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.

A few weeks ago I raced the Storm the Greens race in Louisville, KY. I hit my brakes a bit too hard going into the first turn and was dead last… great start like usual. I spent the whole race jumping up from group to group until I was only chasing the last 3 lead riders. I got within 30 seconds of the leaders and 15 seconds of 3rd place. 2 of my teammates took the top 2 spots and I ended up taking 4th. It would have been cool to sweep the podium, but unfortunately the curse of constant 4th places continues..

The following 3 weeks consisted of maybe 4 or 5 training rides, none longer than an hour. I was crammed with school and work, which was really starting to take a toll on my riding time. Daylights savings making it get dark at 3pm certainly did not help either.

I decided to leave school a little bit early so I could make it back to Michigan for a longer Thanksgiving break which, and it’s been a great trip so far.

Of course, my first stop was visiting my friends in Ann Arbor to watch the Harry Potter midnight release! After that, I went back home to Rochester Saturday afternoon to check out the Bloomer cyclocross course and make sure I still knew how to ride my cross bike. I had only done one cross ride since the Storm the Greens race so I was a bit nervous about racing. Luckily for me, the course was fully marked and I was able to get some good practice in.

My family’s house backs up to Bloomer park, which is really convenient for when races are hosted there. It was great to see familiar faces from the Michigan and Tailwind racing community. It’s been so long since I’ve done a Tailwind race and it was such a great feeling to see the old usual crowd. The temperature was a bit colder than what I’m used to in KY, but It was perfectly comfortable for racing. I’m always a bad starter and this was no exception.

“Cruise missile is launched!”

Anyhoooo, I managed to work my way up to a group for 4th place and I tried to conserve my energy there for most of the race while watching them attack each other. I would get gapped a few times, but I just kept my own steady pace since I knew I would blow up if I did all of the accelerations with my current fitness. After the halfway point passed by I decided to do an attack of my own and went in pursuit of the 3 people up the road. I was able to close more than half of the gap to the leaders in a short amount of time. To which, the race announcer was screaming “THE CRUISE MISSILE HAS BEEN LAUNCHED!” Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to maintain that pace with my current fitness and while I managed to get frustratingly close to Burke for 2nd place, I then proceeded to blow up and go into survival mode. I fortunately managed to recover a little bit after easing off my pace and was able to hold off the chase group to take 3rd. Thank you muscle memory!

A little history with this race/venue..

Bloomer Park was actually my first mtn bike race (beginner men 15-18 in 2006) and my first cyclocross race (Cat-4 in 2007). I actually haven’t done a cyclocross race in MI since 2007, so this was a very special day for me. This was also my first cyclocross race in MI on an actual cyclocross bike.. It truly felt great to be around the old crowd and I’m glad that I was still able to be somewhat competitive considering my lack of training recently. Mark P is a great guy and has been super strong this year. Tom is always an insanely strong rider and for me to be able to finish up there with those 2 means so much. I always dreamed of making it to the podium one day in elites in MI when I started racing and I’m glad to have finally accomplished this goal. It’s just not the same when you race out of state, it is such a special feeling to come back to where it all began and see how far I’ve come.

2010 Bloomer CX Men’s Elite Podium

The post Semester Break and Bloomer Park CX in Michigan appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.