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.

Time to get started with today’s ride!

Today is the first big cycling ride with the new TWC Cycling Kit. Looking pretty good if I do say so myself 😉

恵那市 (Ena) is located NE of where I live in 岐阜県 (Gifu prefecture), which is famous for mountains. That means today is gonna be full of climbing..

I love cycling in this direction, as there are a lot of beautiful sights along the way.

This looks like a nice place for a break.

八王子神社 狛犬 (hachiouji jinja koma inu)

This is the front of Hachiouji Shrine with the guardian Shinto dogs known as koma inu.

Here’s hoping they also protect me on my ride today 🙂

Drone Time

As if climbing through the mountains wasn’t already hard enough, I was also carrying a backpack full of camera equipment, and.. my drone!

Completely worth it to be able to get some beautiful shots of this area in 瑞浪市 mizunami city.

小里城大橋

Even more worth it to get this awesome view of 小里城大橋 (orijou oohashi)

This road is crazy high off of the ground and just looks plain awesome! It’s even more fun to ride down, which I did later in the day 🙂

For now though, it’s up up up!

Finally, I arrived at my main destination, 道の駅 おばあちゃん市 山岡 (michi no eki obaachanshi, yamaoka)!

I was pretty hungry, so this was a perfect chance to fuel up on some good food. One of my favorite foods on long rides is 五平餅 (gohei mochi), which is a grilled rice stick covered in salty miso.

200 yen for pure deliciousness.

I also spoiled myself with some ice cream (350 yen).

The End

That’s it for today’s ride. I was pretty cooked by the end, and stopped for some coca cola on my way back for some extra energy.

Today’s ride on Strava

Be sure to watch the full video for all of the awesome views at 恵那市 and 道の駅 おばあちゃん市 in 岐阜県

The post 道の駅 おばあちゃん市 山岡 Cycling to Michi No Eki in Ena Japan appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

They have the gondola / lifts running during the summer, which can be used for both mountain biking and for snowboarding / skiing on a synthetic snow course. They have a variety of different lift passes, but we ended up doing the full day package set, which was about 5,600 yen (plus 500 deposit), and included an all day lift ticket, a 1,000 yen meal voucher, a drink voucher, and entrance into the onsen (hot spring).

All in all, it was money well spent. There are 3 main courses from the top of the gondola: beginner (初級), intermediate (中級), and advanced (上級). I found the level difference between these courses to be very extreme. The beginner course is mostly just open grass and rocky roads, which are all steep and not enjoyable to ride down. The intermediate course was pretty enjoyable, and still ride-able on cross country bikes. Parts of the advanced course can be ridden on an XC bike, but I wouldn’t recommend it..

There was also an extra course, which branched off of the beginner course near the hot spring parking lot, which was called the “taiken course” (体験コース), which means like “hand on experience”. This was actually my favorite of the courses, since it was closer to “flow” style XC, which is my preferred style of mountain bike riding.

All in all, it was a fun day of mtb riding at the Wing Hills resort.

The post Mountain Biking at Wing Hills Resort in Gifu, Japan マウンテンバイク ウイングヒルズ appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

The race was held at the Hirata Riverside Plaza, which is the same location as the local monthly training crit (平田クリテ) is held. There just so happened to be a race this day as well, which I was planning to enter, and then enter the sfiDARE Crit afterwords.

Because I wanted to participate in both races and I don’t have a car, I had to ride over with my road bike as usual, and Kodama-san lent me one of his spare track bikes, a Giant Omnium.

After a solid top 10 finish in the Cat-1 race of the regular crit, it was time for the main event!

The first lap was supposed to be a “free lap” for people to get used to their bikes and riding in a pack on fixed gears on the course. One person didn’t get that memo and decided to attack. Other people went with him, and that left me dangling off of the back trying to get used to my new bike. Luckily, after a few laps of getting used to the bike and the course at speed, I was able to put in some hard attacks on the long back straight and eventually catch up to the front group and then attack off the front.

