donnersound.com

It’s been a month since I’ve even been on here, and my posting record for at least the past few months is pretty bad. I won’t resolve to be any better about that going forward, but I’ll try.

We’re just under a month to returning to the US, which is basically what all of our time is spent on. Actually, I can’t say that. I spent nearly all of yesterday fooling around with Ubuntu Linux and not doing any preparation for returning to the US (unless you consider “Open Source Chris” as an extension of my “carless Chris” committment for returning). More on that in a bit.

Not much cycling recently either. The Trek (MTB) is already boxed up and on its way to my dad’s place in upstate NY. The project bike is going to be dismantled soon, but it’s non-functional right now anyway. I found out why you don’t build a single-speed with a super cheap mamachari hub. One day a couple of weeks ago I was roughing around on dirt trails and climbing little hills and… I pulled the hub apart.

Hubless… <sigh>

 The  road bike is still together. I had planned to take that apart this weekend, but I hate to say goodbye to it, and then there was the day spent yesterday playing with Ubuntu and hard drive-partitioning software. It’ll go soon though.

So more on Ubuntu. I’ve finally taken the step that I’ve wanted to take for a long time but never felt completely comfortable with: installing Linux as an alternate OS on my PC.

Proof of Ubuntu – 8.04 version

Since we’re leaving Japan in a month and I don’t plan on taking this PC with me back home, I had to back everything up onto my USB hard drive anyway. While doing that, I figured, what the hell? I’ve played around with live CDs of PCLinuxOS, Mepis, Hikarunix (not so serious but fun), and I’ve read a lot about Linux over the course of my 20 or so years using PCs, but I’ve never really had Linux installed and used it on a daily basis as my main OS.

This weekend, that’s all changed. I now have a full-fledged Linux install on my main PC, and I’m going to try to use it for the next month or so, much as I would use Windows. I want to see how practical this OS is for me and for my PC future.

There I am – out of focus, but at the top of the Ubuntu screen, Sunday, June 29th.

I don’t really expect to (perhaps even want to) become “Windows-less Chris” anytime soon, but as I’m heading back to the US where everyone trumpets the value of “choice” while doing their best to lock you into their brand/format/lifestyle habits, a bit of real choice can’t hurt.

Just FYI, this post, including the photo manipulation, was all done on my new system, while listening to Goldfrapp and Sigur Ros mp3s on Totem Movie Player (yes, I downloaded the “restricted formats” files for Ubuntu, as I have a massive mp3 library and a very small .ogg library). It all went very smoothly (please don’t judge the OS by the low quality photos – photos of PC screens are just terrible always).

Anyway, that’s all for now. Hopefully more soon.

Well, it’s official: I only rode 2,846 kilometers for 2007. That’s about 3/5ths of what I had hoped to ride. A bit of a disappointing performance over the past few months, but can’t get too worried about the past.

This morning, to shake off the disappointment and start the year with a new sense of commitment and possibility, I awoke at 7:30 to a cold morning with a thin layer of crunchy snow on the ground and said to myself, “I’m going riding.” Twenty minutes later, I had the MTB set up (brought it down from Kesennuma last night) and jumped on.

The ride through the village center to the bike trail was cool but refreshing. The sun was out and felt good, but there was a thin layer of icy snow over everything. With the MTB tires I didn’t have to deal with any slipping, but there were a few points where I slowed down anyway as the surface looked suspicious.

This photojournal of my ride starts at the pachinko parlor just on the before the bridge that crosses the Abukuma River. I had seen a few people – mostly school kids headed to sports club, even on New Year’s Day – on bikes as I rode through town, but here in front of the pachinko parlor (Dream Room, in English) I faced snow unmarked by any bike tires.

Only two sets of footprints disturbed the snow as I rode up the slight incline towards the beginning of the bike trail.

With my sense of excitement only increased by the realization that I was likely going to be the first rider on the trail, I set out.

The village end of the trail had seen some use – mostly people walking their dogs from the looks of the prints, although there were a few tire marks. Even if I wasn’t the first, I would hardly mind. The wind was cold but the air was crisp and clear and it was good to be riding.

