Because of the category upgrade, my race time increased from 40 minutes to 60 minutes. In addition, about half of today’s course is covered in deep sand, meaning lots and lots of PAIN and running. To make things even worse, one of the long sand sections was uphill..

Honestly, most of the races up until this point this season have left me frustrated and with leftover energy. This is mostly due to poor / narrow course design and limited courses that were not very challenging. That was not the case today as the course was very wide open and gave me plenty of chances to power my way through.

My goal was a top 10 finish and I was able to finish pretty close to that goal with a respectable 11th and only a few seconds off. I finished the race completely depleted of energy and with a broken shifter from all of the sand, but deeply satisfied with leaving everything out there.

Even more motivated now to continue with my training and look forward to the next race!

CX Race Results
https://data.cyclocross.jp/race/7018

東海シクロクロス第4戦ワイルドネイチャープラザ
砂地獄と呼ばれているレースにC1デビュー挑戦してみました。
今シーズンの今までのコースはほとんどすごく狭くて力を出せるチャンスはあまりなかったですが今日のレースは違います。逆に力を使い切っちゃいました（笑）。久しぶりに全力で走れて嬉しいです。次のレースも頑張りたいと思っています。

The post Riding in Sand at Tokai CX #4 東海シクロクロス 第4戦 ワイルドネイチャープラザ appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

IRC CUP 第3戦　東海シクロクロス
新城　ふれあいパークほうらい

After some bad luck in the first two rounds, my luck finally started to turn around with no major problems and I was able to finish in 2nd place behind the Japanese Junior MTB national champion.

Official race results / リザルト
https://data.cyclocross.jp/race/6907

The post Tokai CX #3 Shinshiro 東海シクロクロス 第3戦 新城 ふれあいパークほうらい 2018 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.

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.

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!

The post Victory at Tokai CX #3 Hirata appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

A couple of weeks ago I had a really bad crash while training, and that really set me back both physically and mentally. My biggest injury was a broken thumb, which didn’t mean I couldn’t train, but I simply lost all of my motivation to train and ride for a while. The second race of the Tokai CX series was coming up, and although I had already pre-registered, I had already given up on going to the race. That was, until the night before when I went out for a Birthday dinner with some cycling friends. They convinced me that I should still at least come out to the race to watch, so I messaged my other friend last minute to see if he had space in his car, which he luckily did.

The course was located at a park called wild nature plaza (ワイルドネイチャープラザ), and it was at least 50% deep sand like the above picture.

Once I arrived at the environment of the race, my negative mood lifted and I decided that I still wanted to try and see what I could do in the race.

Thanks to my 2nd place finish in the first Tokai CX race, I had the number one tag and a front row start.

I had a pretty good start and was the first person to enter the deep sand section.

I tried to maintain my position, but each lap I was gradually losing ground due to my recent drop in endurance from not riding.

Some riders who passed me where also on mountain bikes, and it looked like they were able to ride parts of the course easier than I could with my CX bike.

In any case, I struggled on and still managed to keep myself in a top 5 position and keep most of the people in front of me within sight.

About halfway through the race, I started to get a rhythm down, and decided to try and push myself to my absolute limit and try and catch as many people as I could by the end.

By the last lap, I worked my way up to 4th, with 3 people still ahead of me, 2 of which were still within my field of vision, so I continued to dig deep..

During the last lap, I caught and passed 3rd, and going into the very last corner, I caught and passed 2nd, edging him out in a sprint.

1st place was still about a minute ahead, so not even close. Although normally I’d be pretty upset with getting two 2nd places in a row, considering the circumstances, I’m very happy to be able to get back on the podium. Especially with racing after two weeks of no riding and with a broken thumb.

Today’s result and being surrounded by the environment of Tokai CX helped to lift my spirits again and motivate me to look forward to the next race!

I was pretty cooked by the end of the race, my average heart rate was 190 BPM! …. Ouch…

Nothing that a chocolate banana protein smoothie can’t fix. Thanks Bucyo Coffee!

Bradley also came out to film the race events, so be sure to watch his video on the day!

The photos used in this post were taken by
– Kikuzo Photo
– Muto Photo

The post 2016 Tokai CX #2 Wild Nature Plaza appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.