We’ve been hoping to get more riding done in preparation for a certain event next weekend, but the weather has hardly been cooperative. We’d had rain in the forecast this morning and overcast for the rest of the day, so José and I conspired together for an easy start and a play-it-by-ear day, to be capped by a tune-up for José’s bike in the Workshop in the Sky — the first in a year.

Following last week’s sealant top-up, I’ve only given Kuroko’s front tire a squeeze from time to time, which I repeated this morning. That was enough: the tire is holding air again. This is my first real success story with tubeless tires: it’s gone slightly more than a year with no issues needed other than additional sealant (and that far beyond the recommended interval, which is six months). No flats in the same period, although the same can be said of the rear tire (which has an innertube).

That gave me plenty of time to get ready, and it was 9:10 when I asked Nana to call building maintenance to open the door to the freight elevator so I could bring Kuroko down from the Workshop in the Sky. I soon met up with José and we set out at 9:24.

Ol’ Man Arakawa

But we got to the river without incident. I suggested we continue upstream to the “UFO”, the Asaka Weir. From our vantage point at the top of the levee, we could see the cycling course was one puddle after another. I suggested we take the middle route, and all-weather path midway up the side of the levee, which allowed us to bypass a lot of the puddles en route to the public restrooms. From there it was another 5km to Asaka Weir, although not entirely free of additional puddles.

Asaka Weir

We reached Asaka Weir just as Garmie chimed for 20km done (30km for José), and had a break to enjoy the onigiri. José confirmed he was OK to turn around at this point, so we headed back downstream. As we encountered puddles on the way home, I powered through them and was soon speckled with mud front and back. José would slow and proceed a bit more gingerly, which only made a slight difference in the end. But I noted with satisfaction he was catching up with me more rapidly than before.

Biggus Dickus

There’s a long drag up out of the Arakawa valley into the city, and I’m often flagging by the time I reach this point. Today, we hadn’t really gone far, and so I had no trouble getting up the climb: slow and steady.

With that behind us, I encountered an ojisan on his ebike (a mamachari at that) who would jump ahead of me when the light changed. With his ebike he could out-accelerate me. I would soon catch up with him each time, and would have been content to draft along behind him, but then he would start coasting. I would pass him, only to have him charge ahead again at the next light.

At one light, when José caught up we shared a laugh about Biggus Dickus’s behavior. After that I steamed past him on a downhill and kept the steamroller going on the subsequent climb. We thought we’d seen the last of ojisan.

And then, several kilometers later on Yamate Dori, nearing Shinjuku, we came to stop at a light behind — an ojisan on an ebike. José was the first to notice it was our friend, Biggus Dickus. He must have taken a shortcut at some point. This time we got past him at the first opportunity and didn’t see him again.

Return via Nakano Sakaue

Another climb I often struggle with is the one from Miyashita up to Nakano Sakaue. It’s near the end of the ride and I’m often out of juice (and water) by this point. I didn’t have any issue with it today, even starting from a stop at Miyashita, which just shows I hadn’t pushed any limits on today’s ride.

Muddy

Despite having bypassed the biggest section of puddles, there were plenty of other opportunities to get muddy, and apparently I didn’t miss a single one.

It’s a bit sad as I’d just washed the bike last week while sorting out the shifting adjustment, but José’s bicycle is now in the Workshop in the Sky, and I’m not going to bother with having two bicycles up there at the same time. I’ll just have to ride Tohoku with a muddy bike.

The elusive derailment

José reported that his chain would occasionally fail to shift from the smaller chainring to the larger, and occasionally come off in the process. This is all subsequent to an emergency stop he made during our last ride together, when a taxi driver suddenly cut him off and screeched to a halt to pick up a fare.

We’d already planned to have José’s bike up to the workshop for maintenance, so this was one item to add to the list. After today’s ride, a wash was the first order of business. José was not too pleased with my recent acquisition of a new hand-pumped sprayer, but he soon had pumped it up to the point where the pressure release valve was venting. He took more care washing his bike than I had with my recent scrub of Kuroko, and the results paid off.

The rear tire has had a slow leak, so we replaced the innertube with a spare. José has an additional spare on call for next week’s ride.

We were unable to replicate the front derailleur issue in the stand. We faffed about with adjustment screws for the front derailleur and then cleaned the chain and cogs. José spent extra time with the degreaser and brush on the rear derailleur, dislodging a lot of built-up sludge on the jockey wheels.

In the end we shrugged. I hadn’t seen any twisted chain links and we hadn’t been able to recreate the issue in the stand (where, admittedly, there’s no load on the system). José said if it’s still happening after our clean and lube job, he’ll take it to a proper shop.

As noted, it was just a short ride today. (José got an additional 10km to get to our meet-up this morning.) On a moving time of 2:05:01, I averaged 19.3km/h. And we brought it in just under José’s requested 3-hour limit.