Report originally written on Oct 20, 2014:
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BRM1018 AJ Nishi-Tokyo 200 km "Kintaro Yuhi no Taki" was my fifth and last brevet of the season, all of them organized by AJ Nishi-Tokyo.
I first participated in the AJ Nishi-Tokyo 200 km "Kintaro" brevet in April 2013. For 2014, the club moved most of its brevets forward by one month to make room in June for a 600 km brevet, so it could offer the full 200-300-400-600 km "Super Randonneur" series in that space. That's because next year's SR series can be used for qualifying for the quadriennial Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP) event to be held in August 2015. Due to the timing of PBP, all 4 distances have to be covered by June to secure a spot. The earlier seasonal start made the events more vulnerable to wintery conditions. Originally scheduled for March 15, the 2014 Kintaro brevet had been postponed to October 18 due to the impact of heavy snowfall in February. The organisers weren't sure if Kagosaka toge would be clear of snow in time.
After not finishing the 400 and 600 km brevets in May and June, I was determined to prepare well for this one. I did some hill repeats at Yomiuriland, as well as clocking up more distance. Between Sep 14 and Oct 12 I did four mountain rides of between 188 and 219 km, including a test ride of 60% of the BRM1018 route.
Determined not to repeat my mistake of the last brevets, I went to bed relatively early on Friday night (23:00) to catch almost 5 hours of sleep despite having to get up before 04:00 to catch a train from Chitosefunabashi station to Machida at 05:01. The weather forecast was good, so I went without mudguards on the bike, but with the temperature forecast for Tokyo only in the 13-20 C range and the prospect of a 20 km fast descent from Kagosaka Toge at over 1100 m, I packed both a wind breaker and a winter jacket into my large carradice saddle bag. Instead of bib shorts I opted for uniqlo long johns and old corduroy trousers.
At Machida station I unpacked the bike and rode to the Cherubim bike shop 6 km away, which serves as the base for most AJ Nishi-Tokyo events. On the way I saw a few other randonneurs, including the guy who had previously participated on a Surly Pugsley fat tyre bike. He was using a full suspension mountain bike this time (and again finished successfully). I was welcomed at the reception area. Having participated in 8 Nishi-Tokyo rides so far, I was greeted like an old friend. My small wheeled Bike Friday got far less attention than my Half-Fast Cycling jersey whose humorous design attracted numerous questions throughout the event.
After the route briefing and bike security inspection we set off. For the first couple of km I was surrounded by about a dozen other people, but the group gradually broke up as traffic lights intervened and the group stretched out. When I wasn't drafting someone else I was following the route on my Navi2Coach GPS breadcrumb display. I had downloaded a GPX file from RouteLabo for the GPS and a KML file for Google Maps 6.x for my Android, using both devices in conjunction.
This definitely wasn't an easy ride (AJ Nishi-Tokyo doesn't do easy rides!), as I well remembered from last year. The hills started about 15 km into the route and didn't really end until 5 km from the finish. It's fair to say that on this ride it was always either uphill or downhill in the mountains or there was urban traffic, with traffic lights and congestions. The only flat segment without traffic lights that sticks in mind was the picturesque loop around Kawaguchiko (Lake Kawaguchi). To do well on this course you had to have trained on hills extensively.
Unlike on my test ride in September, I stopped and stocked up on water and bananas at the last convenience store before Magino. Therefore I didn't have to worry about running out of fuel or water on rural Rt35 past Akiyama to Tsuru, which as far as convenience storesconvenience store are concerned is a desert. I set off from there with three other cyclists and ended up chatting much of the distance to Akiyama with a nice lady from Yokohama. Maybe I lost some time with all the talking, but it was fun.
The temperature was perfect. I wasn't wearing my wind breaker in the morning, but I didn't really need it during daytime and still I didn't get hot on the climbs. On the descent from the Maglev test track to PC1 (check point 1) near Tsuru I tried to make as much time as possible and kept the stop short at the convenience store. From there it was about 20 km uphill on Rt139 to Kawaguchiko. It's a long climb, but not very steep. I was looking forward to taking more pictures of the waterfalls with hexagonal basalt formations that I had found around there on the test ride, but the bridge offering the best views on it was closed for construction work.
Arriving at Kawaguchiko, I took some pictures of the lake and some autumn leaves around it, but there weren't any views of Mt Fuji. All but the lower flanks of the mountain hid behind clouds, which is quite common: I think my success rate with Fuji views in the "Fuji 5 lakes" area is no better than 50:50. There was a quiz point, a spot where we had to write down a word from a particular monument on the brevet card (or bring back a picture of it).
Traffic was much lighter than during the test ride, when I had gotten "doored" by a car stuck in a traffic jam, ending up with a cut lip, an injured knee and a disconnected SPD cleat. No bad incidents this time. There was still some slow traffic in Fujiyoshida (there always is on a weekend), but it was almost mercifully short compared to the test ride.
Near Yamanakako I rode with one of the older riders, climbing Kagosaka toge together. For the long descent on the other side I still did not put on my wind breaker. The winter jacket remained unused for the whole ride.
At the bottom of the 20 km descent was PC2. Just as I arrived, another randonneur set off on his Bike Friday Pocket Rocket Pro (a lighter, more expensive version of the bike I ride). This was the first time I saw another Bike Friday at a brevet. I greeted the cyclist, but didn't have a chance to chat. The convenience store that had served as PC2 last year was closed, so this year a grocery store across the street welcomed us. The family that ran it was very friendly and supportive. They offered to refill our bidons with water and pointed out to me where the bananas were. After buying a bunch and keeping the receipt as evidence I soon set off again.
During the 6 km climb to Ashigara toge I met the older cyclist again as well my lady friend. The afternoon light was beautiful.
The Ashigara toge climb was probably the steepest part of the whole route.
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