A view of the Abukuma River from the bike trail.

And a view of the nearby rice fields, white with snow this time of year.

Here you can see the prints of the various people who had used the trail already this New Year’s morning.

As I pulled away from the village though, the prints began to thin out, until eventually I passed a smaller trail that joined the main trail and was faced with… pure, untouched snow.

Well, except for the animal prints anyway.

Me, getting ready to ride this trail for the first time this year.

My bike, getting ready to ride this trail for the first time this year.

From this point, I didn’t see any other people or animals until I reached Nishine bridge. Of course, I could see and hear the occasional car from the road, but even that wasn’t so busy. It was only 4 or 5 kilometers to the bridge, but I had the wind at my back and the sun hitting me from across the river… it really was quite beautiful.

At the bridge, I was surprised to see that no one had been across yet this morning, so I was to be the first of the year here too.

No marks, except for mine as I stopped and dismounted my bike to take this photo.

Me and my bike, ready for the bridge.

After the bridge, it was just back home along the trail on the other side of the river. I didn’t stop to take any photos because going this way I had the wind in my face. Also, the sun had melted the snow on this side of the trail, so I was getting very wet in the back. (Unfortunately, I forgot my back mudguard up in Kesennuma.)

It wasn’t till I got back to the apartment that I took another photo – this one of the bike washed down and sitting snugly against the railing outside my door.

It was only a 16 kilometer ride – hardly worth documenting at all. However, it’s good to have an early start on the goal for this year. (Last year I didn’t start riding till March.) I mean, 16 kms x 365 days = 5,840 kms, so I should be able to reach my goal of 5,000 this year easily, right? (heard that before?)

Anyway, regardless of goals being met or missed, the point is to ride, and today’s ride was short, cold, and oh so sweet.

This weekend was another short one for Mitsuyo and me. Mitsuyo has a lunch meeting with some friends: fellow teachers from her former school in Furukawa are getting together to visit Zao town, have lunch, go to an onsen, and try their hand at some local crafts.

Knowing this, and seeing that it was a sunny autumn morning, I decided that I would drive with her from Kakuda to Zao, and then cycle back on my own. That way we could at least share the ride, and I could get a nice cycle in as well.

Zao is a small mountain town on the western side of Miyagi Prefecture, known mostly for onsen and skiing. I was there a few weeks ago with my school principal to see the autumn leaves but we had a pretty rainy day.

My principal at the 3-tier falls in Zao.
We had a great time, but not the best weather for viewing autumn leaves!

Waterfall in the mist.

At that time though, I thought it would be a nice place for a bike ride.

Today we had a much nicer day, and although I didn’t really have time to do any sight-seeing, the idea of riding home from this little moutain town through the barren rice fields and trees with the sun shining down on me was pretty appealing.

“It’s all downhill,” I said to one of Mitsuyo’s friends when she expressed surprise that I’d be riding all the way to Kakuda, “and it’s only about 25 kilometers.” Don’t worry. I bid them farewell as they pulled out of the town hall parking lot, and I set about putting my bike together.

Why what’s that leaning against the bushes in front of the town hall?

Why I do believe it’s a Specialized Sequoia.

Well, I was correct on the distance. However, it’s important to remember that while mountain towns are generally higher than riverside towns like Kakuda, they are generally not built on the mountain peaks, but rather in a valley somewhere up in the mountain.

I realized this quickly as I rolled out of the town hall, made a couple of turns and immediately started on a nice little downhill that was facing the wrong way! Yes, just out of the car and nice and cool from putting the bike together, and I was off on a 1-kilometer, 7% grade climb.

Distance and altitude chart for Zao-Kakuda.
Nice little climb at the beginning, and then the downhill!

Now that’s not a bad climb at all, and I didn’t mind it, but I wasn’t expecting it quite so quickly.

