The finer things in life

Sometimes, no matter how bad an idea it obviously is, you just have to stop in the middle of an 85km ride to wolf down a huge American breakfast with some good friends... and then keep riding...

Tour de Kyoto

Strange ride today - a little disjointed, a little contrived, but great 'fun'. For some reason I decided it would be fun to knock off literally each and every climb in northern Kyoto, starting in the east and heading west. In order, they were to be (with climb categories):

• Hieizan (to Hieizan Driveway toll road gate) (Cat 2)
• Ohara & Ebumi Pass East (Cat 3)
• Kurama (Cat 4)
• Kibune (Cat 4)
• Kumogahata & Mochikoshi Pass East (Cat 3)
• Kyoumi Touge (Cat 3)
• Takao (Cat 4)

I guess technically you'd want to include Ebumi Pass West instead/as well, but the route wouldn't be quite so neat. Maybe I'll try that for round 2! I also didn't elect to take the Kurama road all the way up to Hanase Omote because, well, I'm not COMPLETELY insane. Just mostly...

Elevation profile along total distance of ride, with labels showing climbs undertaken.
Note absence of Takao (read on for explanation).

Things started off nicely. The weather was a little brisk but stable, with some sun even making an appearance. I set off in a long-sleeve baselayer and a summer jersey, shorts and half-finger gloves, with a windproof gilet in my pocket. Great.

I first attacked Hieizan with Alex (on his new bike), which went great. We made awesome time and I managed a new Personal Record on the climb - I'm still at 2nd on the leaderboard for the segment but I improved my time by over a minute! Some day I will be King Of The Mountain! Alex came in just behind me in 3rd overall. Very impressive.

Alex then split off and left me to tackle the rest on my own. I headed for Ohara and then Ebumi East, where the wind picked up, making the descent a little interesting, but not too bad. Halfway up to Kurama it began to rain on and off, and this continued for the majority of the day. Generally it wasn't too bad - I just had to take some descent sections a little easy with wet rims and road surface.

After Kurama and then Kibune (they're branches of the same road), I hit Kumogahata and the fearsomely steep Mochikoshi Pass East... where I somehow got another Personal Record. How I managed it at this stage of the day I don't know, especially since a torrential downpour began as I started the climb, making it an even more miserable grind than usual.

Next up was Kyoumi Touge, a long climb of moderate steepness with some pretty steep little sections. It's a wearing climb, but very pretty. I was admittedly pretty shot by this point, and my time suffered - I was something like 3 minutes off my best. Still, I plugged away and got up it, and sat down at the top to enjoy my hard-earned Snickers... when an absolutely massive rainstorm hit. I was soaked in seconds, my windproof gilet no defence against such rain. Desperate to get down, I endured a freezing descent, as the wind whipped the water off my waterlogged skin. The descent was 'eventful' and by the time I reached the bottom I had lost all feeling in my extremities - not ideal when you need to use brake levers!

At this point I only had one more climb to go - Takao - but the weather was so bad that I elected to sack it off and go home. I didn't have the right clothing to ride in those conditions and I was getting really cold. I think you have to know your limits.

It's a shame I couldn't complete my little challenge, but I'm still very happy with what I achieved: according to Strava, around 95km total distance and 3150m total climbing. Not a bad way to spend a few hours!

Channeling Cancellara

Some day I will ride the Paris-Roubaix route. That's a little dream of mine.

Until then, there's always the cobbles in Kyoto's temple complexes. What better way to celebrate Cancellera's absolutely stunning win at Paris-Roubaix on Sunday?

Cobbles are torture, by the way...

Spring is here!

21% grade?

Ouch.

Running out of sun cream on a surprise 27 Celcius day?

Definitely ouch.

Riding under the cherry blossoms in gorgeous spring sunshine?

Makes it all worthwhile!

Big thumbs up for spring!

April Fools! (or: Sweet Jesus, my legs are on fire)

Today marks the beginning of the Specialized Spring Classics Challenge on Strava, which sets me the challenge of riding about 330km per week for 4 weeks running. With such a huge challenge laying ahead, it was time to pull out all the stops and greet April in style!

So, April Fools, indeed... an apt description of the four of us - Cory, Ross, Grecia and myself - who set off on this route in the spring sunshine today...

A ridiculous amount of climbing - including first over Kyomi Touge (3.3km, 267m, 8.1%, Cat3), then Kurio Pass South (1.3km, 84m, 5.9%, Cat4 - with a truly stunning descent!), then up and over the beast that is Hanase Touge (8.6km, 368m, 4.3%, Cat2). Hanase Touge is the back side of Hanase - the terrifying Hanase Omote (see my last ride) runs up the other side and the two climbs meet at the top. Thankfully it's a lot better from the back, but still a long climb.

After cresting Hanase we took Route 477 across to Ohara. That was certainly interesting! A sudden ramp of what is apparently something like 12% for over a kilometre, on what are frankly roads not fit for a road bike. I was 'unlucky' and got a full-on cramp in my calf here, forcing me to get off and walk it out from the about the 1/3 mark. Even walking up it was horrible! Kudos to Ross and Cory who, I think, managed to ride the whole thing - rumour has it that's the single worst climb in Kyoto.

Coming down the back side of that was also 'fun'. A descent so steep and so long, on such shitty roads, that I managed to heat up my rims so much from braking that I got a flat tyre. There's no sign of road debris or a snakebite (pinch flat) but there is a substantial split in the tube near the brake track. Nothing to damage it on the inside, burrs and such. I can only assume my poor rims just couldn't dissipate enough heat and eventually the tube popped through increased pressure. Amazing.

Fixing the flat, in the only photo from today - thanks a lot, Cory!

After switching out the tube we continued on down to Ohara and then back to Kyoto (we absolutely ripped it down that descent - average 40km/h and I apparently hit 84km/h (52mph) at one point, which I can totally believe), where I promptly demolished a substantial rice bowl with beef and then passed out before I could even take a shower. Whoops.

Tomorrow it will rain. After a total of 110km and nearly 3500m elevation gain... frankly I'll be glad of the rest!