東海シクロクロス第5戦愛知牧場ステージ1に夫婦で挑戦してみました。
私はC1カテゴリーで、妻は初心者のCL3カテゴリーでした。

Today’s course is at Aichi Bokujo, which is a small farm near where we live in eastern Nagoya, Japan. It is the biggest and most popular race in the Tokai CX series, and also the best course. It’s full of steep climbs, off camber turns, burms, a steep staircase, and of course a heckling section.

Aichi Bokujo CX Course Full Lap

I’ve separated the course pre-ride full lap video to a separate video, which you can watch here

Today was Thuong’s first ever cycling race, which was really exciting for us both.

Race Results

My goal was to get into the top 10, and I was on pace to do that for the first half of the race, but then blew up on lap 5 and couldn’t hold the fast pace any more. I gradually lost some spots, but managed to get a second wind on the last 2 laps and held off a large group to stay in the top 20.

I think my performance was largely affected by my diet lately. Too many end of year parties, most of which are all you can eat.. It’s not always about how much you train, but diet and recovery are also very important. I was quickly reminded of this during today’s race..

That’s it for today, looking forward to the next race!

The post Thuong’s First Race! Aichi Bokujo CX 愛知牧場 東海シクロクロス 2019 appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

今日のビデオでは愛知池のサイクリングロードへ行ってきます！

It’s rainy season in Japan, which means rain & clouds almost every day. I’ve also been sick with a cold for the last few days, but there was a break in the rain and some daylight remaining after work, so I decided to maximize this time and go out for a quick spin around one of the cycling paths nearby us at Aichi Ike (愛知池).

The course is only a few km ride from our home in Japan, and it is blocked off from the main road, so it is nice and protected from motorized vehicles.

The course follows around Aichi Ike (Aichi pond), and there are a bunch of scenic views along the way.

It is only a few km long, and you also need to be careful with your speed. Fast riding is not allowed on the course, so you should not use it for hard training. Only for casual / recovery rides. It’s also a nice place to come for a cycling date 😉

There’s also a nice roadside cafe along the cycling path, so you can stop for a quick snack.

One of the downsides of the course is that there are 3 barriers that you need to navigate around. In the past, they were not rideable, but currently all three are rideable.

This path is very close to Aichi Bokujo (愛知牧場) or Aichi Farm, which has some pretty great ice cream. Hopefully we’ll come back on a sunny weekend for another ride and get some ice cream then. Unfortunately today we had little time and the rain started to come down, so we were only able to get one lap in.

愛知池 サイクリング Aichi Ike Cycling Video

The post 愛知池 サイクリングロード Aichi Ike Cycling Path, Japan / Rainy Season Has Come appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

I participated in this race last year in the C1 elite category and managed to finish close to the podium in 4th place. That day was also my very first attempt at making a cycling vlog, and was the beginning of me discovering my new passion of making cycling videos.

Here’s a little blast from the past, me filming last year’s race..

In today’s race, however, I am not participating. I just came to watch the race and cheer on some friends, and of course film some video.

The new video is at the top of the page. Last year’s video is below. I hope I was able to improve my video editing skills a bit over this last year 😉

The post Aichi Bokujo CX 2018 Day 1 愛知牧場シクロクロス appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

Racing around the Christmas and New Years holidays is always very difficult for me since I tend to lose control of myself and stuff myself with lots of delicious food rather than train and maintain a proper diet.

I still had one last race of this Tokai CX cyclocross season, which just so happened to be my local race at Aichi Bokujo　(愛知牧場), which is a farm that is only about a 20 minute bike ride from my house. Aichi means my prefecture, and bokujo means farm.

As the name suggests, this race was held around the Aichi Bokujo farm. It turned out to be a great venue since it is family friendly, and so many people brought their entire families, resulting in a large number of spectators.

Since this was only my second race in the C1 category and I flatted and DNF’d out of my last race, I was stuck with a last row start.

The course had numerous sections that were single file only, especially on the loose sandy / dusty switchback descents.

Luckily, this also meant that there was a significant amount of climbing each lap, which was nice and wide for passing.

The first few laps, I tried to rest in the technical parts and sprint up the hills as hard as I could. I ended up passing quite a few people, and by the halfway point I made my way to a top 5 position group.

Overall, the atmosphere of this race was fantastic! Every lap, countless people were cheering me on, and I kept hearing my name from the race announcer as they blasted techno music, so I kept getting pumped up and pushing myself harder to try and catch the leaders.

Although I had the 2nd and 3rd place riders in my field of vision, I was burned from my previous efforts of sprinting all out on the hills, and I wasn’t able to close the gap by the end, so I rolled in at 4th.

I’m happy to say I accomplished my goal of returning to cyclocross, and that was to get my upgrade to cat-1 and get a top 5 finish. Hopefully next year I can continue to get stronger and get back on the podium and get some new Tokai CX glasses to add to my collection.

Speaking of adding to my collection… They had these awesome Aichi Bokujo (愛知牧場) cyclocross t-shirts!

So of course I bought one. I went with the safe choice of black, while Zac went with the flashy red. As expected of Mr. BMC Japan.

Race day video

Up until now, I had been relying on my good friend Bradley to make the race day VLOG videos, which I always looked forward to. Unfortunately, he recently left Japan, and this led me to try and attempt to make my very own race day VLOG.

I still have a lot to learn about video editing, but it was a fun first attempt. Check out the race day vlog for Aichi Bokujo here!

The post 2017 Tokai CX #6 Aichi Bokujo C1 4th appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.