What's new

Today Today - April 2016

So no-one is ever allowed to mention the strawberry au lait shirt ever again? Dude that is a funny fucking shirt. It's up there with the watermelon kit from attaquer. I think it is pretty much expected that mates have the right to laugh at other mates who wear rediculous shit that seemed ok at the time, without it being some kind of massive drama.
 
Today I got stopped by the police for the first time since I got here 1,5 years ago. I was on my usual way to Arakawa when I stopped for a red sign. Next to me was a police who started to wave and talk in Japanese. I could not understand what he wanted, since I had lights and stopped for red.... When he got out of the car, he started pointing to the rear behind the seat post. Something missing! No rim brakes... After a while he saw my Disc Brake and started to laugh.... Ii desu... Funny moment actually and he was a good cop and let me go
 
Funny moment actually and he was a good cop and let me go
Hilarious, considering that by far the majority of bicycles here have invisible, internal drum brakes on the rear. So well done for not getting detained and confessing to something.
 
DSC_0319.JPG I have a race at Gunma CSC on Sunday.

I did some race pace simulation on Wednesday to prepare for it:

https://www.strava.com/activities/543920930

Apart from that I've ridden a couple of hours each day. Keeping the legs fresh. All in the small chainring. Propping the bike up against trees, guardrails and rocks.

DSC_0326.JPGDSC_0330.JPG DSC_0302.JPG DSC_0306.JPG

DSC_0334.JPG


Kashiwazaki is a beautiful town of 80,000 people on the Japan Sea coastline in Niigata prefecture.

Let me know if you're ever over this way and I'll take you for a ride.

Andy

www.jyonnobitime.com/time
 
Last edited:
Kashiwazaki is a beautiful town of 80,000 people on the Japan Sea coastline in Niigata prefecture.
Beautiful indeed. Would love to take you up on that offer, but it's unlikely I'll be around there anytime soon. Also, my threshold effort might just barely keep up with your easy zone 2 spinning for an hour or so I reckon. But the photos are great. I hope the nuclear plant doesn't screw things up there, like the F 1 did, what with another quake last night down in Kyushu and all...
 
The nuclear power plant, the biggest in the world (!), has been offline for 8 years now since the big earthquake we had here in 2004.

I actually took a trip around it a few weeks ago. They are desperately trying to get it up to standard. Building 10m high walls and such.

The original risk assessment was obviously very poor.

I'd be surprised if they get it going again in the near future...DSC_3335.JPG

Even the power station looks nice from a distance...

Andy

www.jyonnobitime.com/time
 
Yesterday I went to Nice for some training with my Swedish crew. Got in trouble immediately as I mentioned I had a Di2 battery in the bikebag. This is a Li-Ion battery and is not allowed for check-in. Since it was installed in my seat post I first tried to google the mAh but found nothing and the Japanese check-in crew had never heard of the brand Shimano before. I finally got the battery out with some force and we could all read it was 500mAh. That is allowed for cabin bagage so put the battery there. Also bought a battery backup kit after Security check point in Tax free with a whopping 10 000 mAh. No questions asked since that is for IPAD charging, everybody knows that, right . Electronic shifting seem not so widely spread amongst the little people outside the biking community though...
 
Fixing a puncture yourself brings wide eyed amazement outside of the cycling community.
Never heard of Shimano? That's something!
 
I guess it was time for all the northbound riverside KOMs to change hands....

I see the arakawa TT bank held for about two years by @saibot has moved on to new legs. You'd hardly have to peddle to hit 55 on the bank today.
 
The nuclear power plant, the biggest in the world (!), has been offline for 8 years now since the big earthquake we had here in 2004.

So nature sends them a message 8 years ago and they shut this monstrum down!
That surely must equal, don't build a NPP anywhere near a fault zone.
That is tantamount to 1+1=2 problem solving.
So, why does it happen?
Answer: This is how big business and politics rolls in Japan.
Japan Will Eat Itself, that is the end of it.
Time will tell the tale, not I.
 
Last edited:
Absolutely perfect weather this morning. I celebrated by doing a bit of what I had suggested as an option to @leicaman and as I approached the bottom of one of my rollers to the river I got a turn right arrow so I looped back up and around again. Unfortunately the timing in this loop is that once you start this you will never get past the lights as every time you come around there will be another green arrow telling you to do it again....
So after a couple I stopped at the lights and headed to the river. No wind, cool, clear skies, legs feeling fine, back feeling fine, all added up to my fastest run of the year.
Don't delay folks if you are thinking about early morning riding there is no better time than right now. Full summer kit, cool conditions!!
See you on the river!



Well...The bokeh works on the phone size screen better than computer size..... But you get the idea...
 
Last edited:
Absolutely perfect weather this morning. I celebrated by doing a bit of what I had suggested as an option to @leicaman and as I approached the bottom of one of my rollers to the river I got a turn right arrow so I looped back up and around again. Unfortunately the timing in this loop is that once you start this you will never get past the lights as every time you come around there will be another green arrow telling you to do it again....
So after a couple I stopped at the lights and headed to the river. No wind, cool, clear skies, legs feeling fine, back feeling fine, all added up to my fastest run of the year.
Don't delay folks if you are thinking about early morning riding there is no better time than right now. Full summer kit, cool conditions!!
See you on the river!
Man, it's gorgeous out there. Just heading back from walking the furry one. She found it suitably good weather to dive into the river. I held back though.
Heading down to the Arakawa for a light spin in a moment. Wish everyday was as good as today.
 
I woke up a bit late today, so I shortened my route a bit, and I am kicking myself for it. sleeping early tonight to try and get out again in tomorrow early morning
 
@theBlob no wind????? No wind??? You sure about that? On my little trip down the river I was struggling to hold 32kph. The flags were all over the place, the trees were swaying around and I was getting more and more tired. Turning round and coming back was fun though.
 
Last edited:
That is the dawn reward. Time to switch dog walking with riding in your morning timetable!

@theBlob no wind????? No wind??? You sure about that? On my little trip down the river I was struggling to hold 32kph. The flags were all over the place, the trees where swaying around and I was getting more and more tired. Turning round and coming back was fun though.
 
This garbage has turned up over the weekend on Arakawa, around km mark 3. I hope it's not an illegal dump, but perhaps a result of a cleaning effort or something, waiting to be properly disposed by the authorities:

MAH03059(1).jpg

That was from this morning. But going home the same way, around 7 pm, I passed two pretty fast cyclists, one of which had this cycle hologram thing I'm sure was mentioned somewhere on here, but I forgot the exact thread. I don't know how effective this is in the well lit city, but on Arakawa at night it sure did stand out. I gave them thumbs up as I went past, and they caught up with me several kms later as I was getting off the river. My bets are they are on the forum here, so identify yourselves. It was too quick, so I don't even know their gender, much less anything else, but my impression was they were both male, at least one caucasian, and the laser beam guy had an orange top?
 
Back
Top Bottom