One of the reasons I don’t ride my mountain bike very often is because there are not many decent trails nearby where I live in Japan. It’s mostly just steep dirt road climbs, but nothing that I would consider a real mtb trail, and anything that is halfway decent is quite far from where I live. Since I don’t have a car, it is a bit difficult and so I unfortunately don’t get to do much mtb riding currently.

Fortunately, my friend Junji started riding mtb recently and has a big car, so this might mean that there is more mountain biking ahead in my future 🙂

This trail is located in Gifu, but it’s right by Inuyama city, which is right on the border of Aichi prefecture, which is where I live. Although it’s only really about 40km away, it took us about 2 hours to get there due to tiny roads (traffic in Japan is not the best..). But it was well worth the wait, as these were by far the best trails that I’ve ridden in Japan so far.

I tried to include as much of the trail as possible in raw video, so hopefully it will serve as a reference for anyone interested in coming out here.

Here’s the website information. Be careful to not ride on areas that are not designated mountain bike course areas.
http://kakamigahara-kanko.jp/?p=228

Address: 6797-1 各務車洞 Kakamigahara, Gifu Prefecture 504-0102
Hours: 9-5 everyday

Overall, there are a little less than 10km of different trails that can be ridden in this area that are all well maintained and completely free to ride. Some are beginner friendly, while others are a bit more intermediate (mostly just tree roots and narrow paths). Another important thing is that there is a decent amount of elevation gain on this course which will leave you pretty tired by the end of your session.

The post Autumn Mountain Biking in Japan at Kakamino Trails in Gifu 【各務野自然遺産の森】 appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

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..

The post Bad Luck at Tokai Cyclocross #2 | 第2戦 東海シクロクロス 各務原 2018 appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.