Road Fixie

This is the event that reinvigorated my passion for hill climbing – on a fixed gear! Again, this year, I’ll be riding the TDK on my trusty titanium.  For the last couple years I’ve done this there have been only a couple fg riders. Either friends of mine that I bribed, or, like me, a couple of older ‘kotei’ diehards.

This year I will also be riding as part of the Tyler Foundation “Beads of Courage” program. Anyone, (even you) , can sponsor my ride and I will carry a set of beads to the top of the mountain. Afterward, your beads get distributed – 1 to you and 1 to a very special kid who receives the bead with your personal note of courage.

Let’s up the ante here and if you donate extra, I’ll even put your spoke card in my wheel and run that to the top! This is all happening next weekend so get off your bum and take some positive action!

http://hauteroute.gsastuto.com/donate-2

Road Fixie Rocks On! Forever!

I entered the Haute Route sportive and got accepted. This means that I have a little more than 6mo to train up to the task of 7 stages, 780km and 21,000m of climbing. The good news is that I’ll hopefully be doing this in sport for a local Japanese charity. Stay tuned. On February 16th the Haute Route Charity stages will be announced!

Either way – I am registered and going to ride this baby. Unfortunately it looks like Road Bikes Only. That doesn’t mean that I’ll be shying away from my RoadFixie – and in fact, it’s a vital part of my training.

Since <re>starting my passion for cycling and especially fixed gear in general, I’ve entered some events as incentive and for fun. I promised myself (and my family) that I wouldn’t train seriously and let the sport overtake me – but use it as a positive lifestyle element. The Tour de Kusatsu was the first such event that I entered after beginning my conditioning regime and I managed to break the 1hr mark after just a few months cycling. Not bad, I thought. After 1yr and a few thousand more kilometers let’s see what this old cat can pull out of the bag.

First is the bike:

I started with an old Panasonic muletto, broke that. Then got a cool Japanese steelie and broke that, too. Resolved in my quest to build the perfect roadfixie, I designed and built the Toge Warrior. A titanium classic design with the stuff that makes me happy. On this bike I have been riding all over the Japanese mountains and enjoying every kilometer of it! I made some small upgrades for this race and everything came together.

I’m a big fan of the CHUB HUB, and if you see the pics of my bikes , you’ll almost always see the CHUB riding the rear! It’s a great riding hub and I couldn’t be happier with that choice. But, for a purposebuilt hillclimb, I wanted something just a little lighter and more svelte. So, I turned to my latest project, GS Astuto, and produced a special set of lightweight fixie wheels. These are based on pure carbon rimset, DT spokes and Bitex / Novatec hubs.  Strong and lightweight – they come in under 1200 gr for the pair!

Next up came the cockpit, and I upgraded to a lighter fork, carbon saddle, seatpost, stem and bars. Another substantial weight savings over my daily riding gear. You can see it here on my workbench ready to install.

The net result was an even lighter and more responsive Toge Warrior ready to do battle on the mountain! BTW – this shows the rear Chub wheel, but I had managed to get my new wheel built up at the 11th hour so I was running both front and back GSAstuto RFC-20′s!

The Training:

By habit I’m a pretty lazy guy. I let myself get heavy and out of shape, don’t stick to solid training plan or good diet. But I have been keeping up a more or less dedicated ‘concept’ of preparation which hearkens back to my old Zen Monk training days by simply ‘riding with intent’. This is more a visualization and imagination method than a hardcore play it by the numbers method. I set out riding with intention to increase effort with the imagination that I’ll do better. if I actually do – its great, if actually not, it doesn’t matter because I’ve created the space for improvement and just let the mind and body follow that. On the practical side, I ramped up my riding a notch or two and the 2 weeks prior to the event, I increased some interval cycles to get my cardio system prepped for the hard effort. That’s about it.

The results:

First off, I gotta say that this was one of the most enjoyable events I’ve participated in not because of me – but because of the family and friends around me! I spent some really quality time both on and off bike with those people I love and treasure most and at the end of the day, the bike is just spice on the pie.

Here is my coach giving me last minute position pointers on the morning of the event!

The race itself was fantastic. A beautiful day, great crowd and a challenging course. We gave our 100% and at the goal the final results were amazing. I had managed to complete the climb in 45min knocking more than 14min off my previous year’s time! This was good enough for a 7th place finish and I really couldn’t be more, literally, on top of the world.

So, what’s next? Just keep on keeping on! As the tagline of my blog says -  Push Harder, Ride Longer!

Wow – what a great day! At  least 8 riders showed up for this hammerfest ride to top of Shiraishi plus alpha. Max had to bail early due to pressing engagement and missed the actual 7km climb, but rest of us had a mini-race to the top. Kimm san and JF led off with a nasty hard pace. Then followed by Steve and myself. The competition was stiff and we all found ourselves at the summit completely spent! Takakki san suffered 2 chaindrops making it an especially agonizing ride up the more than 20% in some places grade.  I tried hard to catch Steve but everytime I started an attack he somehow sensed or saw me and pulled out the afterburners to crush me.  At the top it was a tie with Kimm san and JF, then Steve and myself, followed by Fumiki san, Sat, Takakki san and Pete. (I’ll have to get official order later – was really too wiped to concentrate fully) We completed the ride by heading up the Greenline and hitting another couple of short climbs finally ending up a favorite soba /udon shop at the top. While we there one of the customers gave an impromptu performance of a Spanish song played on a traditional Japanese flute. Magic always happens on these rides!

If you’re in the hood and want to take on some hills, we’ve got a great ride planned. Shiraishi Toge. You can checkout the route here – We’ll ride up the Arakawa as usual and then follow this map: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/330487

I’ll be heading out from Shinjuku as usual and then we have a meetup point close to the Arakawa River.  The weather is looking to be gorgeous so lets enjoy it! This will probably be the last chance before Kusatsu to get in a major tear-down day so expect some aggressive climbing by committed individuals. As always, though, no one is left behind unless they choose to bail.

If you’re riding fixed then I recommend a 44/15 44/21 flip flop. The climbing portion exceeds 18% in many places. This is how we roll!