Clear roads from Tokyo to Hakone? Sounds too good to be true, and for the last 4 years members of the Tokyo Cycling Club and Positivo Espresso have sought the golden path ahead of the runners to varying success.
The rolling road closure means that the road is only closed up to ~20 mins before the runners arrive, then reopens as soon as the last runner and support vehicle has passed. So the aim of the ride is to be in very light traffic before the road closure, but not so far into the closure that the police (2-3 at EVERY junction) or volunteers ask/force us to leave the road.
This year Ludwig was arranging the meeting times and locations, with German precision and accuracy. Ludwig, Travis, James (fixie) and Andreas began at the very start in Otemachi. I joined at Kamata, and we were sprinting from traffic light to traffic light all the way to Yokohama where we met David and James Machin, ready for more sprints between lights to beyond Totsuka where Mike was waiting to join the TCC ranks.
We weren't the only cyclists on the ride, several groups of Japanese cyclists were ahead of the race as well. Unlikely that many of the cyclists were cycling the whole distance, but some put up a good flight and enjoyed sailing along the roads with Fuji san ahead of us. Along the coast would prove to be our best view of the mountain all day, and as usual Fuji san did not disappoint for providing an impressive and awesome view, now fully covered in snow down to the tree line.
I have to say the roads were not as free of traffic as I had dreamt of, but certainly light and free of heavy trucks so this made for a very pleasant ride out to the coast then along the ocean to Odawara. Here we had a combini stop, and in schedule we departed for the final leg and once rolling we realised that this ride is really a massive hill climb after a long warm up. The road climbs to 864m before descending the final 3-4 km down to the lake. This is where the competitive spirit in everyone was flowing, I latched onto a group of around 12 Japanese cyclists who were travelling at speed up the at times steep slopes, zigzagging between stationary cars. One guy was managing to take his full disc wheeled bike up so fast that he bumped into a mountainbiker, then fell onto a stationary car before carrying on.
We all regrouped (except one) immediately after the finish, and met the PE boys at this point, before heading a few km along the lake to the michi no eki restaurant. I was surprised and then again not surprised at how little interest they had in seeing the runners finish, but it was chilly waiting around so I did not hang around to take any photos and was more than happy to spread out on the floor and sup some hot sansai udon.
Another great road (740) rolled parallel to the main 135 up to Odawara, this was another great piece of road and we were soon back to Odawara and packing the bikes up for the Odakyu or Tokaido trains back home.
A great start to 2011, fast riding on quiet roads with nice folk from TCC and PE, hope to get a few more rides like this in before the heavy snow arrives - or maybe it wont reach us this winter?
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