Jayves Rando Blog: BRM602 Aoba 600 Hiekawa Toge

I thought I had a good rest after last week 600 km brevet and was looking forward to this event.

The bike...

I tweak my bike a little bit and removed the Nitto front rack, Orlieb handlebar bag attachment and T-bar attachment. This saved around 800+ grams and used the lighter Montbell bag. I also replaced the thick mattress with a lighter one and didn't bought the sleeping bag liner. This brevet has an official sleeping point at Kiyosato with drop bag. However, I opted out of this option and carried all the necessary nap goods.

There were few participants this time.

The starting point is a small cozy park near Keiyo Tamagawa station along Tamagawa River. There probably around 20+ riders, not many riders so I don't expect groups to be formed and probably riding solo for extended time. I also met Craig, wearing Nalshima Frend jersey, at the starting point and his first 600 km brevet. He is fast rider and zoom with the lead group early in the ride. I never saw him again after PC1.

Starting point at a small park at Tamagawa River.

It was a fast pace towards control point 1 (76km) but too many traffic lights. This is to be expected for brevet starting from the metropolis. However, comparing to a similar course three years ago, the organizer has made revision of the course going out of Tokyo and there are more back roads with less cars... making it a little bit better.

After an hour riding, I start noticing that my saddle is swaying left and right when I push the pedal hard and pushed further into the seat tube. It was good that I had a classic frame and a saddle bag support. This limited the lowering of the saddle and was still comfortable pedaling. I did put grease the day before on the seat post as I expect some rain. I didn't expect that the lubricant made it worst. I stopped by a cycle shop in Takasaki and replace the seat post clamp (I thought this was the issue, initially). It worked but the saddle post still goes down after many hours of riding. I came to know after the brevet that the seat post is only 27.0 mm not 27.2 mm. That explains the problem and I put an 'aluminum can' shim to fix the issue.

One tributary of great Tone River in Shibukawa.

The scenery gets better past Shibukawa as the course led us to R354/R145 (also known as part of Japan Romantic Highway). This is also the start of a long climb to Kita-Karuizawa. The greenery along this route is just spectacular. From the top, it is followed by a quick but too-many-turn descent to Karuizawa to Saku. I had a small break/dinner at Saku before attacking next climb to Kiyosato. I was caught in the rain after dinner just before the climb got steeper. It rained hard but stopped after 40 minutes. I found later that the fast riders were safe from the rain in Saku. The sound of frogs was deafening as I passed the farms of Saku.

Small gorge along Japan Romantic Highway

After a long slug, I arrived around 22:10 at Kiyosato manned checkpoint and the cut off time was 1:24. I figured that a long descent from Kiyosato could buy me additional time so I decided to sleep till 2:00. The sleeping place is a small Minshuko with three rooms assigned as sleeping quarters. I did a quick nice hot bath, ate and slept from 23:00. I promptly woke around 2:00, with 3 hours of sleep, and was soon descending to Minobu, Yamanashi Pref. I remember last year brevet in this same route and it was the second night of evening start 600 km brevet. I was so sleepy that I had to slow down on descent from Kiyosato and sleep on one of the underground passage. This time, I was able to descent in anger... After an hour or so, when the course is a little bit flatter, I was attack by sleepiness and was difficult to continue. I found a shelter and probably slept around 4:00. I slept soundly and woke up around 5:30. I was so sleepy that I forgot to set the alarm clock and rewarded with the refreshing sleep but at a cost of not having enough time to check-in Control Point at Shimizu around 9:16. I bailed out at Utsubuna Station on the Minobu Line for a 3:30 hours train back home.

Looking back, I'm beginning to learn that the offering of a nice sleeping quarter at a specified location is good but I force myself to sleeping even if I still had the energy to continue. Later on, I was hit again by a nasty drowsiness after a couple of hours while it was still dark. What I should have done is push hard as long as I can until a few hours before dawn, sleep and wake up on sunrise. This way so that I trick my body clock that I sleep in the dark and wake up when there is light. I had plenty on time and could have plan better for a sleep break... somewhere...