The weather dawned clear and mild for Kuroko’s first ride since the beginning of the Jumping Through Hoops project at the end of July. Fujisan was clearly visible in the dawn light, as was the much more shy Nantaisan.

Nana was up early to make some of her world-famous onigiri. I took my time over preparations, checking again and again to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, so that it was 8:15 before I started rolling. My first action was to loop a couple of times around the block while I seated in the new brake pads.

Traffic was heavy this morning and the police were out in force. I certainly wasn’t in a hurry and was willing to wait on traffic when that was the safer course.

The brakes were fine, solid and dependable with no squealing. Even after the bedding in, there was still a bit of drag on the front wheel, but it’s not anything I could detect while riding.

The sky had turned a very deep blue, and large fluffy white clouds emerged. When I reached the Tamagawa cycling course and turned downstream, I was riding into the wind. It was enough to feel it, but not enough to stop me.

As I rode along I noticed the gears were a bit noisy, and the shifting wasn’t as sharp and fast as I was used to. So at my first rest stop of the day, I had a look at the derailleur adjustment. The chain appeared to be perfectly centered on the sprocket, but I put the Di2 controller in adjustment mode anyway and gave it a tweak inward (towards the larger cogs). When I set off again it was immediately obvious this was worse, and so I stopped after a couple of hundred meters and brought the adjustment back to where it had been.

I took one more break before reaching Haneda. Among other things during the recent maintenance, I’d raised the saddle nearly 2cm. I was getting used to the change. It didn’t make my bum any more or less sore. As expected, it shifted a bit more weight onto my hands, and I had to take a break to avoid numbness — but that’s no different from usual. I’d expected more shoulder and neck pain, but in fact the opposite was true: I didn’t have any issue with that today.

At Haneda I took my time eating a couple of onigiri and answering emails. I’d already decided to return via Tamagawa Sky Bridge, but I’d told Nana that I might also venture down to Yokohama and back. Taking stock of my situation, I had time to include Yokohama, but not the energy.

I stopped at a park just beyond the Tamagawa Sky Bridge and had a look at the rear derailleur. On a whim I got out the multitool and gave the B limit screw a couple of turns, adding a couple of millimeters of space between the largest cog and the guide pulley. Back on the bike, it was obviously an improvement, particularly in the lower gears — which is where I’d been spending most of the day. And yet things still weren’t quite right. It was still a bit noisier than expected, and shifts were not quite a precise as I was used to with Di2.

It wasn’t long before I was back at the Rokugo Bridge, and crossed the Tamagawa back into Tokyo. The wind was still changeable, but mostly giving me a boost as I headed upstream. I stopped at one of my usual locations to finish off the onigiri, but there were so many flies about I packed up again and continued a few more kilometers until I was back at my first resting spot, where I finished the onigiri in peace.

I’d been wondering about my remaining energy when I got to Futako Tamagawa and had to climb out of the river valley. I shifted down to the lowest gear very quickly and then just took my time spinning up the modest climb. There was a park bench in the shade at the top, and I sat down to drink more water and update Nana on my location.

Aha!

As I sat there checking the time and sipping water, my eye fell on Kuroko’s rear derailleur, about 2m from where I was seated. And I noticed something that had avoided my attention until now.

I felt more than a little sheepish about this — I’d done it once before with a new chain, that time on the old Shimano 105 mechanical derailleur. Come to think of it, that ride was also on the way to Haneda. Is it the Haneda new chain curse? (The answer of course is that Haneda is my preferred destination for shake-down rides: long enough to surface any issues, close enough to home and bike shops to bail if needed.)

At this point I’d been riding the bike for more than 55km. It wouldn’t hurt to continue the remaining 13km to home as is. I messaged Nana I’d be home by 2, and mounted up again. As I rode, it occurred to me I might not have to split the chain to fix this: I could unscrew the cage halves, sort out the routing and screw them together again. Or would that be a bigger headache? The answer to that will await another day as I had no energy when I got home to attempt the fix.

I had no time limit today apart from getting home before dinner, and was intentionally not pushing the pace at any point. I was surprised when I finished to see a string of 2nd place trophies on Strava. These were all on the leg from Tamagawa Sky Bridge back to Rokugo Bridge, when then wind was helping me along. On a moving time of 3:49:39, I averaged 18.1km/h.