Other than that initial climb, and a bit of a stiff breeze to keep me working over the flats, the ride was really easy and I made it home in an hour (24.8 kilometers). And now, I’m typing this up and watching the rain sprinkle down and feeling my main room cooling off. The weather has changed, and if I had waited to ride later today I probably wouldn’t have got a ride in.

That’s about it, except to say that I’m really closing in on 3,000 kilometers now. Only 180kms to go, according to my log at bikejournal.

Had a nice ride last night to Go club in Ogawara. Ian and I rode there together, and he only has a single-speed mamachari (Japanese city bike) with a friction-driven generator-powered light to boot. So he wasn’t setting any speed records.

It’s only about 11.5 km to Go club, so I figured we’d be able to do it in an hour no matter how slow we went. We set out at 5:45 p.m. from Kakuda, Ian on his chari and me on my crap bike, and we arrived at Ewan’s place in Ogawara at 6:20.

Here it is again – the Crap Bike.

The reason I’m writing about this short, slow speed ride at all is because it’s the first time I’ve done any kind of climb on my proposed fixie set-up. Most of the ride to Ogawara is flat, but there is one small hill with about a 3.5% grade for about 1 km.

A graphic of the short Ogawara ride to try out my proposed fixie set-up. The red line is the altitude.
(Yeah, never gets above sea level. Good thing there’s mountains between me and the ocean or I’d be worried about tsunami.)

Going up that without changing out of my 42-16 gears was a good test for my planned fixie set-up (on 26″ tires and with 170mm cranks this works out to a 5.1 gain ratio according to Sheldon’s online gear calculator), so I was looking forward to the ride mostly for that reason. (And because it’s still way faster than the train… and of course riding anywhere is always nice too.)

So it worked out well. I got to the top very quickly and remained seated for the whole thing. Of course, it’s only 40 meters of climbing but I was hardly even breathing hard when I reached the top and I figure I could do a couple hundred meters of climbing at 5% or so with this set-up reasonably. I doubt I’ll be using it for anything more than that, at least initially. I do still have my road bike, after all.

Of course, this is a freewheel single-speed not fixed, so I can’t really judge the descent and my pedaling cadence, but I don’t think that’ll be a problem at this low of a grade. If I get up to longer climbs in the 8-10% range I’ll need to consider that, but as I said, I doubt I’ll be using this bike for that kind of riding.

Anyway – Ian’s going to be buying a new light and maybe we’ll pick up the speed a bit on the next ride out that way.

Really dropped off the pace cycling over the past couple of months, but back on in October and I’ve finally crossed the 2500 km mark as of today. Looking very unlikely I’ll make the 5000 km goal this year, but I’ll definitely pass my previous best of 2600 km from 2005. According to bikejournal, my Specialized has 3000 km on it now too.

Goals aside, it’s good to be riding again. Dark by 5:30 these days and getting early, but the days are cool and the air is clear (except for the smell of burning, which is inescapable in rural Japan in autumn).

A quick post to compete with my friend Yamaotoko, who has just arrived back in England after living over here in Japan for 5 years or so. He’s making me jealous with stories like this about a house-hunting trip along English country lanes followed by a lunch of roast turkey and British ale at a traditional pub. But, there are some things that he just can’t get back there in the UK.

Thus, I’ve decided to post this little post-ride treat that I put together for myself this past week. It’s a 7Eleven piza-man (a manju-shaped doughy bread roll filled with cheap, pizza-like goo – similar to hot pockets back in the US) and a Sapporo Draft. I’ve set it up as a still-life for maximum artistic enjoyment. Can’t get this in the UK, or in the US for that matter.

A post-ride meal – or appetizer really.
It might not look like much, but it sure gets rid of that left-over sports drink taste real quick.

Enjoy the ale, Yamaotoko.

One nice thing about not riding at all for a month or so is that when you return to regular riding, you can cover half of the distance you rode for the entire month prior in about 4 days. Which is to say, 3 rides in the past 4 days have me up over 100km for September. Still quite a ways off from the 800 kms I was shooting for, but not doing badly on the 25 kms/day schedule.

