By Popular Demand

The story will Get Finished tonight.

After belting down what felt like hours (but was actually more like 40 minutes) of fun-tastic trail, I pop out on a fireroad, and while I stop and work out where to go next, a family shows me where the trail continues by (noisily) walking towards me out of the bush. A brief chat, and on I go, up where they'd come down, then around, up a bit more, another turn, then down for a few hundred metres to arrive at...almost the exact same spot. The trail had done an almost perfect u-turn in half a kilometre, and spat me out about 200m down the firetrail from where I met the family. I can't complain though, as this was what greeted me on the other side of the road:






and in it there were these:









It was a beautful, tranquil spot that I didn't really want to leave, and it'd have been much harder to do so if there wasn't more trail singing its siren song just for me. I headed out after a brief adjustment of my homemade rack attachment (more on that later) and rolled back onto the trail.


The next, and last section of dirt riding was long, but as previously, left me with little to talk about, except to say that it started steep again, then turned rocky, then leveled out and became straight and fast. I think by this stage it may have been an old small-gauge train line, as the gradient was not more than a few degrees down, and it was very smooth, with substantial stone work building up corners,

old bridge pillars and retaining walls. Far too much effort to be just for the hiking trail, and out of character with the rest of it. The photos once again don't show much, but I hope you can get an idea. It was still great fun riding, interspersed with a few bridges that required walking and bike-carrying, and I was glad that my setup was reasonably light.

Before long, sadly the section of trail I had come to ride ended with a long, gentle run beside a river, and I found myself in a beautiful little valley a short climb from the town of Shitara and the road home. On riding up into Shitara, I found this amazing old corner store - I love the signs!

From here on there isn't much to say - I had a longish slog home on the road, it was still pretty, but quite painful. I stopped back near Asuke on the river for a late lunch, then rolled the last 20km back home at a very sedate pace. I do have a few more pictures I'd like to share and a few comments on my gear, as I know (hope?) there is at least one reader who might like to hear about it.

I had a great trip, only a little disappointed to have cut it short, but I live to fight another day. I'll be back there soon enough.

thanks for reading.

We interrrupt your regular program to bring you this important announcement...

I am going to try the next Japanese test this year. It's been six years now since I passed level three, and high time I tried level two. I have 11 weeks in which to do approximately six months' study...I am an idiot.

Wish me luck.

At least study is free...

Day Three of Two on Billy's BIke Camp.

Well, it would turn out to feel like a third day. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Wake up in the morning, realize that I am actually more comfortable than I want to admit, and take a while to get up and going. Must be old age. Once up, I wander around aimlessly in rough circle admiring the view and snapping photos. Nice view in the morning too.


I hadn't been up for long when I have a visitor - a nice old dude who greets me with a smile and a big "Good Morning." We chat a bit, he's a bit surprised that I've slept up here (worried about the cold), but soon forgets all that and drags me over to the viewing platform and shows me all the sights - pointing out the famous mountains we can see, including Mt Fuji! We can also see a mountain away to the west, faint and hazy on the horizon, but definitely there, he tells me it's Haku-san which shocks me as it's all the way on the other side of Honshu. Makes me realize Japan isn't that big after all.

He also shows me through a photo album stored in a tin in the viewing platorm - lots of great photos of the area in all seasons taken over a good few years, someone's put a bit of work into it. There is a visitor's book too. He soon has somewhere else he needs to be, however, so bids me farewell, and disappears down the trail at a sprightly pace. Nice guy.

I devour breakfast - a raisin roll, an apple, some cookies and a cup of coffee. Glad I brought my little stove, I realize that disqualifies me from being 'hard' but the warm drink is as nice this morning as it was last night. Just as I finish and tidy up a bit, I get another visitor - another old boy, this one had been forewarned about the crazy gaijin on top of the mountain, but he was also very friendly and gave me the same tour of the views. He also told me that the first guy I met was the one who made the album - Old Guy #1 hadn't mentioned it - now there's some modesty for you.

