It’s race day #2 of the Tokai Cyclocross (東海シクロクロス) series, and I was hoping to get some revenge today from my poor performance at the series opener 2 weeks ago.

東海シクロクロスの第２戦各務原アウトドアフィールドでC2カテゴリーのレースで挑戦したかったですが運が悪かった。レースの前にスポークが壊れてレース中にもフロントディレイラーが壊れてしました（泣）。

しかし、トレーニング相棒のヒロキさんが良いレースを走りました！ホールショットもできたし大半のレースは1位で走っていました。夜練の成果かな。ですが、残り２周のところでヒロキがコーナーで転んでしまった。最後のスプリントで５位を取れました。実はトップ１０の選手は３０秒の差しかなかった。まるでクリテのようなレースでした。

次のレース頑張ります！

Unfortunately, I had a series of bad luck today, including a broken spoke before the start and pushing my front derailleur outside of my big chainring in the second lap.. I tried to push the derailleur back in place, but I couldn’t do anything without a tool.. So my race was over after only 10 minutes 🙁 This was a first for me, but it’s my own fault for shifting up while sprinting in dusty conditions.. Lesson learned..

My training buddy Hiroki had a pretty good race, taking the holeshot, and riding in 1st position for most of the race, but unfortunately he got caught in a crash with another rider on a dusty corner with 2 laps to go.

He still managed to sprint for 5th place though. Actually, the top 10 were all within about 30 seconds of each other.. The course was very short, narrow, dry and fast, so it was kind of like a dusty and rocky crit.

Despite our bad luck today, we’re both looking forward to the next Tokai CX race!

Here’s a video from when I raced here 2 years ago made by my buddy Brad where I made my debut in the C1 cyclocross category here in Japan. Unfortunately, I had bad luck that day as well..