Today I did a nice ride up Route 34 in Kesennuma.

Some rice fields split apart by a small stream along Route 34 in Kesennuma. You can see that the rice is starting to turn yellow – it’s pretty much harvest time here.

Further along the stream, here you can see a grove of bamboo trees.

And right at this point the road starts to climb a bit.
It grows steeper as it gets closer to Iwate Prefecture.

I’ve ridden this road (Route 34) before with Mitsuyo, but today I pushed it just a bit farther. My goal was to reach Iwate Prefecture, which I figured was about 20 kms away.

These two street signs were at the same point on opposite sides of the road. The Iwate-bound sign warns you of falling rocks, while the Miyagi-bound sign warns you of really slow trains. Yes, this is the boonies. You got a problem with that?

It wasn’t too much farther to reach Iwate Prefecture. Basically I climbed a small but steep hill – maybe 400 meters or so – and at the top was the “Welcome to Iwate” sign.

Welcome to Iwate Prefecture.

At this point I turned back and enjoyed the fast downhill that took me about a quarter of the way back home without a single pedal stroke.

A short but very pleasant ride on a pretty nice day. Definitely good to be back in the saddle.

Today was the day. With 10 kms left to go to break through the 2000 km milestone, I racked up 32.2 kms between commuting to a couple of local school-related functions at Fujio Elementary School, the city hall, and the Kakuda train station, and through a 22 km commute to Go club at Ewan’s place in Ogawara. Of course, it feels good to have passed this milestone, but perhaps it feels even better because Ewan has been making Umeshu (plum liqueur) for the past month and today at Go club we broke it out. Three glasses of that, and I barely even felt the ride home. Average 27 kph too, which was nice.

So, it’s on to the next milestone. With Phil gone, I’ll have to drive myself or risk becoming just another fat American. (Will the day ever come when they’ll say, “He’s just another American who loves cycling?”) My goal for the year is 5000 kms, so there’s still quite a ways to go. In fact, that works out to about 20 kms/day from now until Dec. 31.

To help me along the way, and to keep myself motivated, I have made a cycling plan for the coming months. Here’s what I’ll be shooting for:

Aug / Sept / Oct: 800 kms/month (about 27 kms/day)

Nov / Dec: 400 kms/month (about 13 kms/day)

This schedule will have me breaking through the 5000 km barrier about mid-December, and it allows for some reduced cycling with the cold weather and 5:00 night here in northern Japan. In fact, as it gets colder I’ll probably try to shift my cycling to mornings, although I’ve been pretty crap at doing that in the past.

Eight hundred kilometers per month is a bit ambitioius. I did 526 km in July and slightly less than 400 km per month in the months prior to that, since March. But that’s my goal. And the riding has become quite a bit easier than it was back in March. I think I can knock of 60 kms several times a week no problem, and if I can get my average speed up to the high 20s per hour, and hour of riding per day will just about cover me. And hey, I’ve got the 20 extra kilometers from July now too!

Happy riding.

So I live in Miyagi, which is on the eastern side of Japan. (Niigata, where that big earthquake just hit, is on the west side and one prefecture south.) In Miyagi, the further east you go, the closer you are to the sea. This is the principle that I followed for today’s ride. However, to make the ride interesting (I only live about 10-15 kms from the sea), I decided to head north and east at the same time, along the Abukuma River trail all the way to the mouth of the river.

My route – like so.

This is kind of a silly ride in a way because the river twists and turns and you end up riding in a shape that’s kind of like an upside down umbrella handle, with the short part terminating at the ocean. Still, I wanted to put some kilometers down and it was a gloomy day and threatening rain so a flat ride away from cars sounded nice.

The first half of the ride – going to the sea – was rather uneventful. There was a slight headwind at various places depending on the turn of the river and only at the end did I get a slightly favorable wind. I was happy with this, because I averaged about 28.5 kph going out. I figured I was sure to break the 30 kph wall with the wind supporting me on my ride back.

Does taking photos with a self-timer on your cellphone
excuse posting such a poorly composed photo on the web? It’s debatable.

