Road Fixie

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!

Battling headwinds, sub-zero temperatures, a pre-start mechanical and general mayhem, I managed to beat the 60min mark by 3 minutes!  Thanks to everyone that supported me, especially Emi, Andy and Naoko and Mikio. We managed to raise nearly 20,000 yen for Bicycles For Humanities! This puts us just a little closer to our goal of getting a full container ready to ship to Africa. Well done everyone! I’ll follow up with some photos and of course the info for nomikai.

I’m really excited about the response so far for the B4H pledges. Thanks to everyone who has signed on to sponsor my ride.  I’m in pre-race mode right now, taking some easy rides, getting pumped and mainly fine tuning the ride (Akamatsu) and myself. Went out this morning for a few Palace laps to gauge warmup time and also take the edge off the hard conditioning we did last week. I’m feeling pretty fit and should be able hit a nice peak for the ride this coming Sunday (race day).  This will really help the B4H efforts here in Tokyo. Our last fundraiser cleared just enough so we could finalize the NPO filings and become an official charity in Japan. We have amazing support by so many great people and are looking forward to serving the community both in Japan and abroad.

Keep it rolling!

Here’s the kit I rode for Sunday’s race. It was pretty chilly so I had 2 underlayers + windbreaking jersey. On the bottom Parantini bib plus Campy knee warmers and Pearl Izumi compression socks.

I’m entered in the Kusatsu Hillclimb event.  This is a 13km moderate TT with a mass start. Everyone is given a timechip and a starting window. I haven’t raced (nor ridden competitively) for more than 20yrs, so this will be quite a challenge personally and I’m sure a bit of deja vu all over again. Luckily this time I am one of the ‘youngest’ entrants in my class (51-60) and therefore feel I have some gain advantage going into this.

My goal is to beat 60min. which is roughly placing in the top 50% of my group. What I’d like to propose is this:

Make a donation pledge to B4H Tokyo. (Bicycles For Humanities) for 1000 yen. And then for every minute I place faster than 60min, pledge an additional 100yen. I’ll list up all the Pledges here and of course results after the race. And in addition, I’ll treat everyone who makes a pledge to a small ‘nomikai’ at a local Izakaya.

OK everyone – so lets see those pledges rolling! I’ll make this a ‘sticky’ post from now until after the event. If you want to pledge then simply email me at ‘kusatsuATroadfixie.com’

One last thing – YES, I will be riding this on a Fixie!

Donation Pledges (Friends of B4H):

1000yen  N. Hori
1000yen A.Eickhoff
1000yen  J. Ferrer
1000yen  B. Buecking
1000yen  C.Sampson
1000yen  M.Fuoti
1000yen  N. VanWouw
1000yen  V.Vorski
1000yen  T. Muraishi
1000yen  B. Stewart
1000yen  A. Shuttleworth
1000yen  E. Yamamoto
1000yen  M. Benner
1000yen  L. Cosh-Ishii
1000yen  R. MacGregor
1000yen  M. Greenberg

Got my registration in for the Kusatsu Hill Climb. Looks to be a fun way to break back into some mild competition. The climb is 13km at average of 6% grade. I’m going to ride it on my fixie (of course) and make a few practice runs to choose best gearing. Probably something around 32:20 looks good. At only 13km I can afford a bigger gear and come out of the saddle when need be… (famous last words, I’m sure)

Since I’ll be over 51 by race time I’m in the 51-60 category. Gack! The last time I raced was a  ‘veterans’  USCF back in 93 or 94 when I laid off bikes for good. Need to drop at least 5kg to feel comfortable on the hills.

Info on the Hill Climb is here -

http://www.kusatsu-kokusai.com/winter/index.html

http://www.tokyocycle.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=1690