After chatting for a few minutes my new second new friend for the morning leaves me with a warning to not catch a cold, and now it's time to pack up and get rolling. Packing up is my least favourite part of hiking/camping, but fortunately with such a light load it goes pretty quickly and soon I'm ready to roll.


My bike all packed up on morning 2.

Off we go, down the trail - new trail, previously only dreamt of - 'round a corner, and...UP. Darnit. It's only a little bit, though, and soon levels out, for a 100m run to a toilet block. Small, old, wooden and smelly, it nevertheless would have been good to know about it if I had needed it last night. Luckily I didn't, nor do I need it now, so I keep moving. Turning right around the 'loo the track suddenly heads downhill in earnest, and it's only rideable about half the time.


It does soon level out and oh my jeebus it becometh fun. More fun than a month full of Sunday-Schools, it's just me, the trees and perfect singletrack. There are no people, no recent signs of people, just me and my ear-to-ear grin as I ride along a track that must be one of the best-kept secrets in this area. I didn't stop and take any photos in the really fun bits, for obvious reasons, but I did get a few to give one an idea of what it was like. They are deserving of big picures, methinks.



These pictures only give a hint of how much fun it was, I didn't get any shots of the fun, swoopy, curvy bits, or the bits where I got to jump (little, little jumps) off tree roots and things. Strangely enough, although this was the highlight of the trip for me, it is the part that leaves me with the least to talk about (at least that would make sense to non-bike nerds) so I'll just say that this great riding kept up for almost an hour, and then I got deposited out at a beautiful pond full of trout and trout fishermen, but more on that next post.

Billy's Bike Camp Part 2.

This is a slightly blurred photo of the road leading up into the hills, around the last signs of people. Not long after this I headed off the sealed road and up a forestry road, which at first was nice and mellow, but I knew would get steeper before long. How steep I wasn't aware, as I had never gone UP the last bit, only down it once. Up is much harder than down. Anyway, not much to say about all that, except that I started to feel the 50km on the road bike and all the other riding to get there about the time the sun started going down, while pushing my bike up the "track". First time ever I have cramped while out exercising - it hurts!

I managed to keep shuffling forward slowly, and even rode a few sections, but it was quite dark in the trees by now, so it wasn't fun, however MUCH better than pushing my heavier-than-I-remembered-at-the-start-of-the-ride bike. Finally, in the way it always does, the finish line apeared from nowhere, and I rolled into the picnic-come-campsite on top of Nebiso. There was just a bit of light left on the horizon - this is roughly what it looked like.

The city down there is Toyota, where I came from, prettier than I imagined. It was a bit chilly and windy, so I quickly changed out of my sweaty cycling clothes, wrapped myself up in my sleeping bag and tucked in to dinner - a non-cooking feast...
Wonder if I brought enough food...

It's getting dark earlier and earlier here these days, so after watching the sunset, eating and setting up my tent, I found it was only 8 oclock. I stayed up looking at the stars for a while (much clearer than usual - I think I was above half the smog) I started to get cold so crawled into my little tent somewhere between 8:30 and 9. I went to sleep reasonably well only to wake up in the middle of the night with a sore hip - my 13 year old Thermarest had finally given up the ghost. It got a bit uncomfortable after that and I tossed and turned until about six, when I got up.


My litte tent - better than I thought it'd be.

Bike Packing the Tokai Nature Trail

I am sore. S-O-R-E. Previously thinking I was getting fit, I've just come back from a twenty-four hour long wakeup call, aka the Billy's Boot Camp of mountain biking.

There is this kind of bike-assisted travel that has been around for a while but is slowly picking up momentum - particularly in America - which has come to be known as 'bikepacking' and should be viewed as hiking on a bike. That is what I did this weekend. Basically you take an ultralight hiking setup and distribute all the bits and pieces over the bike and yourself and then go and ride the longest offorad trail you can find. I went with the 'make do with gear you already own' school of thought, and here is my setup:


The long piece of dirt I was heading for is know as the Tokai Nature Trail. A long favourite of mine, it is a hiking trail that runs from Tokyo to Osaka, and has over the years consistently delivered both great riding and fantastic views. A few months ago (In post Mountain biking in Real Mountains) I talked about my discovery of the local section, and it has been a lot of fun on a lot of weekends since then, but there was always something that kept berckoning and calling to me.

