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First Time Racing in Japan and First Race in 2 years – Coupe de AACA

It’s been about 2 years since I last lined up for a cycling race, but that streak finally came to an end today in Japan at the Coupe de AACA race.

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Photo: Catarina

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Photo: Catarina

Although I barely rode a bike at all in 2014, since moving to Japan this year, I have started cycling fairly regularly. This was not out of desire to race, but out of excitement to explore a new place, see more things, and meet meet new people. It’s also a bonus that there is some excellent riding with some big mountains fairly close to my new home. I learned about a nearby race that was taking place about 40 kilometers (I’ve switched to kilos since moving here) away, and I decided to go check it out. I started to toy with the idea of participating in the race, but part of me really did not want to. Mainly because I hadn’t been training very seriously or often because of the rainy season, but I also I didn’t see the point in competing in a race when I felt that I could not win. I found out that the race was actually full up on registration, but that there was a chance to participate by showing up and being put on a wait list.

Japan / AACA Racing Categories

A friend from the Michigan cycling community who is in Nagoya for the summer, Alex, also joined me for the ride to the race. Once we arrived, we could not resist the temptation to race and we decided to put ourselves on the wait list for the 1-2 race. For this particular series, there are 4 main categories:

  • 1-1 / US pro/1/2
  • 1-2 / US 2/3
  • 1-3 / US 3/4
  • 1-4 / US 4/5

Since it was our first race in Japan, we were not able to start in the 1-1, so we put our names on the wait list for the 1-2 race. We had to wait until 15 minutes before the race start time to find out if we could participate or not. Luckily, there were enough no-shows that we were able to enter. Unfortunately, we only had about 15 minutes to complete our registration, pin our numbers, and get to the start line. Normally, this would have been fine, but we thought we had 30 minutes so we were a bit slow. With 5 minutes remaining we pinned on our numbers and sprinted to the line, just making it in time.

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Kinan Coupe de AACA number 20
Photo: Catarina

AACA Course and Location

The AACA race series has a few different locations, but today’s race was next to a large river. It was nice and flat with 2 long straights and 2 wide U-turns. It was about 5 kilometers per lap, and in total only about a 32k race. We started in the back row, so my goal was to get up to the front quickly and try and conserve energy until the halfway point. I have been doing a few harder efforts recently, but nothing really in a group, so I wasn’t sure how well I would hold up. I ended up making my way to the top 15 within the first lap and held my position fairly comfortably. With this course I benefited a lot from my cyclocross experience. It was a lot of quick accelerations with the U-turns, which I really like.

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Photo: Catarina

Finish & Impressions

Once we reached the halfway point, I was feeling very comfortable so I decided to try and launch a few attacks to test myself. Most of the time, no one would go with me, but I wasn’t feeling strong enough to hold off the field by myself, so I would soft pedal until the field caught me. The humidity was really strong this day and after my efforts I was starting to really feel the effect of that. Also, I had run out of food from my ride over to the race and I was starting to lose my energy, so I needed to make sure I rode smart. I sat in until 2 laps to go and then then launched an attack which was followed by another rider. We got a small gap, but we were quickly caught as we went into 1 lap to go. I tried to hold a position near the front so that I could contest the sprint, but I ended up not having much energy left and died in the last 100 meters, finishing about 6th or 7th I think. The race average speed was about 42k/hour (26mph). Despite my weak sprint, I was happy to feel very comfortable with a decent race pace.

What did I gain from this experience? I have now raced in 5 different countries (US, Canada, Puerto Rico, China, Japan)! I realized that I missed racing and being a part of that community. I do not plan on racing regularly anytime soon, but I am starting to consider picking my training up a bit more and possibly participating in a few more events.

Link to today’s race on strava

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ve been failing with my blogging since coming here, but with my University work, freelance work, Japanese studying, and minimal riding, I have not had too much time to write. One thing is for certain though, I am keeping busy and enjoying my new life. More updates to come soon!

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