Category: The Ride
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Doin’ my best to get back to you
Nana asked me last night where I’d be riding today, and I said Kawagoe. When I say that, I mean specifically Koedo, the “Little Tokyo” that I’ve visited on a number of occasions. The ride is generally flat and has a long section of cycling course along the Arakawa river, and the lovely Meiji-era warehouses…
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2024
The Year in Miles After Thursday’s aborted attempt — I’d just made a run to the office when Nana messaged me to come home to help her — I was just a few miles short of my goal of 2,024 miles for the year. I set out Saturday morning hoping for an easy 60 kilometers…
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Rainbow Bridge Ride
Today’s ride was a group event arranged by Grand Cycle Tokyo and took us over two bridges that are usually off-limits to cyclists: Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Gate Bridge. I usually stop for a photo of Rainbow Bridge when I’m doing the Tokyo Landmarks route, and more recently I’ve come up with a route that…
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Windy River Ride
I’d worked late and hadn’t slept well, so I’d put off the decision about whether to ride, and where. At last when Nana woke up and asked (hand not quite poised over the rice cooker to prepare the world-famous onigiri) I said Tamagawa. At that I was leaving myself a lot of leeway, from Don’t-mind-me-just-nipping-out-to-Haneda-and-back…
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Saddle No. 5
I wanted to install the new saddle and seatpost before today’s ride. I set the bits out on the table last night, and then got started this morning before 8, when it was just 6C in the Workshop in the Sky. Replacing the saddle and seatpost was straightforward. Of course I weighed the old and…
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Mixed blessings
I’ve been watching today’s forecast for nearly two weeks, with a couple of weather sites (Yahoo and tenki.jp) going back and forth over whether it would rain. About four days ago the two sites seemed to agree on rain, and then two days ago it was cloudy but no rain. This morning the forecast was…
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Koedo Matsuri
I’d told Nana yesterday that I would be riding to Kawagoe today, and then I woke in the middle of the night to a gale wind howling through our open windows. Things had settled down a bit by the time I got up at 5 (having shut the windows and gone back to sleep), but…
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Foreboding Skies
Yesterday I had grandiose plans of riding 130+ kilometers today, getting a nice long ride in before the rain forecast for tomorrow. Instead I slept poorly, set out a couple of hours later than expected, and then cut the ride short when the dark skies dampened my enthusiasm (oh, and I was sore and tired).…
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Date with a Mountain
Today is Sports Day, a national holiday, and anyway I have the entire week off. I told Nana I’d be leaving at 7 a.m., but I let her sleep in until nearly 7, and then departed just after 8. It was a beautiful day with blue skies and mild weather. The only clouds were those…