Arriving at the mouth of the river, I dismounted and took a few photos, fiddled with my back brake a bit as it seemed to be rubbing, and turned for home.

Pacific Ocean waves.

More waves and some splashing on the artificial reef.

It had taken me a little more than an hour to do the 30 kms out (including traffic lights, bridge crossings, a bike carry over a set of railroad tracks, etc.), which meant it was nearly 6:00 when I started back. It gets dark enough to need a light by about 7:00, especially on such a cloudy evening, but I wasn’t too worried because as I headed back I was definitely picking up speed.

There was no zero marker at the ocean, but there was this -0.1 km marker.
I guess I’d gone 1/10th of a kilometer too far. Typical.

That all came to a grinding halt, however, as I came to the end of the trail just before the Tsukinoki bridge crossing. Here there’s a bit of rough dirt and stones that leads from the paved trail up to the road. I knew this and slowed as I approached. What I didn’t notice until too late was that there was a large raised bit of asphalt where the stones and dirt ended and the shoulder of the road began. I pulled the front wheel up hard and cleared it, but the back wheel smacked into it at nearly 30 kph.

This photo was taken just 15 kms before that nice blue back tire went flat.

“That’s good for the tire,” I distinctly remember saying as I headed out onto the road and kept my eyes open for the turn-off where the bike trail resumes. About 100 meters onto the bike trail and I felt it – that squishy, wobbly feeling that means you’re riding on a flat.

And there my time trial ended. Of course 30 kph for a 60 km bit of flat road and paved bike trail is no big deal for the pros riding over in France right now, but for me it was going to be a significant milestone. I guess it still will be, but maybe next week.

It took me about 15 minutes to change the flat, and by then my damp, Lycra-wrapped legs were chilled and growing tight. With only 15 kms left getting home would be fine, but I wasn’t going to be setting any personal bests on this ride. Plus, it was now 6:35 and dusk was making her entrance. I knew I’d be able to see all right all the way home, but I was going to be a lot less visible than I wanted to be on the road.

Flat tire and late arrival back home aside, I still got to see the ocean and got a nice 60 kilometer ride in, keeping me on track to make 2,000 kms by the end of July after a weekend of crap weather and no riding at all. You know what they say about a bad day bike riding. Still beats driving a car.

So this week has just turned out to be a lucky one in terms of cycling. First, from the previous two posts you’ll see that a map error ended up giving me two nice cycling trips with Mitsuyo. In turn, this gave me a nice head start on my 100km/week goal (the week runs Sat-Fri, for no real reason in particular, so both of these ride counted towards the new week).

Next, Monday (7/9) was a lovely evening. I had some tutoring to do at 6:30, but with the great weather and a purpose in mind, I jumped on my Crap Bike right after work and hit the Abukuma River trail. My purpose? Well, I needed to decide what gearing I was going to use for the fixie I’m trying to build, so I set up the Crap Bike with 42 up front and 18 in the back and set out for a nearly flat 16km before my class.

The Crap Bike, in all its reflective glory.
Maybe you recognize it as what it is: a LandGear Dynagear 8500
I like to call it crap. But it’s great for shopping.

There was a bit of a headwind here and there along the trail, and I was working a lot to keep my cadence up, but I did the ride in good time, averaging 25kph for the whole thing. Thanks to the nice weather I have decided: 42/18 it will be.

What the gears look like.

For god sakes man, take the lock off when you take a photo.

Then yesterday was Go club. I rode out to Ewan’s place in Ogawara, about 12 kms away, played Go till about 10:30, and then headed back home. The whole night it was threatening to rain, and about 30 minutes after I arrived back at my flat, down it came. And I and my bike were safe inside, tucking away a peanut butter sandwich and washing it down with some iced tea, then heading to bed.

And today, with over 70kms on my legs for the week, it’s raining. It’s my natural rest day anyway, and it’s pissing down hard. How perfect is that?

Yeah, sometimes you just get lucky. Even in small things, the lucky times are nice.