fall colors by bike

Now we are well into the fall colors here in Nagano, mornings are actually cold and at night I am burning wood to stay warm. Cold nights and sunny days make for ideal fall colors and riding conditions. I did a couple nice one day rides last week, one ride was around Yatsugatake about 120 kilometers long and the other a nice flat ride in the Azumino Valley of about 60 kilometers. The Yatsugatake ride has lots of climbing and decending, not a ride I would reccomend for beginners but the Azumino Valley is perfect for a nice easy flat days riding, we stopped and checked out a Wasabi Farm, ate freshly picked apples and enjoyed the sunshine.

Indian Summer!

September is a great time for riding here in Japan, the humidity drops and the temperature seems to stay between 25- 28 degrees C. for most of the month. I spent a week riding around the Noto Penisula and then into the mountains to Takayama. Fantastic weather, great roads and good company made for a really good trip.

Panorama "motai nai"

I had 3 Austrailians up here for a week a the start on July. 3 very solid riders who were happy to spend their time riding the Gondola at Panorama and ripping up the trails. I was suprised to hear that in the land down under they were riding 2-3 minute tracks,when you think about how many Aussies are at the top of the MTB downhill game it is hard to understand why there are no fast Japanesee riders, Mio-san excepted. They also wondered why Panorama doesn't make some trails like Whistler has done, this would help with the erosion problems ,slow the riders down and make it more enjoyable. They wonder why the thinking in Japan is "small world not the big picture". My favorite quote " This place could be Aisa's MTB capital,don't they know we are out here?" I had no answers for them ,, who does? Check out this video of the 3 Aussies enjoying a bit of Japanese single track.

This is Fun!!!

I was joined by Murata-san and his friends for a ride last saturday, Murata-san came for a couple of rides last year with me and this time brought some friends that he road rides with. It was great to introduce MTB`ing to these road riders,because of the good cycling fitness they have from the road they could climb on the big full suspension rental bikes without to much problem.The advantage of ridng these bikes doesnt become evident until you hit the trails, when the suspension sucks up all the bumps and the disc brakes help you control the speed and let you enjoy the challange of single track riding. I too love the feeling of my 7 kilogram road bike but it doesn't compare to a good single track ride. You must concentrate on the trail at all times, you don't have time to think about much else so you really can forget about the real world while you riding.

BC RACE Stage 6

Day 6
The town of Squamish was the setting for what many had said would be the crunch of the BC race. This stage is a combination of 2 separate cross country races the Test of Metal and the Gearjammer. The Test of Metal is widely regarded in Canada as the unofficial MTB Championship of the World, the winner of this one day race held in May every year must be an excellent mountain bike rider, Max Plaxton won the race just before the BC Race started this year and along with his partner Andreas Hestler managed to win the stage as well. Today we made it through without any problems but I was really feeling the effects of only 4 hours sleep the night before. After the ferry trip back from the Sunshine coast I had gone into Vancouver for a couple hours before trying to head up to Squamish. A propane leak on the Whistler Highway closed the road until 1 a.m. so what should have been a big nights sleep turned into a stressful evening instead. Our plan was to ride smoothly and pick up the pace on the long logging road climb about halfway through the race,a couple times I had to tell Yoshi to back off a bit and even though we managed to maintain our position we could have done a bit more with this super hard 65 kilometer course today.
A big thanks goes out to the mechanics who worked until 3 or 4 a.m. every night repairing racers bikes, my bike spent the night before the 6th stage in their hands as I had manged to destroy a chainring and chain on the 5th stage. Due to my traveling problems I didn't have a chance to check the bike out at all before the stage start, I pretty well walked up to the service area 10 minutes before the start of the race, begged them to let me "pay you later" and lined up at the start line. The bike was perfect right from the word go and after the race when I paid up I also gave them my thanks. There is a lot that goes into putting a 7 day stage race together, somebody was taking my tent down and putting it up again every night, somebody else was making me breakfast and dinner everyday, when you think there is about 600 people traveling along within the race. A big shower truck was always near the campsite, I never had to wait more than 10 minutes to get clean. The organizers of the race made a few mistakes but were always quick to take the blame and make the corrections, very impressive group.

BC RACE stage 5

Stage 5
If you ever have the chance to get over to the sunshine coast , make sure you ride the trails around the towns of Sechelt and Gibson known as the Rat Race Trail System. The locals have built some of the most fun flowing trails that I have ever had the pleasure to ride. Not super technical but just tricky enough to keep you on your toes. Great banked trails through the rainforest help you keep your speed on these fast smooth trails. We were feeling good about our riding over the last couple days and were looking forward to this day. The cycling gods were not on my side though as today was my turn to have the mechanical problem , with about 15 kilometers left to go on this 65 kilometer ride my chain snapped. Not only did it break but a whole section of chain came off. By the time we got that fixed we had lost at least 20 minutes and once again finished the day feeling a bit unsatisfied.

Stage Winners-

Team Old School ( Canadain 2008 olympian Seamus Mcgrath, Chris Sheppard) 3:36

Brownfishjumpers 4:47

BC RACE Stage one

Stage-1, 89 kilometers
Nerves were frayed as all 450 racers lined up to start was to turn into an epic adventure. As a former professional cyclist I was well aware that the start would be one of the most dangerous times of this 7 day race. Even though the organizers warned us at the previous nights pre-race meeting as soon as the gun went off so did the race. Within 500 meters I had lost my partner , who seemed to be riding way faster than I could, a big field full of cut grass slowed everyone down as racers, myself included, had to dismount and clear their drivetrain of grass before continuing. Yoshi was pulled over waiting for me and we got going along with the rest of the field. Todays race was an 89 kilometer ride from Shawnigan Lake to Lake Cowichan, it included a variety of the terrain that we would ride over the next 7 days, gravel logging roads, double track jeep roads and of course what all mountain bikers crave , single track trails. The heat, mid 30`s was a factor many riders including Yoshi didn`t consider as they rode past the first water station thinking it was more important to hold their position in the technical trails. The heat and Yoshi`s choice of clothing " I`m not a racer anymore, I am a freerider" started to effect his riding and for the last 20 kilometers we had to back off on the pace and cruise into the finish. We felt okay about our day and realized we could do a bit better if we worked together more smoothly, little did we know what day 2 had in store for us.
Stage winners- Team Canondale U.S.A. - 4:14
45 place- Team Brownfish Jumpers - 5:43

Paul goes to the BC Race

I have been invited to the BC Race, a seven day mtb race through British Columbia`s west coast. Lots of long hard days on some of the best single track in the world convinced me to put my race face on once again! I am starting to lose my beer belly a very big thanks to all who came for to ride over the last month, we did lots of good climbing and downhilling. Having both beginners and experts come mtb riding, a week on the road in the mountains of Kumano and another weeks road riding on the Noto Penisula has me thinking that I will be able to make it to the finish. My partner in the race is Yoshi T a former xc racer turned freerider who now lives in BC, recently he has been spending more time dropping of of big jumps than racing so I think we will make a good match. The race bible tells us we should spend many hours training together but in truth we have raced against each other a few times about 10 years ago and stage one will probably be our first ride together. Look for our race reports in some publications here in Japan and also on this blog.