And another snow ride...

Beautiful, crisp day today - it would have been a shame to not go out and ride!

It was an awesome snowy ride up on a bike that was pretty unsuited to the environment - lots of fun fishtailing and skidding, but no crashes! A bit of walking on more solid ice here and there, but not much. Then I, uh, got lost on the way down, lost sight of the MTB trail and the tracks of the lucky bugger with a fat-bike, and ended up on the Daimonji hiking trail. Cue an awkward and frankly at times treacherous hike down steep, slippery mud and rocks while shouldering my CX bike. Fun for all the family!

The cold killed the GoPro on the summit, so no comedy scrambling video, but enjoy the ascent!

Back in Kyoto

This morning I headed out for my first ride since I got back to Kyoto. The weather forecast was wrong - it rained pretty much the whole way, and it was truly Baltic on the way down. Mud, snow and ice abounded. Good fun!

Getting ready for my thesis defence on 4th February, so the break was quite welcome. But not long to go now! And then... six weeks of freedom, in which I can ride endlessly. Should be amazing.

Daimonji CX-ploration

Took the CX bike for a quick blast this morning, on some gravel trails that run up Daimonji-yama (one of Kyoto's more famous mountains). That bike is so fun to ride, especially when you're riding it on terrain that is probably better suited to a full mountain bike...



I took the GoPro this time, mounted on my helmet. Hence, finally, another video! Enjoy!

Surveying the damage 2: Hiyoshi Dam edition

Today Kory, Steve and I decided to take a "quiet, chilled-out ride" on the classic route up to Hiyoshi Dam and back. Get a good lunch, maybe a craft beer, job done.




It didn't turn out quite that way, as it happens - the effects of STS Man-Yi are still quite apparent here...

Check out the high water mark (the mud on the trees) in the reservoir!

And in this river channel. Must have been a sight to behold in full flow.

Turns out this was the correct choice of bike for this ride...

Bikes in front of the dam

Lunch: the best fried chicken donburi (rice bowl) in Japan.

Past Hiyoshi Dam, we started to encounter debris on the road...

...and then we came to this. Shit!
Left to right: Steve, Kory, me.

When we encountered the debris pile above, we went into full adventure mode. I carefully climbed up onto it and we passed our bikes up, then carefully picked our way through it. We helped another cyclist out as well - although we didn't see him later so he may well have chickened out and gone back the way he came!

Finally past the huge pile.

Kory, attempting to clean his brand new white Fizik (road) shoes after some
mud-based misfortune.

The storm knocked out power in this tunnel - the other way it was pitch black. We had to
navigate by iPhone flashlight.

And of course, the end of the tunnel was half-buried.

Steve picking his way along the side of the mud... 

...which I rode through on the CX bike...

...but it turned out to be like glue!

Both my bike and myself needed quite the clean afterwards...

115 km of riding, lifting, carrying, climbing, sinking... and laughing. A grand adventure was had by all - it's days like these that make me not only remember (as if I had forgotten) why cycling is so great.

Surveying the damage

Took a short ride on the CX bike today and ended up going through an area quite heavily affected by STS Man-Yi.




A few photos - gives you an idea just how powerful a small stream can be when it's swelled with that much rainfall!

The water still flowing across the road was a couple of inches deep in places!

Singletrack Silliness

Took the CX bike out on a mountain bike trail the other day. Probably ill-advised, to be honest, given the recent rains which have wrecked a lot of the trails here and covered them in debris (huge rocks, branches, fallen trees, etc).

As it turns out I got quite lost and took the wrong way down. Said descent turned out to be something like 20-30% average grade with 40-50% sections, greasy wet broken tarmac covered in loose gravel, rocks, branches and other fun. Coming down it on 32mm tyres and drop bars was... interesting. I had to walk a few sections because my brake pads were glazing over.

When discussing it with Peter (who races MTB and CX at a high level) today, he simply said "Oh god, you came down THAT way?" and looked at me all wide-eyed. So yeah...

What a view!

Part of the descent...

Certainly fun to see what you can get away with on a rigid CX bike with (relatively) narrow tyres. Apparently, not much more than this, though!

In other news, this ride was pretty much enough to put me over the top and complete my latest Strava challenge, the Vuelta Skelta:

Not a bad effort, and might get another ride in tomorrow to boost my elevation a bit more before it finishes.

An Introduction to Cyclocross

Somewhere in the void between road cycling (skinny slick tyres, drop handlebars, no suspension, solid ground) and mountain biking (fat nobbly tyres, flat handlebars, usually suspension, mud/gravel/rock) there lies a weird sport called cyclocross (CX for short).

Cross bikes are like a weird hybrid of the other two. The frames are similar to those of road bikes, with no suspension. They have drop bars. But they have massive clearance for fat tyres/mud buildup and generally lower gearing than road bikes.

CX races are usually on short, twisty tracks on a variety of terrain - mud, grass, gravel, even sand - and last for maybe 30-60 minutes. There are usually short hills. Obviously this isn't hard enough for people, so they are also littered with obstacles such as barriers and stairs; these require a running dismount-lift/carry-remount manoeuvre. Races happen in any weather - rain, sleet, snow - and frequently do, because the season runs through the winter.

Heckling, costumes and beer complete the CX experience.

And, of course, cross bikes can be ridden on trails year-round... trails that road bikes cannot!

I have a couple of friends here who race at quite a high level and they're trying to get me into this silly, silly sport. So this morning I set off with one of them on a freshly-built bike to get a feel for throwing a cross bike around a variety of environments.




And, of course, it was awesome fun. I think the absolutely torrential rain that set in almost immediately and didn't really stop probably added to it. Trails are harder to navigate when they're under 3+ inches of water!

Before the heaviest rain - all too clean!

At the top of the biggest, steepest climb. So very, very wet.

If you're not filthy, it's not cyclocross!

Hopefully in the coming weeks I can really get a feel for the bike's handling in different conditions, and try to learn proper dismounting and remounting technique for fast, smooth transitions between riding and running.

There's a prologue race in late September, then the season begins in October. Let's see!