Jayves Rando Blog: BRM 916 Kanagawa 400km Yatsugatake

This brevet was tough!! I had barely 30 minutes left before the cutoff time of 27 hours. This was probably the closest to the cutoff time so far on my brevet rides.

It seems that this course was designed to sap your energy for the first 250km, amplify sleepiness on the long descents, deprivation of sleeping time by using the time to climb instead and then rewarded with 40km descent in the morning to lift your spirit. This way, you will be happy to meet the organiser's at the goal and have a happy conversation of the suffering!

The start of the ride was an hour away by the first train of the day from Shin-Yurigaoka. Left home around 4:30AM to catch the train and still have enough time to cover my bike. I was lazy to prepare my bike for proper train ride packing, so I just remove the front wheel and inverted my small Montbell bike bag just to 'cover' the critical expose parts. This new method of packing will save me around 15+ minutes of work and no extra bags and water bottles to carry. Everything is pack together.

I was lazy to removed both wheels and turn the bike upside down. Instead, I inverted the Montbell bike bag :)

I arrived at the start around 6:30AM. I didn't recognise any familiar faces except for the organisers. Some of the brevet riders I know were brave enough to face the typhoon in Kyushu for the 1000KM brevet this same weekend. At the briefing, there was a surprise announcement that PC3 (Sakuho) and PC4 (Obuchizawa) arrival time will not be officially recorded but just use as evidence for checkpoint. For this new rule, the organiser expects less disqualification from not making the time limits at these control points. This was a nice welcome!

I rode with my usual brevet bike and baggages. I didn't think about going lite for this course and this was a mistake that I regretted later. As always, I'm on the heavy side of equipment and luggages but for this course, it seems I was out of place compared with my fellow riders. They were riding this course as if they are on a Hill Climb event!

The weather was beautiful in the morning and it was a nice slow climb to Lake Yamanaka. The farms are gold in colour as rice harvest time is near. Saw a woman brevet rider who seems to be a surfer and loves the sun. Unlike a typical woman brevet rider who is covered with lycra head to toes, her clothes was designed to exposed as much as skin possible from head to toes! From Lake Yamanaka, the traffic increased as we merge into R138 but the road empties again as we forked out of R358 and into K36 for a nice descent into Kofu basin. After PC1, crossing the Fuji River signals the start of the slow climb to Fujimi Toge. Also, the temperature was increasing rapidly and reached around 40C at Nirasaki. Again, it was brutally hot. The only sign of autumn was the golden colours of rice paddies, everything else is summer.

After reaching Fujimi Toge, I turned right to Chino. The slow climb continues before a quick descent to PC2 for a quick rest before attacking Mugikusa Toge. The west side of Yatsugatake was beautiful. Nice smooth road, not much traffic and productive farms on both sides. At least at these 1100 meters altitude, there was a hint of refreshing cool autumn air.

After a quick break, I was ready to ride the highlight of this course, Mugikusa Toge (2127m). There was lots of cyclist descending at this time in the afternoon. The only cyclist ascending were the brevet riders! After more than 2600+ meters of accumulated climb so far, Mugikusa Toge climb was all about suffering. It was a very long ascent! More than two hours. There was no vending machines to cheer me up and raise my blood sugar level. During the slow climb, it was pretty subtle but was able to see changes in vegetations from deciduous forest to fir trees. At least, in my mind, I'm still sane from all the suffering and focus away from it :) The timing was also good and I was able to use the last hint of sunlight until the top of the pass before the very dark descent. It was fast and suicidal technical descent. We have been warned at the briefing about big animals like deers, bears on this part of the mountain and the rough road. Luckily, I only saw a startled Japanese racoon dog that quickly ran away before I got a change to go around it. Having two bright dynamo lights help on the descent big time but I realised I needed a light than can shine around the corners of the road during a technical fast curves.

Had a quick dinner at PC3 before another big long climb to Nobeyama (~1400m). Lot's of trucks/cars initially but dwindled in numbers into the night. Again another trick on the organisers. Rather than enjoying the long long descent from Nobeyama to Kofu using fast R141, the route chosen was undulating K11. I don't like undulating routes and it requires different physiology to go over quickly. Momentum is my friend and I prefer a long slug rather than interval like power needed to propel oneself out of these small humps.

Reached PC4 (Obuchizawa) around 11:15PM. Checking my Q-sheet, it shows 00:36 as closing time for this checkpoint. I recon I can sleep for two hours and risk a time deficit of one hour and still able to finish on time. I decided to have the sleep at the side of the convenient store in front of the storage space. I thought it was a nice and quite place to sleep in a remote 7-11 store. Bad decision. When I about to reach deep REM sleep, activities increased on storage room and making lots of noises. I grudgingly woke and left for the long slow descent to PC5. As expected, after less than 30 minutes of sleep, I became very sleepy again and becoming a liability. I push hard until PC5 and expected to make up the rest of my sleep. But then it started raining!!! There is not much shed in a convenient store and just had a quick unsatisfying nap sitting down only with lower portion of my legs getting wet from the rain. I force myself to move on just before the closing time of PC5 at 3:32AM.

I left for the long climb to Lake Shoji in the rain. It wasn't cold at all but a nice cool rain. However, neither the refreshing rain or RedBull was enough to fight off my sleep deprivation. Lack of street lights in the deep valley didn't help either and the only thing left to fight it out is the motivation to complete this damn brevet! Or until the sun rises... Finally made it to Lake Shoji by sun rise. Motivated myself to keep a high pace to Lake Kawaguchi to have a nice warm breakfast of Gyu-don and make up for the lost time on the climb. Continued on with an additional weight in my stomach to attack the last pass, Kagosaka Pass (1104m) just beyond Lake Yamanaka. End the brevet with a nice 40km fast descent to Shin-Matsuda.

Stayed for a while for post ride socialisation and listening to experience brevet riders choose of equipment.. or rather modification of equipment. Learned a lot....

Took the train for the ride home, cleaned up and a well deserved afternoon nap.