The bit of trail I had been riding starts at the top of a mountain called NEBISO and runs west, roughly in the direction of home, but the Tokai Nature Trail also heads roughly east from the top of NEBISO, away from home, but the map shows it has a roughly 20km stretch before it arrives in the mountain town of Shitara, and half of this is alongside a river (and moving in the downstream direction). Everytime I looked at the map, this stretch of trail would leap out and taunt me, tease me and dare me to go and ride it. It is too far for a day trip, hoewever, and so the idea of a bikepacking trip started to grow.

I've been meaning to do this since about May, but finally all the stars aligned and allowed me to give it a shot. I got the bike set up, bought the food, photocopied my maps, and even snuch in a quick (stupid) 50km road ride on Saturday morning before I departed. I actually left mid-afternoon as my chosen campsite (the summit of Nebiso) was only around 3 hours ride away. Turns out it's have been better to have left an hour earlier...


The first hour and a half were all on road, out past Asuke where I teach, and then a grind up into the hills on incredibly scenic country backroads, where I there were unmistakeable signs of Autumn's advance.

Sunday

saw us join in the relay race. Just as any relay, the pain - I mean fun - is shared around. As this is a social event, it was held on an abbreviated course of 4km, of which my partner and I had to do 5 laps. I won the rock-scissors-paper battle, giving me the choice to ride second, he started out with two laps, then I brought home the bacon with the final three.

This race was good fun, but a real anti-climax for me after the dramas of saturday. I just went out and rode as fast as I could without hurting too much, and in fact I walked a lot more of the hills today, just because I could. I even wore my camelback (hydration pack - backpack with a tube coming out of it so one can drink on the fly) and baggy trail riding clothes. The beginners course had almost all the hard (ie fun) bits taken out, but it was still a ball to blaze around.

My only real goal was to catch one of the elite women riders - actually a junior, but having no other competition her age she raced with, and destroyed, the senior women - who started her three laps about 5 minutes ahead of me. I got her after a lap and a half, but she seemed to be taking it really easy, perhaps she was feeling her win of the day before. Oh well.

So the three laps passed by uneventfully, and then we had quite a wait for the beginners to come in, but once they were the results showed that we'd won the pairs category, and were 4th overall. My times were pretty good, seemed that the walking hadn't hurt my result at all. My partner was pretty amazed, I was quite happy, it was nice to be out in the sunshine riding bikes. I did get a bit too much sun, hope my wrinkles don't show too much...

The highlight of Sunday for me was taking this photo of some Japanese death bug, one of my favourite pics. Make sure you click on it to get the full size and full-effect pic.


Cheers

Weekend pics

Race bike.

Bad panorama of Race course pit and start/finish area.

My bike wearing its race number from the team event on Sunday.

Riding is Racing is Riding

Beginners finished, riders warmed up as much as we're gonna be. Called over to the staging area, then one-by-one they call our numbers and we lineup at the start line. I notice that they start from number 100, and I am 150...hmmmm....guess I will be at the back of the pack to begin. Oh Well.

As we line up I can't help noticing how skinny these guys are, with their bulging, shiny-bronze legs and super-flash bikes. They look fast just standing still. This could hurt.

Once we're in our start positions we have about five minutes of standing there enjoying the nerves, however a few of my back-row comrades seem to be a bit less serious, and crack a few jokes. One looks at my bike (rigid SS, ie no suspension and only one gear - imagine a big, expensive BMX) and says "Hey, you forgot your suspension!" I laugh, and it helps the tension.

After a long 5 minutes, the start comes, and off we go. It's not at all the sprint I expected, maybe just because there are 49 people in front of me who have to get moving, but we ease up the first straight, heading for the first turn, a wide and easy righthander. I notice just in time that two or three riders have gone down on the bend, blocking a whole bunch of others, but from my position at the back of the pack it's easy to get around them before they can recover - WOW! Just like that I move from 50th to about 35th!