I was able to get a gap briefly, but was brought back into the group by Kodama-san and Jasmin, who were fresh on form from travelling to the Red Hook Crit in Brooklyn, NY. Eventually, it came down to the three of us, with Jasmin taking a last lap flyer, and Kodama and myself playing cat and mouse to see who would chase and lead out the sprint. He ended up leading it out, and I was able to come out around him at the very last second in a very narrow sprint finish.

Needless to say, I had a blast and was really happy to be able to perform well in my first fixed gear criterium race.

This race wouldn’t be possible without Kodama-san and his wife, who have both made significant strides in bringing fixed gear racing culture to Japan through the sfiDARE Crit.

Thanks to everyone who participated, and I’m excited to see how this race will grow in the future!

みんなさん、お疲れ様でした！

sfiDARE Crit Race Day VLOGS

Full race day, Hirata & sfiDARE Crit

sfiDARE Crit Full GoPro Race Footage

The post Victory at sfiDARE Crit! Japan’s First Ever Fixed Gear Criterium appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

At last, after finally getting my upgrade from my win in the last Tokai CX race, I have my C1 (cat-1) debut race here in Japan! My broken thumb was starting to heal, and I have been able to train more lately, so I was feeling good about my chances today.

Today’s race was at Kakamigahara Outdoor Field (各務ヶ原アウトドアフィールド), which was a nice big park near the Kiso river.

The course itself was pretty nice, including a good mix of long power straight sections as well as some more technical twisty sections. One area of concern was the large number of rocks on the course, which made a risk of crashing or puncturing pretty high.

Since this was my first C1 level race, I was stuck at the back row, but luckily the field today wasn’t too large, so it wasn’t too big of a problem.

I stuck to my usual strategy of taking it easy in the start and relaxing in the technical areas since they were backed up with traffic anyway, and then would attack and sprint in each of the long straightaway sections.

My strategy worked pretty well, and I found myself attacking the group for 3rd place. Unfortunately, by the time I got there, the first two position riders were already out of sight.

About halfway through the race, I felt my rear tire go flat and that was the end of the race for me since I didn’t have a pit bike or spare wheel to use.

At first, I assumed that I had pinch flatted due to the rocks, but after I inspected my tire, I found that it was a thorn that punctured the tire. Oh well..

In any case, I’m happy that I was able to accomplish my goal of fighting for a top 5 position. Hopefully next time I can stick around until the end though.

Race day Tokai CX VLOG

Bradley was also out at today’s race and made a video for the day’s events. Check it out here.

Photos were taken by
https://www.flickr.com/photos/maekawa0717/
and
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132570324@N04/

The post 2016 Tokai CX #4 Kakamigahara C1 Debut appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

After finishing in 2nd place in the Cat-2 race for the last two races in the Tokai CX series, and only the winner being able to upgrade to cat-1, I was hungry for redemption and victory. Today’s race was at Hirata riverside plaza, which is a venue I often come to for criterium racing. The terrain is very flat with some long straightaways and open to the wind. Perfect for my style of power riding.

With my two 2nd place rides, I was the top ranked Cat-2 rider, which gave me the #1 number tag.

Myself and Shuta (one of the top Junior racers) broke away early in the race, and never looked back. I tried attacking him a couple times, would get a little gap, but he would catch back up in the more technical areas. I figured I could out-power him in the sprint, so I decided to ease up on my attacks and just ride together for the last few laps and conserve my energy.

Since the pace started to drop, one other rider did manage to catch up on the last lap, but it wasn’t a problem since I was able to lead the last technical area, which allowed me to lead out the sprint. I was confident that if I led out the sprint, there wasn’t enough time for anyone to pass me, and… luckily I was right!

Turns out, we were technically in different categories since he is a Junior, so I didn’t need to beat him to get my upgrade, but I’m still glad we fought it out like a normal race.

This was my first time winning a race since I starting racing again after quitting a few years back, so it felt really good to be able to win again. Also, I finally received my upgrade to Cat-1, so hopefully I can still be competitive in that field. It might be a while until I win a glass again, since they’re only given to the top 3 spots in each category.

Here’s my collection of Tokai CX glasses so far.

Thanks to Kikuzo Photo for the awesome photos!

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