 minute trip. I have to say it is very nice. Unfortunately with a family of four it is also very expensive so next time, back to the locals it will be.

The seats are very much like an airplane only more comfortable and with legroom. There is even a food/drink cart that comes around to serve you. None of that is available on the local train ride.

That is all for this post, I am tired and going to bed...Have a good week.