Now we have a long, very slight downhill straight, and I basically maintain my position here, trying to keep my heartrate down before the big climb that is coming. A RH turn leads us up a super steep pictch, most riders hit their lowest gear and crawl up it, but not having that luxury, I swing wide and power up past them on my one gear. I am surprised again as I pass maybe another 10-15 here too, and they don't come back.

After the steep pitch, we turn left, and climb some more, but on a much more reasonable gradient, andI manage to pass a few more here. What's going on? These guys LOOK so fast, what am I missing? Oh well, I have to ride at my own pace, we'll see what happens.

Into the first singletrack and it gets a bit serious, I make a semi-aggressive pass, a rider tries it on me and fails - ah, this is fun! It's muddy and slippery in the trees, and riders are still a bit bunched up so the going is slow, but we soon clear out and bomb down a short fireroad before the second big climb (and my nemesis all weekend) starts. I have enough energy on the first lap to climb it pretty well, and move past another 5-6 riders.

From this point on it is a fun 4km back to the start/finish line, and well suited to my bike - I'm having a ball. My heart rate is recovering, and the climbs from here on in can be tackled without maxing out. I enjoy the ride through this section, I see a few people in front of me, and on passing one or two more I realise I am into the top ten - cool!

We descend back towards the pit area, where everyone is watching and cheering, before swinging out for a little 500m loop that brings us back to the S/F line, and as I descend I get past another rider I see I must be in 4th or 5th now. My friends are screaming, Kohta, the shop owner and race manager is screaming like I've never heard him before - "You're gonna win - GO GO!!" - it's fun to be part of an exciting race.

As we grab water bottles and head into lap two, the riders are all spread out nicely, and the few in front are pretty quick, which is nice. I'm feeling pretty good, my body has adjusted to the pace and I manage to pick up another rider before the first climb - 4th! Up the climb, I draw closer to 3rd, and pass him sometime after the second big climb, on a long gentle fireroad at the back of the course, if I remember correctly. A sign tells me there are only 3km to go, so I decide to pin it, and catch 2nd as he exits the last single track on the course. I get by him on another small climb, and now 1st is in my sights. Down a short, fast descent, I'm gaining on him, everyone is going wild, and I get past with about 4-500m to go! I'm going to win! I make sure he hasn't stuck on my wheel, then gas it around the final loop, nail the last little rise, I'm in a world of hurt but I can hold on to cross the line - what a feeling!

My arms go up, like I've won the Tour de France, and I coast over toward the race marshal when I hear someone yelling - ONE MORE LAP! - ONE MORE! It's 3 LAPS!!!

WHAT????

WHAT THE ....?????

I am so stuffed that it takes me too long to realise that they are serious, to make matters worse I am now past the water pickup point. I have to go on without any water, I am way anaerobic and 2nd easily catches me just after I pass the first corner. As he goes by, he says in English "One more - let's go!" and rides away. I don't have the fight in me to chase him, I need a rest, so I watch as he disappears ahead. Now 3rd also catches me, and goes by quietly, bummer, well, 3rd is OK, I tell myself. In my heart, I have won the race I thought I entered, but at least I get to ride a bit more.

My heart rate is still waaaay too high by the time I get to the first climb again, and I have to walk half of it. Costly. Back on the bike and through the singletrack, down to the start of the second climb, and I'm hurting here too. I walk way more of it that I want, and here 4th catches me - damn gears! I manage to get back on the bike and keep him in sight until the very last climb, where I decide I am happy with 4th, and walk again for a hundred meters or so. Jump back on the bike, pin the final DH, do a few jumps as crowd-pleasers and roll around to cross the line in 4th. I head over to the other guys, and chat to them, they say good race, and are amazed that I did so well on my SS. Nice guys, but I need rest and water so back to the pit.

Everyone is laughing and no one seems to remember that MY RACE MANAGER told me it was two laps! Oh well, they are having a great time with the joke, who am I to interrupt their fun? I'm still super-stoked with my result, and even more so when I see the times. I was only two minutes behind the winner, had I known it was three laps from the start I could have given him a run for his money!

18km in 57 minutes offroad on a SS bike. Not bad for an old bloke!