Words and photos by Epic Rider Malaya van Ruitenbeek

Last year I did a four month internship at Doshisha University near Kyoto for my studies Aerospace Engineering. Of course four months is far too long to be separated from my road bike, so I did the only sensible thing I could do: bring it along. My temporary professor was very surprised to see that the main piece of luggage that this student was bringing for his stay in Japan contained a road bike!
The area surrounding the university turned out to be simply perfect for cycling: moderate climate, smooth and quiet roads and most of all hills with some 100-500 meters of elevation. It didn't take me long to find out that the only properly stocked bike shop in the area was actually situated 500m from my student dorm, so I became a frequent visitor to this shop and an active member of the Sunday morning training group. The university also had its own student cycling team, so I had enough riding partners in no time. One week before the end of my internship I entered a criterium and there I met a Japanese cycling commissaire, who later invited me to join a student criterium in Tokyo. It wasn't hard to find team members for the race and 15 February we boarded our 11 hour flight to the largest city of the world.
The first training we did was on Thursday morning the 17th. We drove out of the city to the peninsula of Izu. This peninsula is known for it's moderate climate and nice hills (sounds familiar doens't it). Our guide Sawaguchi san had set up a nice route, two female cycling fans to join him during the car ride following us and even an chaperon on a motor bike. The only thing we had to do was turn the pedals and in my case, worry about my high heart rates.

My body reacts quite badly to jet lag and I was happy that we had some days left until the race. Other than that, it was a very enjoyable ride from the east coast of the peninsula to the west coast. On our first climb we rode past a big Shinto temple, not unlike Buddhist temples.

Soon after the temple we saw the first snow. It had snowed three days prior to our arrival and although it wasn't all that cold, this side of the hill was in the sunshade so the snow didn't melt, making the ride look even more epic than it already was.

After the first summit of the day, 20km into the ride, our chaperon led us to the cycling course of his cycling school. It was a F1 car race kind of course which we were very happy not to be racing on later in the week. It was pretty tough just going around the course for fun! We continued going west to go up a nice hill of almost 1000m elevation. This time the snow and cold were for real and we had to take it easy on the wet downhill. The Hutchinson tires provided with my Diablo held up perfectly and I could tackle the switchback corners with full confidence. Upon reaching the other side of the peninsula we went for a nice soba noodle lunch and a quick visit to the local onsen, a traditional natural spring bath house. Once back in the city we had an Izakaya meal, the Japanese equivalent to eating in a pub and we finished the day off with some Blade Runner views of the city.

The next day I woke up to discover that it had rained all night. Some of my team members actually couldn't sleep because of it (or was it the jet lag), but luckily that is something I seem to be immune for. So after breakfast we stayed in our hotel for a little longer than planned, but no more than one hour after the rain had stopped the streets were essentially dry again. The humidity is very low this time of year so even without high temperatures the roads became rideable very quickly. This day we would only make short tour (distance wise that is) through the city. Although I would never go for a ride like this if I wanted to train seriously, there is a distinctive way of experiencing the city during cycling that you don't get from taking the car, the train or walking around.


First we visited the race course in the Meiji Jingu Gaien park, which was close to our hotel. After three race laps we rode to the Imperial Palace, the shopping district of Ginza, the man-made island of Odaiba (featuring many futuristic buildings) and we ended our ride at the Starbucks watching out over the busiest cross-roads in the world in Shibuya. We also discovered that if you're a fan of singlespeed and fixed bikes, Tokyo is certainly the place to be.

On Saturday we joined the training of Sawaguchis university cycling team, the Waseda university of Tokyo. They have their club house near the edge of the city and before we reached the countryside we 'only' had to pass some 40 traffic signs. After 25 of the first 30 traffic light had been red we were pretty much shattered. What Sawaguchi didn't warn us about was that his team mates seem to make a sprint effort out of every pull up at the turning to green of the lights. Once we left the traffic lights behind us the road turned towards the sky and we were off for another pleasant hilly ride.

Then it turned Sunday, race day! We had all been waiting for this day, my team mate Lars and I would be doing our first race of the season and Koos had already participated in the Tour of Wellington in New Zealand. Funny enough, he turned out to be the most nervous of the three of us. This race is the final race in a series of student races. The Japanese student cycling society is a very active one and the winner of this years series earned a contract with the Shimano continental team, the satellite team of the European Skil-Shimano professional team. The day started with an official opening ceremony, something we never see in our races.

Right after the ceremony we headed back to the hotel to take a short rest and eat some pasta for lunch. One hour before the race we were back at the venue and did our pre-race warm up. As there was no possibility to do a warm up on the streets (remember this is a race in the middle of Tokyo), we had our way on the rollers. The race would only be 30km and every 3km there would be a point sprint, so warming up was imperative. Together with a Korean team we were the only foreigners to enter the race, so we actually got quite some media coverage.

The race itself was very chaotic and after each of us three had taken some points in the first couple of sprints, we decided to appoint one sprinter and work for him from then on. I was uncomfortable doing the sprints with the Keirin style of riding the Japanese were going about, so I took up the role as lead-out man. With the many corners we had to do it was a blast to be riding the Diablo, as it accelerates out of the corner so fast and predictable.


We ended up winning the team classification and our sprinter got 3rd individually. The race organizer was happy with our performance and so were we of course, so it won't come as a surprise that we ended the day with a couple of beers in the night district of Shinjuku. What better way to bring four days of cycling in Japan to an end?
Link to the Izu ride (including GPX file): http://ridewithgps.com/trips/183329
Link to the race course (including GPX file) http://ridewithgps.com/trips/183123