Zieleman

Ooh I was actually thinkin about the 75... My knees are still not fully operational but last week's 45k felt good (1st ride since 4months). I will check with my entourage.

pullup

Sounds like a terrific way to start of the season.
I think i'll enter the 75 as it probably will be my first ride this year.

Italuminium

Yeah, maybe the 75 is better. It would be nice to have a little post or pre-ride meet up.

Zieleman

Ok I guess that's settled!

paulkal

Then I will also come for the 75

Creme Brulee

i liked the bar tape how you got it... thats a beauty!

Italuminium

Good! Seems we have a pretty nice crew together now.

Lenton58 

Sendai is by the sea — a provincial port city. The mountains are not far away, but along the coast are flat regions used for growing rice (before the tsunami) as well as marshes, and floodplains on the local rivers. I have not been around the coast as much as I used to before the tsunami. A bit depressing. I live near the flood plains of two rivers and regularly ride there.

I used to live on an island that reminded the Dutch people their of their homeland — flat, below seal level, ****s, pumping stations. I did a lot of cycling there as a boy. I needed a lower gear because of fierce headwinds that blew in off the sea. The same applies here, except a lot of the gales alternately come out of Siberia and and the Pacific. I think the Cyclone rings I'll be using are 53/42T — that is if I really go ahead with the 5-speed plan.

Zieleman

I'm sorry to hear that the coastline hasn't recovered from the tsunami yet. Over here the news only covers the damage on the Fukushima reactor, not so the damage caused by the water itself. That must be horrific and depressing indeed.

Those floodplains you ride along, are they man-made like the Dutch 'uiterwaarden' that lay along our rivers?

Zieleman

First testdrive for the Champy in it's revised form today:



Fresh cockpit:

non-fixie 

Excellent!

Zieleman

Thanks Maarten! I was at MacBike today to get Theo's approval and they told me an unreasonably tall guy had visited them last week...

non-fixie 

Guilty. Picked up a nice set of wheels for my Gentsluxe-S there. Nice guys. Great bikes. Good coffee too!

Lenton58 

Fantastic build. A beautiful turnout! Congratulations ... it should provide many years of excellent enjoyment. Here is my frame. It's a German export model and hence is marked just "Champion", not "Champion Mondial".The gold bit is my addition. Two of three Reynolds decals are new from JR and match the originals exactly. The paint was rubbed down and clear-coated. The are some scars.



I will try to be succinct: firstly, the land may take some time to recover from salt inundation. A lot of that land was tambo — rice paddies. Little fishing hamlets for hundreds of Km were in small coves and bays backed by steep hills. These were often shelled out. The old people frequently remain. The younger folks may move away. Secondly, a lot of space will never be occupied again as permits for rebuilding will not be issued by authorities. Next, recovery may vary from place to place. Some places may never recover. Others are recovering moderately to something more accelerated. Politics and money factor in. Japan Rail East has refused to rebuild hundreds of Km of rail leaving communities more isolated than before and relying on trucking and buses. The government diverted funds for reconstruction to fund whaling, building roads (pork) in Okinawa and a jet fighter training program — among other stuff. Tohoku is a provincial area and always gets the shaft from the federal government. There is a reason why Daiichi Fukushima was not built down south where virtually all the generated power went. Most of the rubble has been scraped into huge piles and is slowly being processed or disposed of. Not exactly. The scale is smaller. There is only one dike. The initial, smaller dike is usually absent. A lot of Japanese rivers are "manicured" or manipulated. They are often made into ugly cement troughs. Anyway ... the wash land or flood plains are used as recreation spaces and market gardens where-ever high water is very rare. Japanese rivers can be very low water, and yet in a few hours they can swell to huge heights due to typhoons and tropical depressions that make it north. Sometimes I am on a path with sand and bits of debris after a storm. A horn will sound to tell people to get clear if high water is expected or a dam is releasing volume. I should put up a 'Where did you ride today?' piece and alert you.

This is a pic taken during a ride after dusk on the flood plain of the Hirose River. Central Sendai is to the right, and the NHK transmission towers are to the left.

Italuminium

Thank you for your insights, Lorne. Amazing how corrupt and bad the Japanese gov. handles these funds, especially considering that Japan is by far the most efficient, non-corrupt and well funded countries of the region. I simply can't imagine how bad it must be in the jumbled, mob-run countries like Indonesia.

Zieleman

Never would have thought this kind of mistreatment of funds would be possible in a well developed country such as Japan. Could it be a cultural thing? Where in western countries individualism seems to be the big thing, I have had the impression that in Japan, sacrifices are more often made by individuals in favor of the greater good. Whether this greater good is the family, community or the country itself for that manner. Or is this mistreatment of funds just plain old corruption?

Elev12k

They simply print new and try again

Don, the Gazelle is very nice!

Zieleman

Thanks Mel! Are you joining in on the Zoetemelk Classic?

Italuminium

Btw registration is open till the 8th of march. Got my ticket and almosted started training I fear this ride will hurt a little!

Elev12k

Maybe I will ride to Leiden, but don't participate in the event itself.

non-fixie 

I was thinking along the same lines.

Lenton58 

Hi Italuminum & Zielman: Thanks for you comments. I should not take up much space, except to say that Japan is very much misunderstood by almost all the media and foreign press. Although somewhat dated, an excellent place to start understanding this county is a book entitled "The Enigma of Japanese Power" [Tuttle, 1993] by Karel van Wolferen. For some years, van Wolferen taught at Sophia university, Tokyo. A lot of his work was never published in English. I was fortunate enough to know his translator.

Chicago Al 

^ Very interesting discussion and I may have to look up that book.

Meanwhile, the Gazelle looks great and I wish I could join you Nederlanders on your spring jaunt. You've got a great country to ride in!

paulkal

I just entered, did 100 km yesterday. So 75 should be no problem.

Italuminium

Famous book here, too. Haven't read it yet but heard of it before. So many books, so little time.